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Depends on your grades and connections.
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Feb 12, 2013 20:44
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WarpedNaba posted:Depends on your Fixed as grades are only a weed out mechanism and not an actual qualifying factor (I had a 4.0 and it didn't really do much in terms of getting the foot in the door, although it's anecdotal so your experiences may vary  ).
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Feb 13, 2013 04:47
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I was actually sitting next to a partner in an audit room the other day. They were discussing selections for intern interviews. From what I gathered eavesdropping, the partner made it a point to consider GPA as a qualifier, but looked deeper into other experience. One candidate apparently had an amazing GPA but no real experience, so the partner put this person on the maybe list. Apparently HR/recruiters have spreadsheets where they keep notes of you and any interactions you may have had with them. The partner kept asking whether we have had any interactions with this student. Also try to speak with/network with senior managers and partners if possible, as they have a very large influence on whether you are selected for interviews and what client you may end up on. As a junior, I would be applying for internships. Make sure to state when you will become CPA-eligible.
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Feb 14, 2013 06:17
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After being turned down for a few jobs that weren't even strictly accounting positions, I've decided to get the Becker course and just try to get the CPA done as quickly as possible. I've wasted the past couple months after graduating and the rejections are becoming discouraging, so I figure why not try to make this into a positive? I definitely want to go to grad school once I finish my CPA. I didn't exactly go to a highly recruited university for my bachelors, so should I expect better opportunities if I go to a better school like Northeastern or Bentley? Moneyball fucked around with this message at 23:18 on Feb 14, 2013 |
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Feb 14, 2013 23:14
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fuseshock posted:I was actually sitting next to a partner in an audit room the other day. They were discussing selections for intern interviews. From what I gathered eavesdropping, the partner made it a point to consider GPA as a qualifier, but looked deeper into other experience. One candidate apparently had an amazing GPA but no real experience, so the partner put this person on the maybe list. Apparently HR/recruiters have spreadsheets where they keep notes of you and any interactions you may have had with them. The partner kept asking whether we have had any interactions with this student. Also try to speak with/network with senior managers and partners if possible, as they have a very large influence on whether you are selected for interviews and what client you may end up on. This is a good point. If you get selected for an interview, you might end up doing a "group office visit" where a first or second year associate takes you and a few others interviewees around the office and brings you to your various partner interviews. You don't have to act overly formal with these people showing you around, but don't act like an rear end either because they'll probably be asked for their thoughts on you.
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Feb 15, 2013 05:09
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I graduated with a BBA in accounting about a year ago and the only job I could get before graduation was a call center tech support job when KMPG rescinded a job offer due to restructuring at the office I was going to begin my CA training. I got a bad taste for public accounting from that and speaking to other indivduals who got into a Big 4 since graduation. Since I been doing the accounting and captial budget management for a volunteer organazation, I really been looking to go with the CMA program. I been trying to apply for junior accountants positions in Altatic Canada and they are looking for people with experience or currently enrolled in a program and I am looking for way out of my current call center job fast. I am seriously considering going with the 8 month accelerated program this fall with CMA New Brunswick as I went through university focused on CA-related courses missing many of the CMA-focused courses in the program and there is a classroom op. My only concern is that my lack of pratical work experience in the field. I know it will be a 3 year course and my employer seem keen on helping me whe nI get into the program but am I going to throw my money away by going for the CMA when I am doing tech support everyday and being rejected for entry-level positions even though I am getting volunteer experience in the field?
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Feb 16, 2013 18:29
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Whiskey A Go Go! posted:I graduated with a BBA in accounting about a year ago and the only job I could get before graduation was a call center tech support job when KMPG rescinded a job offer due to restructuring at the office I was going to begin my CA training. I got a bad taste for public accounting from that and speaking to other indivduals who got into a Big 4 since graduation. Since I been doing the accounting and captial budget management for a volunteer organazation, I really been looking to go with the CMA program. I been trying to apply for junior accountants positions in Altatic Canada and they are looking for people with experience or currently enrolled in a program and I am looking for way out of my current call center job fast. This should be a lesson for everyone that even in accounting, grammar matters.
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Feb 16, 2013 18:38
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rockin peanut posted:This should be a lesson for everyone that even in accounting, grammar matters. How this helpful?
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Feb 17, 2013 00:42
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Because if you don't know how to use a comma, you're probably better off with a degree in Communications.
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Feb 17, 2013 01:34
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I'm sorry I even asked. I'll just do my own inquiries with CMA New Brunswick.
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Feb 17, 2013 12:09
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I'm finishing up with my BS in Accounting in a non-major school next year and that means it's time to start looking at the Grad school's available. I'm not concerned with the Big 4 nor with a top school and have already had internships on the Audit side of things, which I despised. I am debating between going to law school to get my JD and use those credits to fulfill the 150 requirement for the CPA. After that I would go for a Masters program in Tax Law. The alternative is to just go for a Masters in Accounting (MBA or MAcc) and specialize in Tax. I'm looking for some insight from either side of the fence as both seem reasonable to me.
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Feb 17, 2013 21:57
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himurak posted:I'm finishing up with my BS in Accounting in a non-major school next year and that means it's time to start looking at the Grad school's available. I'm not concerned with the Big 4 nor with a top school and have already had internships on the Audit side of things, which I despised. CPA here - I'd steer towards the JD. A masters in tax isn't really all that helpful, and with a JD you have a lot more options available to you (either CPA firms or law firms). Masters in accounting locks you into a CPA firm.
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Feb 17, 2013 22:23
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AbbiTheDog posted:CPA here - I'd steer towards the JD. Yeah, I think this thread would probably disagree with that assessment. Unless you're doing pretty well at a T-14 law program, your odds of getting a solid job at a Big Law or even solid second tier firm goes down the shitter and if you end up going to a CPA firm with a JD, you might as well just bypass spending 3-4 years (depends if you do the LL.M. as well), ~$200,000 (or getting into that much debt, less maybe a paltry scholarship) and then having to spend another year passing the state bar by just doing an MS in Taxation (and saving a boatload of money). The average NPV of such a proposition simply doesn't make sense the vast majority of the time, IMO. Horseshoe theory fucked around with this message at 02:54 on Feb 18, 2013 |
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Feb 18, 2013 02:51
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So I am a few weeks in to a tax season internship at a medium sized firm now. I am enjoying myself and learning a ton, but I waste so much time fighting with software it is ridiculous. I frequently have to jump back and forth between the firm's cloud and the locally installed application just to complete a simple task. A few key pieces of software also like to crash if I have too many windows open. This is all minor stuff that is probably happening because I have a lovely intern computer and am not used to the software, but losing about an hour a day to computer problems is frustrating. Is this pretty common across all firms?
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Feb 22, 2013 17:39
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Mush Mushi posted:So I am a few weeks in to a tax season internship at a medium sized firm now. I am enjoying myself and learning a ton, but I waste so much time fighting with software it is ridiculous. I frequently have to jump back and forth between the firm's cloud and the locally installed application just to complete a simple task. A few key pieces of software also like to crash if I have too many windows open. I'm at a big 4 in a major market and yep, half of my time is spent fighting technology. I think they do it on purpose because we bill hourly 
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Feb 22, 2013 17:42
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I just started back and 65% of my time was spent screwing around with printers, etc. When I'm on a roll I can get 80-90% billable hours, so it really slices into how much work you do. And I can't bill the client for some useless trivial thing that I should know about, especially when it deals with our software.
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Feb 23, 2013 01:55
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Yes you can
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Feb 23, 2013 03:27
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So I'm looking to begin an accounting career after taking a rather roundabout route to getting the qualifications for it. I graduated in 05 with a degree in Political Science, but I was completely burned out by politics at that point. After a bit of faffing about I took a basic accounting course at night and was surprised to find that I was really interested in it. After about 7 years of night classes I managed to get the educational prerequisites to sit for the CPA exams and passed them all. In the meantime, I've been working at a law firm a little over 5 years as a billing clerk. Right now the only thing I need for full licensing is a year of actual accounting experience. I'm open to any and all advice at this point.
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Feb 24, 2013 00:33
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Go to a bunch of firms and say "I have passed the CPA exam and am now looking for a job."
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Feb 24, 2013 00:40
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ThirdPartyView posted:Yeah, I think this thread would probably disagree with that assessment. Unless you're doing pretty well at a T-14 law program, your odds of getting a solid job at a Big Law or even solid second tier firm goes down the shitter and if you end up going to a CPA firm with a JD, you might as well just bypass spending 3-4 years (depends if you do the LL.M. as well), ~$200,000 (or getting into that much debt, less maybe a paltry scholarship) and then having to spend another year passing the state bar by just doing an MS in Taxation (and saving a boatload of money). The average NPV of such a proposition simply doesn't make sense the vast majority of the time, IMO. I was considering him working at a business law firm, not at a CPA firm as a first choice. CPA first year pay sucks. If you don't want to attempt the law firm route, the masters would be a better option. I got the impression OP wanted more options.
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Feb 24, 2013 01:29
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Harry posted:Go to a bunch of firms and say "I have passed the CPA exam and am now looking for a job." This time of year you're going to be shown the door since we're all swamped. Try in the fall, or find firms that do a lot of muni audit work and ask in the summer.
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Feb 24, 2013 01:30
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SirPhoebos posted:So I'm looking to begin an accounting career after taking a rather roundabout route to getting the qualifications for it. I graduated in 05 with a degree in Political Science, but I was completely burned out by politics at that point. After a bit of faffing about I took a basic accounting course at night and was surprised to find that I was really interested in it. After about 7 years of night classes I managed to get the educational prerequisites to sit for the CPA exams and passed them all. In the meantime, I've been working at a law firm a little over 5 years as a billing clerk. Right now the only thing I need for full licensing is a year of actual accounting experience. Did you take a Becker course et al? I've also been taking online accounting classes over the past few years and am thinking of taking the CPA exam. What employment opportunities have you explored? Cold calling local accounting firms, going to local chapters of accounting professionals, accounting principals, robert half...? e: Have you read the Vault Guide?
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Feb 25, 2013 20:09
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Mandalay posted:Did you take a Becker course et al? I've also been taking online accounting classes over the past few years and am thinking of taking the CPA exam. Yeah, I took the Becker courses, and they were really helpful in passing the tests. As for employment opportunities, I've been mainly interested in auditing positions, though I've applied to non-attest positions as well. I've joined the state CPA society and am going to try to attend the next breakfast. And yeah, I've applied to a couple Robert Half jobs as well. Would you mind explaining what the Vault Guide is?
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Feb 26, 2013 04:01
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SirPhoebos posted:Would you mind explaining what the Vault Guide is? Man, sorry to hear that the apps so far haven't worked out. Passing the CPA exam while working full-time (not at an accounting firm) sounds loving hard. The Vault Career guide is a basic career primer that was given out in pdf form by my alma mater. They've got a version for consulting, banking, etc.
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Feb 26, 2013 04:06
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Mandalay posted:Man, sorry to hear that the apps so far haven't worked out. Passing the CPA exam while working full-time (not at an accounting firm) sounds loving hard. I just started job hunting, so I'm far from discouraged yet. And yeah passing the exam felt like getting my wisdom teeth pulled at times, but it's done  .
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Feb 26, 2013 14:54
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SirPhoebos posted:I just started job hunting, so I'm far from discouraged yet. And yeah passing the exam felt like getting my wisdom teeth pulled at times, but it's done Trying to find a CPA firm job now in the middle of busy season with no experience will be an exercise in futility. Busy season is halfway done anyways. Don't get discouraged but recognize most firms won't do any hiring until the fall.
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Feb 26, 2013 17:03
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Hey guys. I got a job offer today from one of the Big 4 in the UK. I would be going into the Advisory department as a forensics trainee, but in the three years training contract I have to do the first year in audit, and six months in consultancy. The thing is I already have a job lined up to do sound design and music for a company that makes other company's training videos, website intros, etc. It comes with some pretty good short-term perks, I get to play around with musical instruments and recording equipment and it's not going to be as stuffy as accountancy (although still not an amazing job, adding cheesy piano music to a cartoon of a robot telling people about data servers is not that fulfilling.) Doing my ACA (UK equivalent of CPA) exams has much better prospects and I think forensics will be the least boring accountancy job. But I'm worried I will be signing my career away to accountancy and I'm not sure I'm ready to do it. The money is the same for both jobs initially, but post-qualification obviously accountancy would jump up straight away. I'm not sure which one to take, but I'm leaning towards the Big 4. Is audit really so bad? I think consultancy will be great for a few months but I don't have the drive to work those kind of hours permanently. Please make this life decision for me. Hoops fucked around with this message at 01:58 on Mar 2, 2013 |
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Mar 2, 2013 01:44
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Hoops posted:Hey guys. I got a job offer today from one of the Big 4 in the UK. I would be going into the Advisory department as a forensics trainee, but in the three years training contract I have to do the first year in audit, and six months in consultancy. The thing is I already have a job lined up to do sound design and music for a company that makes other company's training videos, website intros, etc. It comes with some pretty good short-term perks, I get to play around with musical instruments and recording equipment and it's not going to be as stuffy as accountancy (although still not an amazing job, adding cheesy piano music to a cartoon of a robot telling people about data servers is not that fulfilling.) I enjoy forensics a lot, there is a lot of finance and problem solving to it, every matter is different and every month is different. The majority of my work relates to providing expert evidence in court, and I get to work on the law suits that other people read about in the newspapers. I go to meetings with partners from some of the biggest law firms in the world (definitely the biggest in my country) in which I provide my opinions on cases worth anywhere between millions and billions of dollars. If I had to do it again I would definitely stay in forensics (though I might start off in a big 4 firm, rather than the boutique firm I started in).
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Mar 3, 2013 05:43
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Forensics will get you on the job training that I can't imagine being less valuable than learning to do sound design and music, unless you really like making inoffensive music for corporate environments. Also, you might be making music for restaurants that want autoplayed music on their website. And I would not be able to forgive you for that.
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Mar 3, 2013 07:37
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I'm about 6 months into my big4 tax job and I'm really not liking it. I have the kind if personality who likes to really get involved and have my work actually matter. In college I founded my own website startup and spent maybe 200 hours of my free time doing it. I think it was because I was running the show and I get addicted to things that I can get my hands around. The website hasn't gone anywhere yet, but it's given me a glimpse at what it's like to work somewhere other than big 4 tax. I haven't even had a busy season yet and I'm not liking it. Being at the beck and call of the client 24-7 is exhausting. Essentially the job has no greater meaning that just doing task A within time constraint Y, repeat as necessary. I don't mind long hours, but I don't know how people stay up till 4am doing tax returns. My coworker described it in a sports analogy ( I know, I know): public accounting (particularly tax) is like defense, you prevent poor tax decisions and file paperwork after the fact. I want to be involved in the offense where people are making decisions that impact tomorrow rather than yesterday. I guess I've got the startup bug, where I just want to work with a small team and make decisions that can help build something. For what it's worth I went to a top school with a great GPA so grad school is on the table, but not for a few years. I also have 6 more months of work experience until I can get my CPA (which I already passed) so jumping ship is out of the question for the time being. Please advise accounting goons I am having an identity crisis
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Mar 12, 2013 01:05
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I can certainly tell you audit isn't for you if you want to have your work matter.
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Mar 14, 2013 01:27
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I posted before about interviewing for a State Auditor's position back in December. Just posting here to let you guys know that I've been working here for 2.5 months now! The benefits are awesome, as well as the schedule. Getting every other Friday off is sweet. The State Auditor has been really good about signing us up for conferences and poo poo for CPE credit. Now to make plans for getting the CPA exam out of the way and my Masters. The work itself, isn't anything exciting. I'm working as a Medicaid auditor. Purely expense/compliance auditing, not much more than a glance at the actual financials. Luckily I get along really well with my small team, so boredom hasn't really set in yet. We'll see how it goes in the future.
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Mar 14, 2013 01:36
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What state are you in? I'm currently in the application process for California "Auditor Evaluator I".
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Mar 14, 2013 02:18
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^^^^S.C., good luck!
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Mar 14, 2013 03:13
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chupacabraTERROR posted:I'm about 6 months into my big4 tax job and I'm really not liking it. I have the kind if personality who likes to really get involved and have my work actually matter. In college I founded my own website startup and spent maybe 200 hours of my free time doing it. I think it was because I was running the show and I get addicted to things that I can get my hands around. The website hasn't gone anywhere yet, but it's given me a glimpse at what it's like to work somewhere other than big 4 tax. Sounds like standard big4. If you want your work to "actually matter" either get out of accounting or go work at a smaller firm where you actually help people figure things out. When you're in big4 the clients/jobs are so gigantic you're just another cog in the machine. If you don't like it now you're going to absolutely hate it in busy season.
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Mar 14, 2013 06:04
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hellboundburrito posted:I've seen this happen to my staff before. The audit room was fairly cold and my staff put her coat on to keep warm and the client asked me to tell her to take it off because it was unprofessional. I asked them to turn the heat up in our room and we didn't have any problems after that. What kind of terrible clients do you work with? If I ever had a client say something like that I would just be baffled.
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Mar 14, 2013 06:07
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gmilo posted:Sounds like standard big4. If you want your work to "actually matter" either get out of accounting or go work at a smaller firm where you actually help people figure things out. When you're in big4 the clients/jobs are so gigantic you're just another cog in the machine. If you don't like it now you're going to absolutely hate it in busy season.  Yeah I'll probably hate it. But I won't have time to think about how much I hate it like I do now!
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Mar 14, 2013 06:20
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gmilo posted:What kind of terrible clients do you work with? If I ever had a client say something like that I would just be baffled. It was an exception rather than the rule, but I was baffled. Most clients are as nice as can be expected during an audit.
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Mar 15, 2013 04:03
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So a few weeks ago I got a new job essentially as a controller-I guess, 1 man accounting department-at a ~6 million dollar contracting company. I have a couple of years doing the same for another contracting company (about 1/4 the size though) in a similar role though I was mainly putting out fires due to there being a ton of financial stress and now I have a bit more time to do things other than frantically making collection calls. Well since I'm not a disaster like my predecessors my bosses are pretty pleased, which is nice. But unfortunately undoing a lot of what was wrong before as well as keeping things running on a minimal is turning out to be more involved than a simple 8-5. Luckily my bosses also see that and have hired me an assistant which is also very nice but therein lies the problem. I honestly have no idea what to give to this person. I didn't meet her myself and from I'm told she has experience doing like simple bookkeeping (I hope) but no post-secondary education. As tempted as I am to drop a bunch of poo poo on her, say "organize this, enter this" that would be the worst thing I could do. So basically I'm asking anyone with supervisory experience in accounting roles - how do I handle a bookkeeping assistant? Edit: So she didnt show nor call today. Probably would not have been the most reliable assistant. The SituAsian fucked around with this message at 15:42 on Mar 18, 2013 |
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Mar 16, 2013 06:05
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The SituAsian posted:So basically I'm asking anyone with supervisory experience in accounting roles - how do I handle a bookkeeping assistant? You should probably gauge to see how much knowledge of accounting she has and then determine if she only can handle, say, data entry and not the actual journal entries and other accounting-side functions or if she can maintain fixed/prepaid asset schedules, etc. You should only delegate what you reasonably can expect her to do since ultimately any fuckups will fall on your head so you want the de minimis potential exposure.
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Mar 16, 2013 16:14
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