[Kurtle]

Hey, I was looking for some advice on my current situation. I’m graduating this December with my B.S. in accounting from a state school with a 3.2 cum and a 3.1 in my major. I didn’t do well early in school however, earned much better grades in my later years. I’ve worked a lot through high school and college waiting tables and wish I had spent more time trying to improve my career opportunities. I recently attended the accounting fair this semester and got a lot of leads. However, I was only accepted to interview at three of the regional firms after applying through the career center to eight total. I’ve studied abroad and am currently doing an internship at a bank doing credit analyst sort of work. It’s more finance than accounting, but I thought it would serve as professional experience.

I am graduating this semester with 136 credits and planning to finish the 150 in the spring. I was hoping to get an internship through an accounting firm for credit in the spring. However, I am being shot down quickly by the larger firms leading me to believe I have limited chances at a regional firm. Should I hold off pursuing a firm until passing parts of the CPA? Take courses towards an M.S. or MBA to finish the 150? Any advice or words of encouragement would be helpful. I want to start gaining experience and put restaurant work behind me. I was very excited after gaining leads that are now unfortunately diminishing quickly. I live in a smaller state and attend the second largest state university. I feel that GPA is a highly competitive factor.

[Soundwave]

Trying to get an internship at a public firm, no matter if its Big 4 or regional, is always very competitive. Every public company I applied to has a GPA requirement, and obviously the ones with higher gpa's with well rounded skills will have the best chance. I think that if you really want to gain accounting experience, your best best imo would be to work for a local CPA office, which is what I and most of my friends did. You work there part time and do stuff like enter inputs for tax returns and do journal entries and bank reconciliations.

You can also apply to internships at private companies as well. A lot of them have accounting internships. That is also what me and my friends did lol. A lot of us used our local CPA experience and previous work experience to land accounting internships at different movie studios. But in your case, since its a smaller town maybe look for internships at insurance companies or something. Try the online job searches for accounting internships near your area.

[Kurtle]

Thanks for the advice. I'm looking through the smaller public ones now. I'm considering looking for a private company now though as well. Can you transition well though into public accounting from there? I'm not in a small town, I'm in the Baltimore D.C. area. I think there's a lot of competition here for the firms that do recruiting, because they all go to four or five schools.

[Soundwave]

Yes, I know of many people who transitioned from their internships in private industry into entry-level public accounting. Every experience helps. Since you're GPA is not as high as others, you have to stand out in other areas. Different accounting experience will help as well as different leadership roles in clubs.

[Ying]

vsthekid – You provided great advices! I'm currently looking for a job as well, and I was just wondering if insurance companies' positions would help me to land in a job at a public accounting firm in the future. Do you have any suggestions?

FAR - Passed (11/9/2011)
BEC - Passed (11/28/2011)
AUD - Passed (7/17/2012)
REG - Passed!! DONE!!
Looking for a full-time position now.

[Author]

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