[Anonymous]

Just some thoughts, so take’em for what they’re worth!

* I haven’t applied for a single Big 4 positon or any private fim positions. I’ve been focused on larger, consumer-oriented corporations that see my overall experience (with no direct accounting experience) as more of a positive as opposed to weakness. The overall impression that I get from Big 4 is they want young, educated, and inexperienced people to work extremely hard for 2-5 years. They also could care less about you as an employee. Again, just my impression.

* After sitting for 3 interviews, the interviewers really aren’t focused on my tests/classes, but were focused on previous positions. I assumed that since I was applying for accounting positons, the interviews would be more related to the position they were filling. Instead, I just fielded a few questions with one word responses about the tests. That made me feel a lof better considering I’m applying for accouting jobs and accounting isn’t my strength.

* Smile. CPAs are people, too. Use a little wit and personality. Remember, nobody wants to hire a person that they would dread seeing in the elevator…

Anyways, just thought I’d throught that out there…

[fnj_84]

Yeah, that's definitely the feeling that I've gotten as well. I switched industries when I went to get my Masters, and realized that youth and inexperience appeared to be assets at the Big 4. It didn't matter that I had years of work experience, my offers (salary, etc) was still the same as the 22 year old who went straight from undergrad to grad school with no work experience. It was disllusioning, because I really thought they valued knowledge and expertise. So is the Big 4 worth taking a huge hit to salary? Think at least $10k.

[Anonymous]

I haven't started to interview but I kind of expect the same thing. I expect that Big 4 firms are looking for young cannon fodder who are there to do a bunch of busy work on audits in highly specialized areas. I think that a smaller firm may value more diverse experience since they have less specialized staff and they need someone who can jump into multiple areas.

I currently have a good non accounting job and I wouldn't mind staying with my current company once I get my CPA as long as they recognize my accomplishment and promote me accordingly. Having experience in the industry, I could really find where all the bodies are buried if I was doing internal audit. An auditor that has no real experience in the industry isn't going to be as effective of an auditor.

I think your focus on private industry jobs sounds like a good approach–you can leave the Big 4 recent grads who are really impressed by that title.

You should think of yourself almost like a senior auditor who is jumping into private industry–they have a lot of experience in audit but have almost no experience with the specific company/industry they will be moving into. In your case, you will have a lot of industry experience but not as much audit experience. For each person, there is going to be a learning curve to get the job in private industry to learn aspects of the business.

[Author]

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