[Unsureofmyoptions]

Hello fellow members,

My apologies in advance if this is a bit long.

If all goes well, I will have all four parts of the CPA passed as soon as I find out my score in about a week for BEC…my dilemma now is in the state of Texas, in order to be licensed as a CPA you need to have the work experience to actually be able to obtain the CPA certification. Please correct me if I’m mistaken, but this work experience needs to be under the direct supervision of a licensed CPA practitioner and must consist of “non-routine accounting work” etc etc. per the Texas state board of accountancy website.

For the past couple of years, I have only been working in private as a corporate staff accountant doing regular accounting month end close cycling “routine” work, whatever you wish to call it. I’ve never had an internship at a public firm or any experience with public accounting. Now that I am nearing the end of my CPA exams, I am unsure as to how I should go about applying for jobs that can fulfill this requirement, as I do not work under a licensed CPA at my current job.

Should I focus on primarily accounting firms? And if I do so, what’s the best way to apply to said firms? Am I wasting my time trying to get into Big 4 or medium sized firms? Should I focus on private instead? Is it possible for me to apply to industry or private firms and still be able to obtain the experience necessary to obtain my license?

If I do decide to focus on accounting firms, are recruiting companies actually useful? Pardon my ignorance, but I’ve had really bad experiences with recruiters in the past and have preferred to be hired directly by a company instead. Yet the issue with that is job listings. I’d just like to understand how efficient these job postings from Monster and Indeed and those kinds of websites are. Should I avoid those like the plague and directly email accounting firms blindly to ask if they have positions open?

TL;DR: Need advice on how to transition from private to public (or if I should stay in private) and obtaining experience to fulfill requirement

[makiu]

@Unsureofmyoptions
I will suggest you to join the state society of CPA,'s, face to face networking events, talk to friends that you know that are working in public accounting that can talk to their recruiters and be able to move your resume, volunteer activities. Talk to the IT guy for your company, he may have a CPA client that can help you. etc… in addition to searching online. In short, try to network as much as you can in any possible way until you reach your goal.
Good luck!!
Makiu, CPA

[Author]

Replies