Text:

It has come to our attention that a “student-generated salary transparency spreadsheet” is being circulated, which may contain confidential information from offer letters. I am writing to remind you of the importance of maintaining confidentiality, particularly regarding sensitive personal and professional details.

As you know, our industry places a high value on confidentiality. Every day in the field of accounting, you will be entrusted with clients’ sensitive information, and they will rely on you to protect it. Sharing specific details from offer letters, including salary and benefits, is not only unprofessional but can also have serious consequences for you and others [Ed. note: By “others” this ethically compromised shill means accounting firms that would much prefer to cheat you]. Therefore, I ask that you cease using and sharing any such spreadsheets immediately and refrain from disclosing specific compensation details for any reason.

You may continue to do general research and use past outcome reports to make informed decisions on what you wish to say in your negotiation session. I highly recommend making an appointment with me before navigating this discussion.

As Aspiring CPAs, let’s make better decisions going [cut off]

So where exactly in the AICPA Code of Conduct does it forbid this activity? Granted I haven’t read the whole thing in years. If it’s on the same level as clients’ sensitive information, it should be immediately following the section on client confidential information. Except that would be ILLEGAL.

Read the National Labor Relations Act, prof.

Under the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA or the Act), employees have the right to communicate with their coworkers about their wages, as well as with labor organizations, worker centers, the media, and the public. Wages are a vital term and condition of employment, and discussions of wages are often preliminary to organizing or other actions for mutual aid or protection.

The only employers exempt from this are:

• Federal, state and local governments, including public schools, libraries, and parks, Federal Reserve banks, and wholly-owned government corporations.
• Employers who employ only agricultural laborers, those engaged in farming operations that cultivate or harvest agricultural commodities or prepare commodities for delivery.
• Employers subject to the Railway Labor Act, such as interstate railroads and airlines.

Companies that have a minimum of ONE contract with the government — so, most consulting firms — additionally fall under Executive Order 11246 which prohibits federal contractors and subcontractors from discharging or otherwise discriminating against their employees and job applicants for discussing, disclosing, or inquiring about compensation.

Generally speaking, any business or organization that (1) holds a single federal contract, subcontract, or federally assisted construction contract in excess of $10,000; (2) has federal contracts or subcontracts that have a combined total in excess of $10,000 in any 12-month period; or (3) holds government bills of lading, serves as a depository of federal funds, or is an issuing and paying agency for U.S. savings bonds and notes in any amount will be subject to the requirements of Executive Order 11246.

Hey kids, be sure you’re not just sharing those salaries amongst yourselves but plug them into Big 4 Transparency, too. Post them everywhere. Print it out and paper the professor’s office. Have T-shirts made and wear them to class.

The post Friendly Reminder That Sharing Your Salary Data is Not Only Legal, It’s Encouraged appeared first on Going Concern.

So in 2025, PwC is paying summer interns $30.75 – $40.75. The winter intern posts we found don’t have a pay range listed.

Here’s the YouTube video they linked if anyone would like to spend three minutes and 36 seconds getting elevator pitched on this internship.

On the topic of working in audit at PwC, we have a much better video coming up that we’re almost done editing. The original is a relic that will make you pine for Pizzarias and Surge.

The post This is What PwC is Paying Its Audit Interns in 2025 appeared first on Going Concern.

These figures come from NACE’s 2024 Internship & Co-op report and include responses from 283 organizations, not strictly public accounting. Return offers are down, acceptance rates are about the same, and conversation rates — that is, interns converting to entry-level hires — are slightly down.

Here’s what NACE had to say about these findings:

The drop-off in the offer rate—which is the lowest reported offer rate in five years—could reflect lower-than-anticipated hiring needs, just as employers’ projections for full-time hiring for 2023 graduates fell from nearly 15% in fall 2022 to about 4% in spring 2023. The lower rate could also indicate problems in selecting students for internships. In fact, employers who gave themselves high marks for converting interns to entry-level hires had a significantly higher offer rate—72%.

In addition, in-person interns received more offers than their hybrid counterparts, 73.2% versus 64.5%. The executive summary can be found here.

If you’re one of the unlucky few who didn’t get a return offer, let us know.

The post Chart of the Day: Interns Just Aren’t Getting FT Offers Like They Used To appeared first on Going Concern.

The article tells the story of Kaylee Buckley, 2024 graduate of Marquette’s Master of Science in Accounting program, formerly confused freshman, and current RSMer:

Shortly after her first week of accounting classes, Kaylee Buckley called her father, sobbing. She understood nothing.

“I was in the same boat as a lot of the freshmen when I started; I felt like everyone was talking in a foreign language,” Buckley recalls.

Years later, she would find herself student ambassador to confused and overwhelmed students sitting in the position she once did.

She found that most students were confused about the same thing that puzzled her at first: industry lingo. The solution: make the terminology relatable. Instead of saying “accounts payable,” Buckley would use the analogy of a credit card bill: something that needs to be paid even if the bill isn’t due right away.

Something as simple as reviewing the vocabulary can make a world of difference to struggling students.

“A lot of students will preface their question with, ‘I know this is a stupid question,’ and I promise them it’s not,” Buckley says. “A lot of people are feeling this way, and you’re courageous for asking for that help.”

“That moment where students start to get the concept and they don’t even realize it, the times when students who got a D on a test email me to say they earned a 90 on the next one; if I could bottle that feeling up, I would,” she said.

Dr. Rich is looking to make the program more proactive going forward. Rather than waiting for students to get a D, he wants to “create a student support ecosystem that empowers everyone to seek the help they need no matter what grades they’re receiving or what issues they’re having.”

Accounting for student success [Marquette University]

*US News & World Report 2023 ranking

The post Marquette University Launches a ‘No Stupid Questions’ Program For Early Accounting Students appeared first on Going Concern.

For accountants under some categories — Chartered and certified accountants Accountant (qualified), Auditor (qualified), Chartered accountant, Company accountant, Cost accountant (qualified), Financial controller (qualified accountant), and Management accountant (qualified) — the standard going rate is now £46,800 ($58k) or £24.00 ($30) per hour. Here’s a good read from a UK immigration lawyer on all the specifics.

After net migration to the UK hit a record 745,000 in 2022, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak expressed his displeasure and a desire to get those numbers down.

But that’s another issue. For people under 26, the minimum they must earn to qualify for a visa is £30,960 ($38k-ish). Apparently this was too much for KPMG so they’ve yanked job offers from some foreign grads who were expecting to start their careers at the House of Klynveld.

Reports FT:

KPMG has revoked job offers to some foreign graduates in the UK after the government tightened visa rules for overseas workers in an effort to cut record immigration.

The Big Four firm, one of the UK’s biggest graduate employers, told affected incoming staff this week that their offers had been rescinded, pinning the move on the government’s decision to raise the minimum salary required to sponsor a skilled worker visa in the UK, according to documents seen by the Financial Times.

KPMG said the changes to eligibility criteria had “unfortunately impacted some of our graduate programmes that were previously eligible for sponsorship under the skilled worker visa category”, according to the documents. The firm declined to comment on how many offers had been revoked.

FT said the average graduate makes between £25,000 and £35,000 at Big 4 firms in the UK.

KPMG has stopped hiring overseas graduates who need skilled worker visas outside of London as a result of the changes to the eligibility rules, said FT. Except for junior actuaries, they’re still in.

The post KPMG Was Too Cheap to Pay Foreign Graduates More So They Yanked All Their Job Offers appeared first on Going Concern.

Professor Abeysekera chose accounting to study in particular because the accounting syllabus comprises both narrative-based and mathematical-based learning.

The abstract:

ChatGPT is considered a risk and an opportunity for academia. An area of threat in contemporary settings is whether it can become a student agent for assessments in academia. This study determines how ChatGPT can become a human agent for students on two financial accounting course units, multiple choice question assessments. The study provided five numerical-based and five narrative-based multiple choice questions. There were ten questions for the Introductory Financial Accounting and 10 for the Advanced Financial Accounting course units. ChatGPT received one question at a time requesting a solution. In the Introductory Financial Accounting section, ChatGPT produced incorrect answers because it incorrectly assumed the underlying assumptions contained in those questions. In Advanced Financial Accounting, ChatGPT presented incorrect answers because of the complexity of the task contained in those questions. ChatGPT demonstrated similar competencies in providing solutions to numerical-based and narrative-based questions. ChatGPT obtained the correct answers to sit in the 80th percentile in the Introductory Financial Accounting course unit assessment and the 50th percentile in the Advanced Financial course unit assessment. ChatGPT4 showed improved performance, with the 90th percentile for Introductory Financial Accounting and the 70th percentile for Advanced Financial Accounting. The findings indicate that the knowledge construct requires reflective thinking with ChatGPT in the ecosystem, and what is assumed and assessable knowledge must be revisited.

Said Professor Abeysekera (as relayed by Phys.org): “The solutions provided by ChatGPT showed that it is a solution provider rather than a teacher or instructor.

“ChatGPT can be constructive to a competent learner who has reached the competency level to further develop critical understanding. As research has indicated, high achievers can have a fear of numbers, and they can benefit by using ChatGPT solutions as validation checks for their learning.

“ChatGPT does not provide scaffolding for novice learners to take over their learning and develop individual competencies to be less or not reliant on it. It can be destructive to an incompetent learner and can serve as a platform to simply find the solution or as a channel to ease their fear of numbers.

“Furthermore, the findings showed that ChatGPT is not a foolproof solution provider, especially when questions have discipline-specific underlying assumptions and increased technical and task complexity.”

The language in this paper is spectacular considering it was authored by a professor of accounting and not literature. A few highlights:

With nights and days passing serenely, a big surprise as morning dawns on November 30, 2022, has made a lasting change in how we have taken what we know, to know, and beyond for granted.

ChatGPT serves as a lighthouse with the metaphor of a sea route, where the light it surveys is perceived as a route for academic construction or destruction. ChatGPT provides the shining light, and the pathways are chosen by academia, defined by the five Ws: what it is being used, who uses it, where it has been used, when it is used, and why it is being used (Robertson, 1946)

The ChatGPT provides access to structured knowledge to anyone and uses a utilitarian position because it determines right or wrong based on the greatest number of people who have access to knowledge (Kay, 2018). Academia takes a deontological position to knowledge promoting the highest good as developing reasoning in people as a duty – rights and wrongs are determined by dutifulness (Misselbrook, 2013).

Beautiful.

As the professor points out in the paper, ChatGPT offers a lot of utility to learners of accounting, especially those familiar and comfortable with the concepts, but “can be destructive to an incompetent learner” as critical thinking is a necessity for understanding higher level accounting concepts. Anyone who’s had a lousy Intermediate teacher will tell you a professor can make or break a grade depending on how well they can explain the fundamentals.

With a critical shortage of PhD accounting professors that’s been brewing for well over a decade now, it’s too bad ChatGPT can’t do much to fix it in the short term.

Expert tests if AI can help teach students accounting [Phys.org]
ChatGPT and academia on accounting assessments [Journal of Open Innovation: Technology, Market, and Complexity]

Earlier:

The post Study: ChatGPT Won’t Be Replacing Accounting Professors In the Near Future appeared first on Going Concern.

Fresh press release for you straight from the source:

Aiming to aid accounting students and increase the pipeline of future certified public accountants (CPAs), the Illinois CPA Society and its charitable partner, the CPA Endowment Fund of Illinois, are now accepting scholarship applications. More than 40 scholarships ranging from $1,000 to $4,000 each will be awarded to accounting students attending Illinois-based colleges and universities for the 2024-2025 academic year.

These scholarships are intended to provide essential financial assistance to qualifying accounting students while also rewarding them for their academic successes so far. Eligible applicants will be upperclassmen accounting students enrolled at Illinois colleges or universities who demonstrate financial need, academic achievement, and leadership qualities.

You only need to fill out one application to be considered for all scholarships and you have until April 1, 2024 to do it.

The scholarships available are:

• Illinois CPA Society Accounting Scholarships for seniors or graduate students.
• Herman J. Neal Accounting Scholarships for Black/African American juniors, seniors, or graduate students.
• James A. Sikich Visionary Scholarships for seniors or graduate students.
• Women’s Executive Committee Advancing Women in Accounting Scholarships for female seniors or graduate students.

For more info, go here.

The post Attn Illinois University Students: Check Out These Scholarships appeared first on Going Concern.

Some choice quotes from PKF O’Connor Davies interns:

“I never felt stressed being a part-time worker and a full-time student. The balance was great, and my advisors were always so understanding if I needed a day for school. What I really found extremely helpful is the trainings this office holds, and I have learned a lot from having specific training days on certain topics.”

“As interns, you are only expected to work the hours when you are able to work. Even though it was the busy season, no one ever pressured me to work long hours, I was also told to put school first. If I need to take my scheduled day off for school or any reason, it was always approved immediately.”

“Everyone in the office was very welcoming and helpful. This was the first time that I was doing auditing, and the office was small, so there wasn’t a lot of room to hide if I made an error. However, each person who I worked with never failed to walk me through each process and answer any questions that I might have had. There was never a time when I felt like I couldn’t reach out to someone for help. Each person, all the way up to the partners, was always willing to answer a question or steer me in the right direction.”

“Everyone is extremely approachable and friendly. It feels like a nurturing environment; there is no competitive or cutthroat air. I feel that the culture at PKF OD allows me to learn and become more comfortable and useful.”

Warms your heart, doesn’t it?

Not only did the top firm kill it, accounting firms took half the spots in the top ten. Those firms are:

• 4. Weaver (2023 rank: #14)
• 5. Frazier Deeter  (#25)
• 8. Lumsden & McCormick (#76)
• 9. Elliott Davis (#12)
• 10. Freed Maxick (not ranked in 2023)

Honorable mention: Grant Thornton coming in at #12 (2023 rank: #24). Actually, let’s grab all the firms on the list. Haters of the Big 4 oligopoly will note only one Big 4 firm made the list and it doesn’t appear until the bottom. The remaining best firms for interns, their respective ranks, and their rank on last year’s list are:

• 14. Frank Rimerman & Co. (2023 rank: #2)
• 19. Baker Tilly (not ranked in 2023)
• 22. Aprio (#4)
• 26. CohnReznick (#35)
• 28. BDO USA (#40)
• 32. Moss Adams (#20)
• 41. Cherry Bekaert (#71)
• 43. Wipfli (#56)
• 52. EisnerAmper (#17)
• 57. Marcum (#54)
• 61. Ryan (#84)
• 70. Armanino (#43)
• 72. PwC/Strategy& (#59)
• 94. Eide Bailly (#86)
• 97. Withum (#52)

To calculate scores, Vault surveyed thousands of current and former interns in the summer of 2023. On a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being the highest and 1 being the lowest, respondents were asked to rate their internship experiences in six core areas:

• Quality of Life (company culture, hours, work-life balance, flexibility)
• Compensation & Benefits (pay structure, subsidized expenses, technology resources, office space, perks)
• Interview Process (application process, requirements, number of interviews)
• Career Development (including four separate ratings for training and mentoring, quality of assignments, real-life experience, networking opportunities)
• Full-time Employment Prospects (opportunity to obtain a full-time job with this organization)
• Diversity (including four separate ratings for diversity with respect to women, racial & ethnic minorities, LGBTQ+ individuals, and other underrepresented groups)

Vault scientists then assigned relative weights based on what interns said they value most in an internship. The overall scores are based on the following weighted formula: 30 percent career development, 20 percent employment prospects, 20 percent quality of life, 20 percent compensation, 5 percent diversity, and 5 percent interview process.

Although accounting had a heck of a performance overall this year, as you can see from the ranking above some firms are really killing it while others appear to be slipping and might disappear off the list altogether come 2025.

Interns of any of the listed firms are welcome to share their experiences in the comments or via editor mail.

The post List of the Day: The Accounting Firms on the 2024 Vault 100 Best Internships List appeared first on Going Concern.

The phys.org write up is titled:

Accounting is facing a labor crisis. Could fraud be part of the solution?

OMG they’re serious. And it says:

Expert concerns of a potential rise in financial fraud with fewer accounting professionals in the field notwithstanding, fraud plays a surprising role in the accounting labor force, according to new research from the University of Florida.

“Research to date suggests that financial fraud can have damaging consequences, like increased criminal activity as well as reduced trust and participation in capital markets,” said Assistant Professor Robert Carnes. “Insights from these studies imply that fraud would create a negative stigma around the labor market for all business fields, and accounting in particular, but we find the opposite.”

Carnes, along with co-authors Paul Madsen of the University of Florida and Dane Christensen of the University of Oregon, find that incoming students are actually more likely to major in accounting when local frauds occur during their formative years. Specifically, the researchers find a 4% increase in the likelihood of majoring in accounting when local financial frauds are covered by the news media during students’ formative high-school years.

“This size effect is modest,” Carnes explained. “But we view it as meaningful because it suggests that fraud does not harm the flow of students into the accounting major, but rather it attracts more students.”

The abstract explains further (emphasis ours):

Financial statement fraud generates many negative effects, including reducing people’s willingness to participate in the stock market. If it also stigmatizes accounting, it may similarly adversely affect the quantity and quality of workers willing to become accountants, thereby potentially creating negative effects for years to come. We examine the impact of fraud on the labor force entering the accounting profession, which is a key input into the production of accounting information (i.e., the output). Using data describing millions of college students across the United States, we find incoming students are actually more likely to major in accounting when local frauds occur during their formative years. These students are also more likely to have attributes desired by the accounting profession (e.g., high academic aptitude) and are more likely to subsequently serve in public accounting and become Certified Public Accountants. In the context of other fields (i.e., all college majors), we find that fraud similarly spurs interest in other business disciplines, but not in majors outside of business schools. Those attracted to other business disciplines, however, generally possess different traits. Specifically, students entering accounting are distinctively more likely to exhibit values espoused by the accounting profession, including a predisposition to public service and less commercial orientation. Thus, nonpecuniary motives appear to uniquely drive accounting student enrollment following fraud. Collectively, our findings suggest that, while fraud is unmistakably bad, it appears to have the positive unintended consequence of attracting labor into business disciplines and, in accounting, increasing the prevalence of desirable traits among entrants.

Well clearly there have to be some nonpecuniary motives at work otherwise accounting graduate numbers would be even lower than they already are.

The data also suggests that accounting graduates with higher rates of fraud exposure in high school are more likely to work in public accounting, work for a Big 4 firm, and become CPAs. So get to frauding, people!

The post Who Had ‘Do More Fraud’ on Their Things That Could Save the Accounting Profession Bingo Card? appeared first on Going Concern.

Says the AICPA, bachelor’s degree completions in accounting dropped 7.8% from 2021–2022 after steady decline of 1-3% per year since 2015–16. Master’s degree completions also fell in 2021–2022 (-6.4%) but the percentage decline is significantly less than in 2019–20.

65,035 total accounting degrees completed for 2021-22. So 3,964 fewer bachelor’s and 1,246 fewer master’s for a total of 5,480. Since accounting graduate numbers peaked in 15-16, here’s the difference by year compared to prior year. As always, accountants are encouraged to audit the math:

• 2016-17: 1,336
• 2017-18: 394
• 2018-19: 2,204
• 2019-20: 3,391
• 2020-21: 2,408
• 2021-22: 5,480

Comparing the latest report to 2015-16 that’s 14,819 fewer BS and MS degrees for 2021-22.

Anyway, while we crunch some numbers and work up some obnoxiously snarky observations on the 2023 Trends report, you can catch up on where we were when the 2021 report was released in early 2022: State of the Accounting Profession 2022 Via the AICPA Trends Report

The post The 2023 AICPA Trends Report Shows Things Are Looking Up For Accounting Grad Numbers! JK They Suck appeared first on Going Concern.

We’re a little late on this, only found out because of this txeet from @BYUSOA:

Don’t forget to check out the new BYU dress and grooming expectations!#byuaccounting pic.twitter.com/csmcTOOUyv

— BYU Accounting (@BYUSOA) October 12, 2023

Being a person who probably violates the BYU honor code on a daily basis in just about every way possible, I had to look it up. This is from the Church Educational System (CES) Honor Code on Dress and Grooming Expectations, not to be confused with Dress and Grooming Principles:

• Dress for men and women should:
  • Be modest in fit and style. Dressing in a way that would cover the temple garment is a good guideline, whether or not one has been endowed. [Ed. note: Get your mind out of the gutter, I know what you’re thinking] Accommodation may be made for athletic participation.
  • Be neat and clean. Sloppy, overly casual, ragged, or extreme clothing is not acceptable.
• Grooming
  • Hair should be clean, neat, modest, and avoid extremes in styles and colors.
  • Men’s hair should be neatly trimmed. Men should be clean shaven. If worn, mustaches should be neatly trimmed.

A brief FAQ explains further:

Are there specific changes in dress and grooming now?
Yes. For example, students on each campus will be allowed to wear shorts, provided those shorts are in keeping with the principles and expectations given. As noted above, dress and grooming decisions should align with the Dress and Grooming Principles and Expectations, and application of these principles is not limited to the expectations listed. We are striving to create a culture that is consistent with the distinct religious purpose of CES institutions.

Remember, this is not promoting modesty, cleanliness, neatness, and restraint in dress and grooming:

The post The CPA Exam Whizzes at BYU Accounting Can Wear Shorts Universally Now appeared first on Going Concern.

The Illinois CPA Society (ICPAS), in partnership with the Center for Accounting Transformation (the Center) and other stakeholders, has launched a survey to figure out why modern day accounting students and professionals are so uninterested in pursuing the CPA credential. ICPAS tackled the issue before in 2020’s A CPA Pipeline Report: Decoding the Decline but things have changed since then and young people who graduated into the pandemic may have unique perspectives. Or it will just be the same perspectives and the profession will have more data points echoing them. The new findings will be published and shared to bring awareness of, and renew focus on, the most relevant and effective strategies to promote the CPA credential and ensure its sustainability and relevance moving forward, said ICPAS in a press release.

They also said:

A key focus of this survey is to understand why a growing number of accounting students and young professionals in accounting and finance careers don’t finish the CPA exam or elect to never take it at all. Accounting and finance students and professionals under the age of 35, with and without the CPA credential, are encouraged to complete the survey. The organizing partners also encourage all accounting and finance professionals to share the survey link with those they know in the target audience.

The responses are anticipated to reveal recent trends and key issues that will arm CPA profession leaders and stakeholders with a deeper understanding of the current perceptions of the profession, the decision-making process regarding pursuing or not pursuing the CPA credential, and the perceived value and relevance it holds today.

“The profession is aligning on the approaches necessary to help stem the tide and ultimately reverse the negative CPA talent pipeline trend we’re collectively facing,” says Geoffrey Brown, CAE, ICPAS president and CEO. “While there’s more research than ever on this topic, interest continues to be high in learning more about the perceived barriers deterring prospective CPAs from ever pursuing the credential. A lot has happened in the three years since our last survey was issued, which is why we were compelled to partner with influential stakeholders across the country to garner a fresh look.”

Survey here, it takes about 10 minutes to complete and you have until December 15, 2023 to do so.

The post Students and Professionals Under Age 35 Are Invited to Take This Pipeline Survey appeared first on Going Concern.

Free pizza for everyone on the governor? Not quite. In November, dozens of Wisconsin CPAs are heading to high schools throughout the state to preach the joys of a career in accounting (that’s not as sarcastic as it sounds) and inform students of their many options should they be interested in language of business fluency when they grow up.

“This is a great way for our members to give back to the profession and volunteer their time to talk about the career opportunities available in accounting,” said Tammy Hofstede, WICPA president and CEO.

Wisconsin CPAs who want to do their part can find more information from WICPA here.

The post Wisconsin Is Putting Its CPAs to Work For ‘CPA Appreciation Month’ appeared first on Going Concern.

Different generations in the workforce often struggle to understand each other. But experts say one thing that young professionals can do, including young accountants, is to be more patient.

Jerry Maginnis, former office managing partner of KPMG in Philadelphia and author of the new book Advice for a Successful Career in the Accounting Profession: How to Make Your Assets Greatly Exceed Your Liabilities, told me on my podcast that younger professionals have short attention spans and they’re very interested in what’s next. Their mindset is: “I’ve been doing this job for six months; when will I get promoted?” or “When will I have my next opportunity?” That kind of ambition is not necessarily a negative, but Maginnis said it can get in the way of a successful career if they change jobs or switch departments every time they hit a few bumps in the road.

“Let’s say they’re in public accounting, and they get assigned to an engagement with a manager or client they don’t particularly like,” asked Maginnis. “Or suppose they have to put in very long hours for a few weeks. Too often, young people will say: ‘That’s it. This isn’t the right profession for me. I’m leaving.’”

Instead, Maginnis said you have to give things time to play out because your next engagement might be with great people and a terrific client that ends up defining your career. But by bailing out too soon, you miss it. Maginnis recalls early in his career when Newt Becker, founder of the Becker CPA exam prep courses, told him that every year spent in public accounting is the equivalent of two years in private industry. But too often, young CPAs flee public accounting for what they believe are the greener pastures of industry and miss out on that learning and development.

It’s no secret the workload is notoriously tough for young accountants starting in the Big Four. It’s often described as “trial by fire” or “getting thrown into the deep end of the pool.” This could intimidate and discourage anyone, including people just starting their careers. But you have to show some grit and not be afraid to ask for help.

As Maginnis details in his new book, firms of all sizes have become much more sensitive to the importance of work-life balance, mental health, and the overall well-being of their employees. “As a profession, we have a way to go, but there are many firm-wide programs and initiatives to support young professionals through this,” noted Maginnis. By the same token, Maginnis said young professionals are sometimes “their own worst enemy” because even at age 22 or 23, they need to take ownership of their schedules (and their lives) and set priorities. He said firms don’t expect anyone to work 75 to 80 hours a week, and you shouldn’t be afraid to ask for flexibility – even during busy season – if you have important family or social commitments during the early evening on weekdays. He said you can usually trade off with co-workers to go home earlier on those nights and then work later on other nights.

Maginnis said most firms give you 30 days of PTO when you walk in the door. That’s the equivalent of six weeks off right off the bat. And for much of the year, the workload is closer to 40-hour weeks, with occasional 50-hour weeks.

Intellectual curiosity, advocate for yourself

“At KPMG, almost everyone came in with a baseline level of skills that enabled them to be successful in their job,” observed Maginnis. “The ones who rose to the top were the ones who showed great intellectual curiosity and who were avid learners.” In other words, they weren’t satisfied with understanding debits, credits, and audits. They wanted to know about the client’s business model and how they made money.

They wanted to know about their international expansion strategy and technology use. “The hallmark of a great auditor is not just understanding debits and credits, but understanding how the client makes money and the economics and the cash flows,” added Maginnis. “A lot of the auditing failures we’ve seen in the past could have been avoided if people got beyond the debits and credits and thought about the substance of the economic transactions they were auditing and whether or not they made sense,” noted Maginnis.

From where I sit, accounting gives you a great window into the inner workings of a company. That’s why it’s such valuable training for many business careers.

Importance of soft skills

While there is so much emphasis on staying current with technical skills, I’ve found that so much of success in the accounting profession revolves around your ability to work effectively with others, whether it be your client, colleagues, or peers. You could be the smartest person in the world and have all the answers. But if you’re challenging to interact with, you’re probably not going to do well. One of the most common complaints Maginnis hears from fellow managers is that their younger colleagues don’t possess soft skills. He’s hoping to see soft skills stressed more in the accounting curriculum but feels many advisory boards think some of the ever-changing “core requirements” would have to be eliminated to make room for soft skills. That can be a tough fight to win.

Maginnis recalls a situation early in his career when he was assigned to a large engagement with a principal client official who was rude and hostile toward the entire audit team. Instead of bad-mouthing the official or begging for a transfer, Maginnis invited the hostile client official out for coffee and tried to understand where he was coming from.

Maginnis quickly learned the official needed help understanding the role of independent auditors or why they were asking him to do certain things or provide so much documentation. However, after Maginnis patiently explained the role of auditors, the client asked Maginnis for regular weekly coffees and pointed out several areas in which KPMG could be more efficient. Long story short, Maginnis made partner a few years later, and the once hostile client was among the first to write him a congratulatory letter.

It’s a great success story, but Maginnis quickly points out that bringing in the business and building client relationships is not the only criteria for making partner. He said soft skills that include building relationships with team members and helping younger professionals achieve their potential are just as critical as business development and strong technical skills.

And, of course, having a high degree of intellectual curiosity about understanding the client’s business better or what’s keeping the C-suite up at night. “What are their biggest challenges? What are their biggest opportunities?” asked Maginnis. “It’s about being not only a student of the client (what their needs are) but being a student of your own firm — knowing all of the firm’s capabilities and how they can help the client make better decisions,” noted Maginnis.

Specialties to consider

Every business needs accountants, from local mom-and-pops to multinational corporations. “Young people today have the opportunity to marry a personal passion with the type of organization that needs accounting services,” said Maginnis. “It could be sports and entertainment, tech companies, life science companies.” There are also hot areas of specialization, such as forensic accounting, since AI has accelerated the pace and scope of fraud. There’s also the cannabis industry, digital currencies, and artificial intelligence. These emerging industries have some unique accounting and reporting issues and tax issues.

As a profession, we must better explain why accounting is a great, exciting profession and why it can provide young people with many opportunities. Unfortunately, Maginnis said the awareness level is not where it should be, and the stereotype of long hours, tedious work, unappreciative clients, and nerdy coworkers persists. He said the misconceptions became readily apparent after he retired from KPMG and started teaching at Rowan University near his home in New Jersey. He found the students highly motivated and curious about stable careers like accounting. But, they had concerns about the long hours, the 150-hour rule, the fear of boredom, and the lack of work-life balance.

Conclusion

“It dawned on me that there might be a broader need for explaining what accounting careers are like, the doors they can unlock, and the importance of forming good habits that will serve you well for a lifetime,” said Maginnis. What kinds of career advice are you giving young professionals? I’d love to hear more.

Blake Oliver, CPA, is the founder and CEO of Earmark and co-host of The Accounting Podcast, the No.1 podcast for accountants and bookkeepers.

The post Listen Up, Young Accountants: Career Advice For Sticking Out Those Early Years appeared first on Going Concern.

She’s riding a skateboard because you can’t afford a car on a public accounting starting salary.

Why’s there a bearded hipster hanging out creepily in the back?

Some appropriate Twitter reactions:

Vibes: pic.twitter.com/p9pqErdnyG

— Matthew J. Cordes, EA (@cordes_tax) September 26, 2023

CPAs be like pic.twitter.com/FwlwKqi2s7

— Daily Tax Memes (@DailyTaxMemes) September 26, 2023

Someone there watched Barbie one too many times

— Jack Castonguay, PhD, CPA (@profjackc) September 26, 2023

pic.twitter.com/P5h8whajDM

— Nick Meals (@nickmeals) September 26, 2023

Earlier: AICPA Council Approves 12-Point Plan to Do F*ck All to Solve the Accountant Shortage

The post AICPA Unveils Its Most Desperate Pipeline Initiative Yet appeared first on Going Concern.

He writes:

Two of the visitors were teachers at a University. The first guest speaker was an accountant who told us what it was like being an accountant and told the class the requirements and qualifications to get there. The second guest speaker taught business and finance. The third guest speaker was a college student from a University whose major was in accounting.

Behold, the first two guest speakers:

Accounting: The first guest speaker highlighted the different fields of accounting. He said accounting would be a good paying job right after college. He took four to five years of College and took Business in high school. After those four to five years of college he said he took the CPA which is a big test for accountants. The CPA is a big test which opens you up to many people and bigger opportunities and a better career position. He also talked about how he knew it was the right career path for him. He said during his entire life he had always been into puzzles which is something similar that all the speakers had in common.

Business and Finance: When he was younger he said when he was fifteen he got into business and finance whenever he saw a person he knew with a really nice car that he thought was cool. He asked the person how he was able to afford it and said he worked in finance. The speaker said this motivated him because he wanted really nice things, a family, and having more freedom than being an accountant.

accounting and finance pic.twitter.com/OnOs1TUpV4

— memes.xlsx (@ExcelHumor) March 9, 2023

The post A Tale of Two Business Majors Speaking to Young People About Their Careers appeared first on Going Concern.

Anyway, enough with the corny shit. When this opinion piece popped up in my Google News I was hoping for a refreshing take on the benefits of accounting as a career and some passionate cheerleading. Maybe a field report from some young, enthusiastic former partner who started in public and ended up controller at a cool startup or doing taxes for NBA stars or something. Perhaps finally some common misconceptions would be smashed!

Nah.

Accounting is a field with high demand, and successful accounting students are virtually guaranteed employment upon (or even prior to) graduation. I’m involved in recruiting for one of the largest accounting firms in Connecticut. When I talk to students about their biggest concerns in pursuing an accounting degree and a career in public accounting, they typically point to four misconceptions: lack of work-life balance, the difficulty of the CPA exam, lower pay compared to other financial career paths, and lack of excitement in the work.

Each of these objections is based on a misunderstanding of what a public accounting career is really like in 2023.

With all due respect, sir, these are not misconceptions. Pretending as if they are does a great disservice to young people and is part of the reason why the younguns have issued a collective “fuck that” when it comes to accounting. It depends on the firm of course but given that professors across accounting departments everywhere urge students to go into public accounting (miserly Big 4 firms in particular) with the threat of a pathetic career doing taxes in a strip mall for the rest of your life if you don’t, we need to be honest about starting salaries at public accounting firms. Yes, accountants have incredible lifetime earning potential. Fact. Yes, CPAs do even better over a lifetime. Fact. Good luck selling that to a 22-year-old kid with data analytics skills who can make buckets more money out of the gate in a different field when there’s a cost of living crisis.

The disappointment only grows from there. Here’s his take on work-life balance:

In accounting, finding balance is a matter of weighing the value of hard work and career progression. You get out of the job what you put into it. But the job doesn’t have to include excessive overtime hours every January through April. There’s been a shift in expectations in the industry — while you may be asked to work some overtime during the busier times, you have more flexibility around your schedule to accommodate other events in your life.

“You get out of the job what you put into it” compelled me to Google this guy, you can imagine my shock when I found a young Gen Xer and not an old man who had to walk to the uphill both ways in the snow to sit for all four parts of the CPA exam on a hard chair in a cattle barn on the Indiana State Fair Grounds over two days.

Way to minimize the reality for countless public accountants. Some of them are working more than ever due to firms being short-staffed, the offshore teams have it even worse. This claim is disingenuous at best, he should have stuck to the “yeah you have to pay your dues early on but it pays off as you advance up the ladder” pitch. Is there greater flexibility these days? Sure. Because people started quitting en masse if they couldn’t get it. It shouldn’t have taken a worldwide pandemic for firms to start letting people pick their kids up from school in the afternoon and finish their work from home later in the evening. Do many government and industry accountants have it better? Yep. Could have led with that, at least that’s mostly factual. And a big reason why so many accounting grads are bypassing public completely and going straight to industry or sticking to the more progressive tech-focused small firms. Let’s not lump them in with the public accounting meat grinder.

Moving on. The CPA exam is hard. Fact. Much like the ritual beating one must endure to gain lifetime membership into a street gang, it is at its core a test of one’s dedication to the profession with a test of entry-level knowledge secondary to that. “The path to becoming a CPA is challenging, but doable if approached strategically,” he says. Well obviously. If it wasn’t doable, no one would do it. Increasingly, they aren’t. This is a value proposition problem and as of now, the profession has not done a good enough job demonstrating value, something you’d think a bunch of accountants would excel at (no pun).

It’s true that becoming a CPA takes effort and dedication. A fifth year of college is generally required (to obtain the 150 credit hours required to become a CPA) even if you’re not getting a master’s degree in accounting.

Also, the CPA exam is hard. Only about 20 percent of candidates pass all four sections on the first try — a lower pass rate than the bar. But you don’t have to take all four parts at once, and the rates for passing each section are much higher, about 50 percent. As the AICPA points out on its website, “The Exam is not harder or easier to pass at different times. An increase in pass rates simply means that candidates are better prepared.”

The exam is doable if you approach it strategically, and the additional time and effort invested in becoming a CPA is worth its weight in gold.

This is your selling point? If I’d written this, I might have referenced This Way to CPA’s Why CPA? page. Under the “What’s in It For You?” section:

10-15% higher salary than regular accountants
Becoming a CPA is an investment. CPAs have the potential to boost their earnings by $1 million of their lifetime compared to a non-CPA in the same position.

I would not have referenced this from UWorld Roger CPA Review:

According to Monster Jobs, a CPA’s earnings over the course of 45 years is $3,200,000 if the starting pay is at $46,200 and the pay at 20+ years is $76,000. Such salary data was compiled by looking at the expected lifetime median earnings which were calculated for a 45-year period based on median annual pay levels for 1, 5, 10, and 20 years of experience in each position.

Yeah that’s got to be old info. It checks out though.

Thankfully those numbers have edged up in the last few years though it’s looking like the big jumps of last year are cooling off now.

Finally, here’s his pitch on salaries:

CPAs have a very strong starting salary, and comparisons can be deceiving

The idea that the pay for an accounting major coming out of college is lower compared to other finance or business careers is a bit misleading. Most college students in accounting have a job locked up by the beginning of their senior year — demand is that high. Everyone who leaves school with an accounting degree seems to get a job.

Bro at no point in that paragraph did you explain why it’s misleading, all you did was gaslight people about the accuracy of countless salary reports.

He does add:

Starting salaries in public accounting in 2023 are very good, typically exceeding $70,000. While other financial and professional fields might state similar or higher starting salaries, it’s important to note that they aren’t typically placing as high a percentage of students. It’s harder to get those jobs, and there aren’t very many of them, despite the volume of the surrounding buzz.

Like how he says “might state” as if investment banker salaries are some wildly unreliable As Seen on TV claim. Per the US Census Bureau, the median annual income for Americans in 2021 was $70,784. “Very good” is dependent on a lot of factors, for some people $70,000 is in fact very good. Let’s not kid ourselves, accounting salaries have lagged behind other fields for a very long time (see this 2022 Bloomberg Tax article “Accounting Faces Reckoning After Years of Sluggish Pay Growth“).

Now, high demand is an accurate selling point. In fact, it might be the best one the profession has. Young people may fall victim to being seduced into other career paths with the lure of better starting pay but at least some of them could be swayed into accounting by emphasizing that even in difficult economic times, accountants can find work more reliably than their classmates who went into tech or law. See also: At Least We Aren’t in Tech, Boast Smug Accountants Who Didn’t Get Laid Off Today. Sadly the layoffs came later.

In September 2009, Rick Telberg’s CPA Trendlines shared that the accounting industry added 2,300 jobs in August of that year while the broader US economy lost 216,000 jobs and unemployment hit 9.7 percent. For those not old enough to have experienced the Great Recession as an adult, that was a big deal and evidence of the profession’s resiliency even in tough times because boy were things dire back then. This is a strong selling point and one that is unique to accounting. Can lawyers say the same? No, see the “Notes From the Breadline” tag on Above the Law. Not that accounting escaped that period of time completely unscathed, comparatively speaking it hurt a lot less.

Next time go hard on the employability thing. That one’s not misleading. Talk about specific career opportunities available to accounting majors and tell stories of the people who work in and around the profession, especially those who aren’t in public because they seem to be happiest with their chosen career. That’s a better pitch than “the money isn’t that bad and the work-life balance is fine most of the time except for several months out of the year.”

The post Guy Who Works at a Firm Actually Named FML on Why Accounting Is a Great Career appeared first on Going Concern.

From Withum’s news release:

Students will be full-time apprentice-level team members at Withum, with an opportunity to work in all service lines and industries while earning credits for their curriculum-driven experience alongside university coursework to fulfill the remaining credits needed to reach the credits hour requirement to hold a CPA license. The students may also sit for the CPA exam during the program, affording them the opportunity to become licensed CPAs by the time they start their accounting career as full-time, entry-level Staff I team members at the Firm.

Five Seton Hall students will start at the firm in September and the pilot program lasts for a year. The news release includes a quote from one of them who said:

“Everyone knows how hard it is to obtain the CPA certification, and with this program, I am substantially closer to obtaining the certification. With the help of Seton Hall University and Withum, I can now continue my academic career with the people who helped me get here.”

They don’t say how much these five folks will be paid, only that they will “receive compensation during their final year of school.”

“We truly value Withum’s partnership and investment in this innovative apprenticeship model and the Seton Hall accounting talent pipeline,” said Mary Kate Naatus, Ph.D., Assistant Provost and Dean of Continuing Education and Professional Studies at Seton Hall University. “The combination of a strong curriculum with excellent faculty members with the real world ‘work for credit’ experience on-site at Withum is an exemplary model that mutually benefits the students, industry partner and the broader accounting field.”

Wow they’re really laying it on thick aren’t they.

“The war on talent remains at an all-time high in the accounting industry, the CPA Pathway Apprenticeship is a solution to expose emerging talent to the day-to-day life of an accounting professional at Withum,” reads the release. A similar collaboration between PwC and New Jersey’s St. Peter’s University was launched last year.

If you’re going to be forced to work in order to meet some arbitrary requirement that is proven not to have any positive impact on the quality of CPAs entering the profession, there are worse places than Withum to do it.

Seton Hall University and Withum Launch CPA Pathway Apprenticeship for Aspiring Accounting Students [Withum]

The post Withum’s Solution to the War on Talent Is to Throw Students Onto the Battlefield appeared first on Going Concern.

This deep dive was inspired by earlier research on student perceptions and attitudes toward accounting, especially attitudes among Black and Hispanic high school and college students [PDF of those findings here]. This quote included in that report is so important to the research it appears twice in the PDF so I’m including it here too:

The earlier research better defined the profession’s image problem and inspired the CAQ to take a deep dive into “students’ perceptions of and experiences with accounting to develop a clearer understanding of what can be done to further diversify the accounting talent pool.” So here we are at round two and this is what the CAQ found.

The research demonstrated a missed opportunity amongst a sizeable number of students, with four in ten non-accounting business undergraduate students reporting they considered accounting. Broken out by demographics, even higher rates of Black and Hispanic students say they considered accounting before choosing a different field of study. Asked about their experiences with introductory accounting courses, only 1 in 3 non-accounting majors who considered accounting said the content was interesting or engaging. Consistent with our prior research, the lukewarm reception indicates a need for increased classroom engagement on accounting across a sizeable number of students who are still in the process of deciding their major.

Other themes emerged among students who ultimately chose not to pursue accounting. Chief amongst their reasons was a lack of passion, followed by higher starting salaries for other majors and not wanting to pursue the additional academic hours necessary to become a CPA (i.e., the 150 credit hour requirement).

Let’s break down a few points by topic.

Reasons for Not Choosing Accounting as a Major

When discussing the profession’s diversity problem, the old white guys at the top almost always get some blame but as you can see below “Don’t see people like me represented in profession” is actually way down on the list of reasons why students don’t choose accounting as a major.  At the top of the list: lack of interest/passion in accounting, other majors pay better, the 150 hour rule sucks, lack of math skills (wtf), and being unable to afford 150 hours.

Shout-out to the peers who pursued accounting making sure everyone knows how miserable and full of regret they are. Keep preaching the good news, kids.

A breakout quote from a recent graduate who identifies as Black/Hispanic explains a well-known problem with accounting education:

“…it wasn’t taught to make it more engaging or make you more interested….it’s almost like they were trying to do it to see who they could eliminate…the classrooms were so big, and it was just going slide by slide almost and it was not engaging.”

Another Blow to the 150 Hour Rule

As literally everyone knows but only some are willing to compromise on, the intentional barrier to entry that is the 150 hour rule is doing too good a job of keeping people out of the profession. Too good a job.

While the research showed the 150 credit hour requirement is a barrier across the board, it is more conspicuous for Black and Hispanic nonaccounting students, and in particular those students who considered accounting but opted out, meaning that these students looked into accounting as a major but ultimately went elsewhere due to the additional credit hour requirement. These students perceive the rule as an expensive, time-consuming requirement to advance their future career. To be sure, these students see the CPA license as a valuable certification, but they don’t view it as worthwhile to pursue.

Only a quarter of those students who considered accounting said they don’t want to take the CPA exam but half said they don’t want to pursue 150 hours which suggests that allowing for a second pathway requiring just 120 hours of education like the proposal in Minnesota might successfully bolster dwindling CPA candidate numbers. In fact, the research showed that most students favorably view the CPA credential; 82 percent of accounting majors report the CPA license would be extremely valuable or very valuable for their career goals, 77 percent of accounting majors who are not planning to, or are unsure about pursuing the CPA license, also reported they see value in the credential.

Major Obstacles to Becoming a CPA

All demographics report the time required to study for the CPA exam as a top obstacle but costs of additional education and CPA exam prep rank highest among Black and Hispanic accounting majors.

Chief barriers cited by those not pursuing the CPA were the beliefs they do not need the credential, and that CPAs have a poor work/life balance. The time/cost of the 150 credit hours and low starting salaries also were noted. In the qualitative research phase amongst recent accounting graduates, the top obstacles to pursuing CPA licensure were the time required to study for the exam as well as the rigor of the exam content. Of those recent accounting graduates who reported having already attained their CPA or are planning to pursue licensure, these factors were confirmed in the quantitative phase.

However, for those recent graduates who have yet to complete the 150 credit hour requirement, the cost and time associated with obtaining the 150 hours are the biggest factors. While employers offer numerous supports to recent accounting graduates to help with attaining CPA licensure – such as structured study groups, study materials, flexible work hours, and covering exam costs – fewer respondents reported taking advantage of these benefits.

This under-utilization of resources continues, despite accounting graduates perceiving these programs and support as useful. Early career professionals reported coverage of exam costs, flexible or reduced hours to study, and structured study groups as resources most useful. For Black graduates, an employer-sponsored mentorship program is at the top of the list as the most helpful support in pursuing CPA licensure.

What is the takeaway? The profession has ample evidence that the 150 hour rule is a hindrance to all students but especially those from diverse backgrounds. The question is what is it going to do with that information? That’s less a question and more of an accusation.

Full report below:

Increasing Diversity in the Accounting Profession Pipeline: Challenges and Opportunities [CAQ and Edge Research, July 2023]

The post Research: Why Students — Particularly Diverse Ones — Aren’t Pursuing Accounting appeared first on Going Concern.

From New York State Society of CPAs:

COAP helps you explore what you can do in the accounting field. If you think accounting is just tax, think again. Plot your future as a Chief Financial Officer, forensics investigator, data analyst, software developer, entertainment and sports agent, auditor or entrepreneur.

When you apply, please note the location of the program for which you are applying. Note that program planners may arrange for transportation to their colleges or universities, but please plan for alternative transportation as backup. Be aware of the deadline and note the need for a high school guidance counselor and parental approval.

The program provides real insight into how CPAs influence the business world. The program is an important component of the New York State Society of CPAs’ (NYSSCPA) efforts to recruit an increased number of students into the accounting profession, with a particular focus on those from underrepresented groups. The Career Opportunities in the Accounting Profession (COAP) program is open to all, regardless of race, color, national origin or sex.

According to the brochure which you can find below, participants will learn professional etiquette, interviewing skills, team building, and resume writing, among other things. The events take place on college campuses across the state over one or two days. Here are this year’s dates:

COAP Programs June 26-27, 2023

Adelphi University
Garden City, New York (Two-Day Program)
June 26 – June 27

Ithaca College
Ithaca, New York (One-Day Program)
June 26

Rochester Institute of Technology
Rochester, New York (One-Day Program)
June 26

Siena College
Loudonville, New York (Two-Day Program)
June 26 – June 27

SUNY New Paltz
New Paltz, New York (Two-Day Program)
June 26 – June 27

SUNY Oswego
Oswego, New York (Two-Day Program: Day 1 – SUNY Oswego; Day 2 – Syracuse, NY)
June 26 – June 27

University at Buffalo
Buffalo, New York (Two-Day Program)
June 26 – June 27

Westchester Community College
Valhalla, New York (Two-Day Program)
June 26 – June 27

Anyone with questions can email coap@moynihanfund.org.

Here’s a brochure.

More info from University at Buffalo here.

The post Accounting Summer Camp is a Thing in New York appeared first on Going Concern.

Now it seems firms are seeing the skills gap in people who hadn’t quite reached the workforce when the world turned upside down. FT:

Deloitte and PwC are giving extra coaching to their youngest UK staff after noticing recruits whose education was disrupted by lockdowns have weaker teamwork and communication skills than previous cohorts.

Junior employees who spent part of their school or university years isolated from their peers have found it harder to adapt to the work environment, partners at the consulting firms told the Financial Times.

The recruits have less confidence doing basic tasks such as making presentations and speaking up in meetings, they said.

“This means that there is a greater need for employers to provide training on basic professional and working skills, that wasn’t necessary in prior years,” said Jackie Henry, Deloitte’s UK managing partner for people and purpose.

It makes sense. Like the military and Internet hate mobs, teams of like-minded people moving together as one well-oiled machine are what make the whole thing work. A team can make or break your Big 4 experience, you may even find yourself taking them into account before you jump ship. The classes of 2020 and 2021 did not get the same opportunities the rest of us did to work in close quarters with fellow students, a critical life lesson that forms the basis of future cubicle-hopping to get answers from superiors as an intern and later full-time hire.

Ian Elliott, PwC’s UK chief people officer, said it was “understandable that students who missed out on face-to-face activities during Covid may now be stronger in certain fields, such as working independently, and less confident in others”. Some were “less confident” presenting and talking at meetings, collaborating with colleagues and networking, he said.

Many of the younger cohort “have only had minimal or virtual work experience, with less exposure to a corporate environment”, said Henry.

Ian has talked about this group of young people before. In March, he said that PwC was “acutely aware” that lockdowns affected students in many ways. “It would be remiss for us not to look at our approaches … to make sure we … are providing the best support,” he said. At that time, the firm was considering a change in its hiring process to make it less imposing for these candidates though he didn’t elaborate much further than that. PwC utilizes a notoriously difficult recruiting labyrinth to separate the wheat from the chaff, they might have to rehaul it considerably to make sure decent candidates aren’t slipping through the cracks (and many trap doors set up along the way).

It will be interesting to see how firms handle this going forward. Will they have to change up their entire recruiting strategy? Will they bring back face-to-face interviews because everyone is bombing the personability component of video interviews? Will they just crap out a bunch of online learning modules on public speaking and call it a day? We’ll see. In the meantime, people skills are going to be the hottest skill on resumes for the foreseeable future.

The post Big 4 Firms Are Noticing a Sudden Skills Gap in New Hires appeared first on Going Concern.

There is one group particularly disrupted by the events of 2020, a group that sadly doesn’t get much attention when we talk about things the pandemic screwed up and the lasting effects of that disruption: students. According to The Times, the King’s PwC is thinking about giving those kids a break and adjusting its hiring process to accommodate them.

Accountancy firm PwC is considering revamping its recruitment and training schemes for the “lockdown cohort” of school leavers and graduates whose education was interrupted during Covid when many did not sit exams under the usual conditions.

The firm is considering tailoring its hiring process to make it less imposing for these candidates.

It has noticed that some of its latest recruits have needed extra help in their study for professional exams, having missed out on sitting formal exams for GCSEs, A-levels and other qualifications.

Ian Elliott, PwC’s chief people officer, said: “We’re acutely aware that lockdown will have impacted students in all sorts of ways. It would be remiss for us not to look at our approaches … to make sure we … are providing the best support.”

Decisions have not been made about any changes, but PwC currently uses a mix of online and face-to-face meetings and is looking at whether this is appropriate.

As you are currently reading a Yankee rag, some definitions might be in order:

• School-Leaver: a young person who is about to leave or has just left secondary school
• GCSEs: The General Certificate of Secondary Education is an academic qualification in a particular subject, taken in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland
• A-Level: The A-Level (Advanced Level) is a subject-based qualification conferred as part of the General Certificate of Education, as well as a school leaving qualification offered by the educational bodies in the United Kingdom and the educational authorities of British Crown dependencies to students completing secondary or pre-university education

PwC UK has a notoriously rigorous hiring process that includes psychometric assessments. There’s even an entire cottage industry built around helping candidates prepare for and ace these, which PwC does not endorse and instead directs candidates to its own e-learning modules. These assessments are just 11.1% of the nine-step hiring process, laid out in pretty PwC autumn hues below:

There are also the standard, incredibly lame and insanely creepy video interviews which candidates can also prepare for using PwC’s own modules.

92,000 people applied for entry-level roles at PwC UK in the first half of 2022, fighting for about 1,900 jobs. Despite the flood of applicants — which was up from 71,000 the same time the year prior — only 80% of these jobs were filled. Meaning a huge number of the 92,000 trying to get into PwC did not meet their standards, or so PwC said.

A cynical person might suggest that PwC is now rethinking the gauntlet it puts aspiring candidates through out of sheer desperation but it could be that they want to make sure they aren’t missing out on young talent just because someone does not check all the right boxes. Especially someone who has a helluva excuse for why they weren’t able to get those boxes checked in the last three years.

The post PwC UK Has a Soft Spot For Students Who Got Wrecked By the Pandemic appeared first on Going Concern.

I mention her net worth because a recent Puget Sound Business Journal article discussed Baker Tilly — along with Seattle’s Moss Adams — in an article about the difficulties firms are having recruiting young people. It is, as you would expect, full of lots of dumb ideas that don’t start with Sal and end in ary.

This is from “The new math in recruiting at accounting firms”:

When they’re not striving for the pinnacle of their sports, internationally famous mountaineer Jimmy Chin and teenage tennis phenom Coco Gauff are promoting accounting firm Baker Tilly as brand ambassadors.

The press releases drop phrases like “new horizons” and “blazing new trails” to maximize the star power in an industry typically noted for its stodginess. It’s part of a larger trend of accounting firms trying to find young talent as the industry wrestles with staffing shortages.

“Baker Tilly’s purpose is to unleash and amplify talent – to help our people discover their strengths, sharpen their skills, deepen their knowledge, explore possibilities and soar to personal heights,” said Baker Tilly CEO Alan Whitman. “Coco Gauff embodies this very spirit.” He said the same thing in regards to the partnership with Chin, just changed a few details: “Baker Tilly’s purpose is to unleash and amplify talent – to help our people discover their strengths, sharpen their skills, deepen their knowledge, explore possibilities and soar to personal heights,” he said. “Jimmy Chin knows all about soaring to personal new heights.” (he does)

Accounting firms in the Pacific Northwest are particularly challenged when it comes to standing out as employer of choice against Amazon, Microsoft, and numerous other tech outlets that pay better than firms in the Pacific Northwest do. So they’re pitching experience as the draw:

Local accounting firms pitch the breadth of experience young accountants gain working for them.

“You’re getting exposed to a lot of variety and a lot of industries,” said Kelly Nelson, Seattle managing partner for Baker Tilly. “We have access to some of the greatest minds in the Seattle landscape through who our clients are.”

Nelson acknowledges that, more so than in the past, young accountants do have the option to start their careers as in-house accountants in a specific field. She said, however, that it’s hard for young accountants to know what field is a best fit before gaining broader experience at a public accounting firm.

I’m not going to spend all day hunting down figures but I found something from 2019 that says the average entry-level Amazon salary for computer science majors is $108,000 plus bonuses, extrapolated from this r/cscareerquestions thread. Do yourself a favor, don’t look at it. We’re working on a more thorough comparison of starting salaries for compsci vs. accounting that should be ready shortly which I also recommend not reading because it is depressing. But that is where the talent is going, and not because their new employer has the coolest celebrity endorsements.

I had to scroll way too far down in the business journal piece before I found any mention of pay, which finally came after a brief mention of CPA exam perks — paid time off to take the exam at Baker Tilly, a bonus for passing the exam from Moss Adams. They also got the Seattle managing partner at Deloitte to say the firm provides bonuses and reimbursements for passing the exam if you knock it out within a certain time after hire, pretty sure it’s $5,000 within a year plus paid study materials (feel free to correct that in the comments if wrong). TL;DR: firms “are prioritizing better pay for accountants.”

There are positive signs in the industry. [University of Washington accounting department chair David] Burgstahler said firms are prioritizing better pay for accountants, and the profession is very recession-proof, making it more popular if the economy continues its current downturn.

Ugh, not this again.

I know we have been banging the salary drum hard lately but come on, celebrity endorsements!?

Here’s what Glassdoor has for average Baker Tilly US salaries. I imagine this is what potential recruits are looking up first, not “which accounting firm does Jimmy Chin think is cool?” But what do we know

The new math in recruiting at accounting firms [Puget Sound Business Journal]

The post Baker Tilly Banks on Celebrity Endorsements to Bring in Young Talent appeared first on Going Concern.

Alright, let’s see what happened.

The first mistake OP made — if we don’t count interviewing with Grant Thornton as a mistake which we should — was cancelling five interviews after HR said a job offer was on the way. You should be shopping around, especially now when competition for talent is so high. Your future in public accounting hinges on your team and firm culture, not fitting in will make your already hellish life even worse. Granted, “firm culture” is a nebulous term firms enjoy trotting out for self-congratulatory press releases but it also has a huge impact on your day-to-day. By interviewing with several firms you’ll get a feeling for the firm and figure out if you’re a good fit. Trust your gut on this, if a firm you interview with gives you a bad feeling keep looking. When you’re shopping for a new pair of shoes and don’t know exactly what you want do you grab the first pair you come across when you Google “shoes”? No, you check a few out. Unless you are a sub 1 GPA student on parole who flunked Intermediate seven times, you are in demand. There is no reason to take the first offer that comes your way.

The second mistake was counting on a verbal offer. For all you know HR was rolling on molly that day (people get crazy when they’re working from home, ya know) and thought you were the greatest candidate ever to apply to the firm, doesn’t mean they actually want to hire you. We aren’t seeing offers getting pulled en masse yet but if the economy gets any worse that’s certainly a possibility so it’s more important than ever to remember that offers can and do get pulled, especially verbal ones. Keep your options open until you’re onboarded. Hell, always keep your options open.

As you can see from the edit OP clarifies that they applied online and not on campus but the advice to bring this to the school stands. Your school is a valuable source of talent for any firm, it would behoove them not to burn bridges like they are always warning you all not to do.

Anyone have field reports on campus recruiting to share? You know what to do. Best of luck to OP, I’m sure they’ll find something even better soon.

The post Young Accountant Narrowly Misses the Tragedy of Working For Grant Thornton appeared first on Going Concern.

Financial Times wrote about Accounting+ recently which is how it got on our radar. Read:

Its website emphasises how technology and artificial intelligence has automated many old accounting tasks, opening up avenues for more creative work such as data analysis, advising on business decisions and hunting down fraud. (The site also offers quizzes and astrological advice on which type of accountant youngsters may want to become. Gemini, Libra and Aquarius are the “thinkers, communicators and doers of the zodiac” who “analyse, synthesise, and probe” and “would thrive in a forensic accounting internship program”, for example.)

The Accounting+ campaign echoes Warren Buffett in calling accounting “the language of business”.

“We believe this is a tie for students of colour, that it is the language of business and provides a pathway to entrepreneurship,” said Liz Barentzen, vice-president at the CAQ. The group believes that increasing the numbers coming into the profession depends on widening its appeal to diverse communities.

“There is a generation coming up that places a premium on a diverse and inclusive workforce, but we do not have that story to tell yet,” Barentzen said.

Perhaps we are just bitter elderly millennials (I am) to find this whatever the opposite of effective is but is this the best we can do? What Kind of Accountant Should You Be quizlets?

Anyway I guess this is what we’re doing now. Accounting may be the language of business but starting salaries tell us that accounting isn’t very fluent which is why analytics, finance, and tech are winning the competition for young talent thus far. Hey, at least there’s job security.

The post We’re Going to Solve the Accounting Pipeline Shortage With 2013 Buzzfeed Quiz Results, You Guys appeared first on Going Concern.

The workshop takes place at the Wigwam resort in Litchfield Park, Arizona October 12-14, 2022 and aims to strengthen students’ professional skills and understanding of the limitless possibilities and benefits of the career and earning the CPA credential. Participants will participate in learning sessions and panel discussions covering a wide array of topics such as developing leadership skills and the CPA exam. Participants will also have the opportunity to interact with CPA professionals who will share priceless knowledge regarding career opportunities in accounting and the value of networking. [Note: the preceding paragraph was copied directly from the AICPA hence the flowery language. We’ll give them a pass because the pipeline is a critical issue; if no one wants to be a CPA we’ll have nothing to write about]

Eligibility requirements are as follows:

• Be a declared accounting major, or have interest in joining the accounting profession
• Be a college freshman, sophomore, junior, senior, 5th year, or graduate student
• Be actively involved in campus and community activities
• Have not attended a past workshop
• Be an ethnic minority (i.e., Black or African American; Hispanic or Latino; Native American; or Asian, etc.)
• Be a U.S. citizen or Permanent Resident (green card holder)
• Be a Student Affiliate Member of the AICPA
• Be able to provide the name and email address of two references who have agreed to provide a recommendation on your behalf. The reference must be from a faculty member.

Link to apply here. Current CPAs are not eligible to attend this event. Questions can be directed to diversity@aicpa.org.

For tons more scholarship opportunities, visit the This Way to CPA to search national scholarships.

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When you really think about it, there’s a strong parallel between the imaginary drug pushers of ’80s anti-drug PSAs and the world’s largest accounting trade organization. Both want to get kids started young. And while the AICPA isn’t giving out drugs (neither were the non-existent creeps lurking in the bushes outside of elementary schools we were warned about TBH), they are giving out a ton of scholarships which frees up your own money for drugs. Then you have your accounting program professors telling you about how cool Big 4 life is and how you’ll end up a big fat loser if you don’t go there, much like the schoolyard bullies of ’80s PSAs threatening to nuke your social life if you don’t take a little puff of their dirt weed.

Oh, and the peer pressure! One of the tenets of D.A.R.E. is learning how to resist peer pressure; coincidentally, peer pressure happens to be one of the tenets of Big 4 firms, what with low-level grunts pressuring each other to eat hours, stay late, skip family functions, and definitely don’t leave the firm during busy season you big chicken BAWK BAWK. If anyone ever suggests you’re a chicken for washing out of a Big 4 firm, tell them you’re not a chicken, they’re a turkey. You know what … don’t do that. That’s the dumbest shit I’ve ever heard. What a dork. I can’t believe that guy wanted to waste his weed on a dork like that.

AND THEN when you finish up your degree and start your career in public accounting, people will offer you actual drugs to help you manage the long hours. Granted these people are usually doctors and the drugs are prescription stimulants.

Look, we’re not saying no one should pursue accounting. But we’re not saying no one should do drugs either. Honestly I don’t know what we’re saying, really I just wanted an excuse to post this radical 1987 relic and remind the kids to JUST SAY NO.

Oh and for any fellow olds nostalgic for the classic “this is your brain on drugs” eggs, here you go. And remember, in most cases providing CPA services to legal marijuana clients is not considered an act discreditable. Suck on that, McGruff.

The post If the AICPA Offers You a Career In Accounting, Just Say No appeared first on Going Concern.

So who has the edge in tonight’s match-up? You could say Kansas because they are a No. 1 seed, had more regular season wins than the Tar Heels, and won their conference (UNC didn’t). However, North Carolina is on a high after beating Duke and could carry that momentum into tonight’s game. But forget about their records. Forget about which teams they beat to get to the championship game. And forget about which team was seeded lower than the other. The team who has the edge in tonight’s game is the one with … the most players majoring in accounting.

But after scanning both teams’ rosters this morning, there are a grand total of zero players on both Kansas and North Carolina who are majoring in accounting. OK, how about finance or even business? You know the tall forward with the longish hair and bushy beard on the Tar Heels, Brady Manek? He was a graduate student transfer this season. Manek was a four-year starter at the University of Oklahoma and graduated with a degree in business administration/management. So that’s one for North Carolina? Does it even count because Manek didn’t get his bachelor’s degree from the University of North Carolina?

It doesn’t even matter. Kansas has two players—guard Michael Jankovich and forward Dillon Wilhite—who are majoring in finance, while guard Charlie McCarthy is a business major with an emphasis in finance.

Edge: Jayhawks. Who do you got winning tonight’s game?

The post Team With No Accounting Majors Takes On Another Team With No Accounting Majors For Men’s College Basketball Supremacy appeared first on Going Concern.

They include:

• AICPA Foundation Scholarship for Future CPAs $3,000 – $10,000
• AICPA Scholarship Award for Minority Accounting Students $3,000 – $10,000
• AWSCPA Scholarship Award $5,000
• AICPA John L. Carey Scholarship Award $5,000
• AICPA Foundation Two-year Transfer Scholarship Award $5,000

Each scholarship has its own requirements but if you qualify for more than one you don’t need to apply twice, you’ll be considered for any scholarships you qualify for as long as you apply to one. One requirement all Legacy Scholars program scholarships have in common is that you have to be a Student Affiliate Member of the AICPA to qualify. If you aren’t already a member, you can apply here (it’s free, don’t worry).

“What is the Legacy Scholars program?” I hear you not asking. Glad you didn’t ask! The AICPA Legacy Scholars program is designed to help students of different backgrounds become CPAs by assisting with the cost of their college education. The program also provides scholars with educational and professional development opportunities throughout the year. (I stole that passage straight from This Way to CPA. Sorry, guys, I didn’t feel like paraphrasing) The AICPA Foundation awards more than $1 million a year to hundreds of students, and with inflation at 6.2% you should absolutely try to get any part of that cool million you might be qualified for (the average award is $5,000 according to the AICPA).

If none of the above scholarships tickle your fancy, you can also do a national scholarship search on the This Way to CPA site to see if there’s one (or more!) right for you. Several scholarships listed on that page have closed for applications; however, The Accounting Doctoral Scholars Program opens for applications on March 1, and the 2022 AICPA Foundation William (Bill) Ezzell Scholarship — which awards $10,000 to five recipients — is open until March. There are several pages to scroll through with all kinds of state scholarships as well so click on through and see if there are any you qualify for. Hey, it’s free money for school! If you qualify, that is.

If you have any questions that aren’t answered by This Way to CPA resources, reach out to the nearest adult accounting program faculty at your school and they should be able to guide you. Now go get that money!

AICPA scholarships can support your accounting education [AICPA]
AICPA Legacy Scholarships [This Way to CPA]

Photo by Alexander Mils from Pexels

The post ICYMI: The AICPA Legacy Scholarship Application Period Is Open Until March 1 (IOW Free Money For School) appeared first on Going Concern.

In a press release, CPA Canada threw some applause [and then everyone clapped?] at successful writers:

Chartered Professional Accountants of Canada (CPA Canada) applauds the 5,912 individuals who successfully passed the September sitting of the profession’s Common Final Examination (CFE).

“The achievement for these dedicated individuals represents an important milestone on their way to becoming a member of our profession,” says Charles-Antoine St-Jean, CPA Canada’s president and CEO. “The commitment displayed in studying and writing against the backdrop of a pandemic gives us glimpse of the next generation of CPAs: strong, focused and unshakeable under pressure.”

So dramatic. But nice of them to acknowledge how rigorous and stressful pursuing professional licensure can be. More important than recognition and virtual applause, however, is that top CFE performers also get CASH. Deloitte earns some bragging rights as well for cranking out two of the four recognized writers.

Following each CFE, the profession recognizes the CFE writers who achieved the highest standings on the exam. Chloé Bourgault-Bourassa, from Vérificateur général du Québec in Quebec City, is the recipient of the September 2021 Governor General’s Gold Medal Award as the September 2021 CFE’s top writer. In addition to the award, she also receives a cash prize of $5,000 [$3,947.50 in Freedom Bucks].

Regional gold medals that came with a $2,500 [$1,973.76 U.S.] cheque were awarded to three other students who topped the ranks of CFE writers in their part of the country. They were:

• Western Canada – Sarah Wang, Deloitte LLP, Vancouver, British Columbia
• Ontario – André Caissie, Deloitte LLP, Ottawa
• Atlantic Canada – Stacey Bailey, Morgan & Associates, , St. John’s, Newfoundland and Labrador

There is no such monetary reward for winning the Elijah Watt Sells Award — given to top performers on the CPA exam with a cumulative average score above 95.50 across all four sections — though some firms do give a bonus. A certain Big 4 firm used to offer a generous bonus but last we heard no longer does.

Since September 2020, CFE writers have been taking their exams in individual hotel rooms due to coronavirus as cramming 1,200 people into a gymnasium in the middle of a pandemic didn’t seem like a good idea to CPA Canada. While many professional examinations have gone virtual, administrators of the CFE did not feel online testing would allow the necessary monitoring. Instead, they rent something like 10,000 hotel rooms into which they cram aspiring CPAs while proctors prowl the hallways. The exam is offered twice a year in May and September, though May 2020’s CFE was cancelled due to … well, you know.

Congrats to the successful writers, and to those who missed the mark this time around, better luck next time.

CPA Canada congratulates 5,912 successful CFE writers [Cision]

The post CPA Canada Congratulates 5,912 CFE Passers and Throws Some Cash at Top Performers appeared first on Going Concern.

Where you go after graduation is no longer as clear as it was for the class of 1990; today’s grads are expected to enter the profession with a greater understanding of the work versus those who came before that mostly learned on the job. The CPA Evolution Model Curriculum aims to solve this problem, and in the meantime, recent and soon-to-be accounting graduates should be aware of the single, highly-desired skill that will set them apart in the marketplace: critical thinking.

There was an interesting article in the AICPA’s Extra Credit newsletter the other week that may have flown under your radar if you aren’t an accounting educator since that’s who this was written for. So let’s read it together and see what we can learn.

Today’s accounting graduates will enter a very different profession than those who began their careers 20 or even 10 years ago. In many cases, employers will demand more from them. They’ll be tasked with learning new technologies at a more rapid pace, dealing with larger datasets, and solving more complex problems earlier on in their careers than their predecessors did.

See? Further evidence the profession is changing. Just the fact that this is being discussed and that an entire task force exists to address it should be proof enough, as we know the profession to be traditionally reactive rather than proactive. The profession’s eagerness to head this issue off at the pass rather than wait and see how it turns out signals an uncharacteristic willingness to adapt that is no doubt driven by the urgency of said issue.

New accounting hires today “start at a higher level” than those of a decade ago, said Mark Rocca, CPA, an audit partner at EY’s Boston office, speaking at the 2021 AAA Annual Meeting. “Audits of the past were more procedural and task-focused,” he observed. “Today, using data, analytical tools, and technology, in many cases we can look at all transactions from a company. We are asking our people to do more thoughtful and insightful analysis than I had to do when I started 18 years ago.”

That, he acknowledged, places “more pressure” on new graduates. “They’re a much more important part of the thought leadership of their teams than when I started out,” he said. “We throw all this data at them. It can be overwhelming.”

Shout-out to Mark for co-signing the claim I made three paragraphs ago. You’re appreciated, Mark.

So first, a little good news for you rabble-rousers out there. In today’s workplace, unquestioning allegiance to authority may actually be a detriment in the evolving firm environment.

The same mindset that can earn a diligent student high grades — obediently following directions, pleasing authorities, and not asking too many questions — can cause a graduate to struggle in a workplace where critical thinking is valued. To succeed in the accounting profession today, practitioners said in several panel sessions at the Annual Meeting, new hires need to acquire a different set of skills.

What skills, you asked? Here’s the shortlist:

• Curiosity and a willingness to ask questions
• The ability to know when they need more information to solve a problem
• The ability to acquire the information they need
• Comfort with ambiguity
• Digital flexibility

On the surface, most of these boil down to “know how to Google” but it’s obviously more complicated than that. And it’s difficult to teach these skills, especially in an industry that attracts people who thrive in an environment jam-packed with rules and guidance and more rules. We might wonder if firms’ burning desire for this particular skill set might be behind the trend of non-accounting graduates making up 31% of new hires (up from 20% two years prior). Accounting graduates who can bring this kind of out-of-the-box thinking to their early years at the firm will surely have a leg up on their classmates who shine in rigid, rule-based environments but fall short in the abstract.

Critical thinkers, now is your moment. Stop wasting those skills on picking apart strawman arguments in Reddit threads and go make a difference in the world. Or something.

The abilities employers seek from accounting graduates [AICPA]

Photo by Ivan Bertolazzi from Pexels

The post The Bar Has Been Raised For New Hires and There’s One Skill In Particular Firms Are Looking For appeared first on Going Concern.

The second-year accounting student and the first sophomore head drum major at Ohio State University since 2010 was hyped to run out onto the field at Ohio Stadium on Saturday before the No. 4-ranked Buckeyes took on the No. 12-ranked Oregon Ducks in the first football game at the stadium with fans in attendance since 2019.

Bowman told the Newark Advocate in June about his excitement for the Buckeyes’ first home football game on Sept. 11:

“I can only hope and pray it will be a full stadium,” said Bowman, also a four-sport athlete at Lakewood [High School], joining Josh Halter (2008-09) and Kyle West (2012-13) as Lancer OSU drum majors. “But whatever it is, 100 percent full, 75 percent, 50 percent, it will be crazy,” he said. “It will be great. Running down that ramp for the first time, on game day, I can’t fathom what it will be like, but I know I will have some great bandmates, friends and family right there with me.”

With his bandmates waiting in the endzone, it was Bowman’s time to shine in front of a full stadium of fans, just as he had hoped. He would sprint out of a tunnel in the north end of the stadium to lead the OSU band onto the field.

And then this happened:

https://twitter.com/AdamJardy/status/1436722232781381632

Bowman told the Columbus Dispatch:

“It was like you were going down the stairs, but it’s dark and you don’t know where the bottom step is and you want to keep going down more steps but there’s level ground there,” Bowman said. “That’s basically what happened, and I just lost my balance and kept flying forward.”

Other than some bloody knuckles, Bowman was fine and his routine after the faceplant went flawlessly.

But Bowman’s tumble out of the gate may have been a bad omen for the Buckeyes. OSU lost to the Ducks 35-28.

The good news is Bowman probably has a bright future at a Big 4 firm. They love accounting students who fall head over heels for them.

The post Accounting Student’s Faceplant Was a Sign of Things to Come For Ohio State appeared first on Going Concern.

The average starting salary for accounting undergrads this year is projected to be $58,508, up from $52,734 in 2020. That 10.9% increase is quite the jump over last year, when the average starting salary was expected to increase by only 0.4% for the class of 2020.

And here’s some more good news for accounting grads: Accounting is the major most in demand at the bachelor’s degree level among the 139 employers surveyed, according to the NACE:

And we’d be remiss not to mention the average starting salary for MBA grads since we wrote about MBA-holders’ estimated lifetime earnings yesterday. According to the NACE, class of 2021 master’s degree graduates in business have projected average salaries that will closely resemble those of their class of 2020 counterparts:

[T]heir average overall salary projection ($75,461) is approximately 1% higher than last year’s projection ($75,197). However, specific M.B.A. graduates will fare better, with an average salary projection of $87,966, which is up 11.3% from last year’s average of $79,043. This large bump in their average salary projection may be due to the reported salary projections by finance, insurance, and real estate employers that average $95,000. M.B.A. graduates are also second on the list of top majors in demand at the master’s degree level.

Accounting is also among the top 10 in-demand majors at the master’s degree level:

So … more than 58 grand a year after college. Even though it was a big increase over last year’s salary projection, it seems like it should be much more, given that seven years ago the NACE projected the annual starting salary for accounting grads to be $52,900. Hopefully accounting grads in the classes of 2022 or 2023 will be the beneficiaries of starting salaries that at least eclipse 60 grand.

Related article:

Number of the Day: $5.7 Million

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But as one class departs, another one will begin. And behind those college freshmen are high-schoolers who dream of capital market servitude and will start looking at and visiting colleges and universities that will help them achieve that dream—and make a decent living.

That decent living part is pretty important to most, if not all, people, so here’s an interesting report from the website Best Accounting Software on the best colleges for accountants based on earnings potential.

Best Accounting Software used the U.S. Department of Education’s College Scorecard tool to figure out all of the colleges that offer bachelor’s degrees in accounting, then rated the colleges based on the median total debt students have, the monthly loan repayments students can expect, the college’s graduation rate, and how the average salary accounting students will receive after graduation compares to the state’s average salary for accountants.

Here are the top 10 colleges ranked by highest median earnings:

The report also notes that students who graduate from colleges in the District of Columbia have another advantage:

When it comes to average graduating salaries for accounting students and the annual mean wage for experienced accountants, the District of Columbia comes out on top for both.

Students graduating from colleges in the District of Columbia can expect to earn the highest graduating salaries with a state average starting salary of $55,700. Plus, they’ll enjoy the highest annual salary as their career progresses thanks to an annual mean wage for all accountants of $103,930. This means DC graduates could see their earnings almost doubling throughout their careers.

All told, Best Accounting Software ranked the median earnings of 598 colleges that offer bachelor of accounting degrees. You can find the entire list here.

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Not kidding

I’m not exaggerating—at least 15% to 20% of the people who were in our class dropped it halfway through the semester. Hardly anyone, including me, could even pass the quizzes let alone part one of the two-part midterm. The only thing that kept me going (I think) was that I had a buddy who was also struggling pretty badly. The two of us had been studying together and I think there was an unspoken plan to do our best or fail trying.

Read the chapter

One thing that our professor kept hammering into our heads was that we really needed to read the chapter of our textbooks where the lessons were focused. As far back as I can remember, I rarely did this in any class. I was a “pay attention, take notes, and work the practice problems” kind of person.

That had to change

After bombing our first midterm in early March, the idea that I needed to change something finally sunk in. Plus, the professor really did keep telling us to read the chapter, especially during office hours whenever we went to beg him for the secret to at least a “C.”

Next wave was coming

There were about two weeks until the second midterm. Scratch that, more like a week and a half to account for a few days to recover from the first one. My classmate and I figured it couldn’t hurt to block out two or three hours to finally read the chapters it covered.

For me at least, this was more challenging than it looked. Because I have one of those squirrel brains, I also had to put in ear buds with the best motivational speeches I could find to avoid zoning out after reading two sentences. It worked well enough and I managed to read through all the material, although it didn’t seem like I absorbed much.

It wasn’t looking great

We also did the standard practice problems, practice test, and reviewed notes from class during the next few days. When the exam rolled around, I felt about the same as I had for any of the other ones. The clock started and I was stuck pretty early on problem No. 1.

Then I was stuck on problems 2, 3, and 4. Not good. But something happened later on in the test. Toward one of the last problems (after skipping a bunch) I actually got an answer that was correct. Then another one and another after that.

The tide was turning

Pretty soon, I was jumping back to the first questions that seemed impossible and others I’d skipped. It was like I took some magic accounting pill before the test and it was just kicking in. I was OK with that. A few days later, our scores came back. *Dun dun dun*

A lot of people still bombed it, unfortunately, but mine came back a 95%. It was a bit of a step up from the 30%-ish I got on the last one.

It’s tough to say if the reading made a difference, but doing the same thing for the rest of the semester pulled me up from a D- to a B+ by the end. It also worked for the guy I was studying with.

According to Paul Reber, a professor of psychology at Northwestern University, the human brain’s memory capacity is practically limitless. It does have a limit, but it’s close to something like a million gigabytes of space. That makes me think that even though I can’t remember it now, all the content from that managerial accounting book is probably still somewhere in my head to this day.

I know it was just my experience, so take it for what it’s worth. But you might see a better score if you just read the chapter!

About the author: 

Bob Buckley is a 2021 CPA exam candidate who likes writing about business in his spare time.

Related article:

Why Pretty Much Everybody Should Major In Accounting

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I grew up at Deloitte, the same as Joe Ucuzoglu. Joe is the CEO of Deloitte and we worked together. Months ago, I started noticing Joe posting equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) articles on LinkedIn. Joe is one of the smartest CPAs I know.

What I find interesting is that Deloitte, while preaching EDI, has not recruited from our campus in decades. PwC and EY have also not recruited from our campus or maintained a presence on our campus. Our campus is one of the largest HSIs in our state. We have more students of diversity than any other in the state. This spring, partners from the local Deloitte office showed up and ostensibly started to take an interest in our students. I thought that was a great development. But I’m also an auditor and know when I and my fellow faculty members are being glad-handed.

To understand what I am about to say, we have to go back to the mid-to-late 1990s. It was then that the recruiting strategy of the Big 4 (Big 6 at that time) changed. Prior to the 1990s, most Big 6 firms recruited from almost all colleges within their state. They would have alumni of those colleges attend Beta Alpha Psi meetings and get to know and recruit top students. Then in the mid-to-late ’90s, the Big 4 changed their strategy to target top schools like the University of Texas-Austin, University of Southern California, University of Chicago, etc. They largely gave up on local colleges. I know because I recruited from those top schools when I was in the Big 4.

Ask yourself, how can you preach EDI and only recruit from schools where the tuition is over $300,000 for an undergraduate education? The significant majority of students who attend those colleges are from families that do not need EDI programs. Most of those families pay in cash.

The auditor in me started to become skeptical. Is this EDI initiative from Deloitte and the other Big 4 firms real or is it just corporate bullshit that they have to do to check a box mandated from the leadership of their firms to appear competitive among the Big 4? I believe it is the latter.

I sent résumés of my top students to the partners from the local Big 4 offices and I started hearing from students that they were being “ghosted.” I am old enough not to know what the hell that meant, so after I looked it up, my suspicions were confirmed. I believe that the Big 4 are seeking out HSIs to glad-hand and appear to be good corporate citizens while in reality, they are making offers to students at the same top accounting institutions and ghosting students at HSIs.

My favorite example is that when Deloitte did not follow up with one of my students, who I personally recommended, I complained to the audit partner, and that same day, the recruiter reached out to my student and made excuses that did not pan out. In other words, they lied to me.

So, for students who are at HSIs, here are questions to ask recruiters and partners of the Big 4 who interview you:

• What have you done personally to support EDI apart from your job as a CPA, apart from your role in the firm?
• Can you give examples of EDI initiatives your firm engaged in before it became in vogue?
• Are your firm’s EDI initiatives done for corporate purposes or are they socially motivated? Ask them from the perspective of professional skepticism as though you were already an auditor. In other words, ask for sufficient appropriate evidence for what they say.
• Ask for specific articulable examples of their EDI achievements and Google when they began talking about EDI. Was it when their competitors started talking about EDI? If it does not add up, walk away. Find local and regional firms.

Finally, I will say to my former colleague, Mr. Ucuzoglu, and the CEOs of the other Big 4 firms, either have your partners and recruiters be sincere in EDI initiatives or leave my students the hell alone and stop fucking glad-handing me and my fellow faculty just to check a box off on fulfilling EDI goals for your annual evaluations. Otherwise, to quote the Bard, “Thou art the son and heir of a mongrel bitch.”

Anonymous university accounting professor

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Recruiting season is anxiety-inducing enough in the most normal of times: making small talk, promoting yourself without coming off as self-absorbed, and let’s not even get into worrying about your lunch lingering in your teeth. As Covid drove the working world indoors and into their respective home offices, it also meant that in-person recruiting events were just one more thing instantly vaporized by the virus. For the time being, anyway.

Here’s the good news: it may be the strangest recruiting season in history (and might stay that way depending on how things shake out in the next year or so) but many of the same tips for mastering Meet the Firms that have been around for ages are still relevant. Whether you’re totally new to recruiting or back in the mix with a recruiting season under your belt, here’s how to make the most of this, the weirdest virtual recruiting season ever.

Make Some Space

First thing’s first. It goes without saying but the first thing you want to do is ensure you have an appropriate space for virtual meetings. Ideally, this is a quiet, private, well-lit space free from clutter. As 2020 has taught us, we don’t always live in an ideal world. As you’re probably a college student, we’re just going to go ahead and assume you don’t have a private study in which to conduct your video conferences like those guys constantly doing interviews from in front of their expansive bookcases for news programs. Don’t worry, they hand those out when you make partner.

In the meantime, make the most of whatever space you have, even if it’s just a corner of your room. Your anime posters and Funko Pop collection may be a source of pride to you but try to keep your video conference space as uncluttered — and professional! — as possible. In a pinch, you can always throw a sheet up behind you (plain and washed, obvs) to create a blank canvas.

Just before your event, get everything set up so you’re not surprised by those obnoxious spontaneous Windows updates with the mandatory reboots that always seem to pop up at the most inconvenient of times. Test your video and microphone, close out any excess tabs and apps you may have open in the background, and turn off notifications so you aren’t dinging the entire time you’re trying to talk to recruiters.

Alright, so your space is all set. Now what? Let’s talk attire.

The Clothes Make the Man (or Woman)

From the dawn of time until now, recruiting events have always been conservative. Although most of us have been living in sweatpants and T-shirts for far too many months, you are still expected to don your best business attire for virtual recruiting. If you don’t know what counts as business attire, find your nearest adult and ask. And yes, you should wear pants even though no one is going to see your bottom half. Keep the accessories to a minimum, stick with muted colors, and do your best to not look like a person who has been locked inside without human contact since spring. That quarantine beard? Get rid of it, or at least give it a very neat trim.

You’re going to get a little more leeway with grooming than you would under regular conditions but there’s still no reason to look like the wild-haired guy that hangs out downtown with a ‘The End is Nigh’ sign just because you haven’t been able to get a haircut in a few months.

Alright, so your video conference space is clean and you brushed your hair, what next?

Back to Basics

First, review these tips on networking for CPAs. Although some may not apply (you won’t be physically handing out business cards any time soon), still others like drafting and perfecting your virtual elevator pitch will always be a good idea.

Many schools are using Handshake to help connect their students to employers, think of it as LinkedIn for students. The big benefit to you if your school is one of the many requiring Handshake registration prior to attending virtual events is that attending employers are all listed, giving you a chance to research before your event. This is important as you might be asked “why do you want to work for our firm?” and “I’m sick of living off ramen and I heard you guys give new hires the best phones” isn’t generally considered an appropriate answer.

Take the time to familiarize yourself with the firms attending your recruiting event and once you’ve identified your top targets, go find out what you can about their clients, leadership, and other positive newsworthy things the firm is up to. No one is expecting you to be able to recite the firm’s entire history, but you should at least be able to make small talk about what sets that firm apart from others.

One bright side to virtual recruiting is that it may be easier to get one-on-one time as all campus virtual recruiting events we’ve seen are offering both group and 1:1 sessions. So no longer do you have to claw your way through a crowd of hungry classmates to get five minutes with your firm of choice, neat! And those of you with weak handshakes or perpetually sweaty palms are making out like bandits here too, no one will ever know about that limp wrist of yours. See, there had to be something good to come from all this.

Connecting with recruiters is an area many accounting students struggle with so don’t feel bad if the idea of small talk fills you with existential dread as you’re definitely not alone. Many of the people you’ll talk to at recruiting events were once in your shoes, so let them lead if you get tongue-tied and have questions in mind to ask.

If you’re having trouble coming up with questions on your own, here are some suggestions to get you started from Jared Bleiler, Sales Director, University at Becker CPA Review:

• 1. What skills are you looking for in an intern/new hire?
• 2. What are the expectations of an intern/new hire?
• 3. What do you like about working at your company?
• 4. What is the company culture like?
• 5. What learning and development opportunities does your company provide?

Professional communication takes practice and very few people are naturally good at it, let the fact that your classmates are equally as nervous as you be a comfort. Don’t overthink it, you’d be surprised how far a genuine smile will get you. Being prepared ahead of time will help, of course.

At the end of the day, it’s important to keep in mind that recruiting events are as much an audition for you as they are for the firm. Both sides are trying to figure out if it’s a good fit. While it may feel like all the pressure is on you to make a good impression, remember the firm wants to make a good impression on you as well. And why wouldn’t they, you’re awesome!

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The post How to Absolutely Kill It at Virtual Recruiting and Interviews appeared first on Going Concern.

According to a report in The Korea Times, the Big 4 firms on that side of the world — Samil PwC, Samjong KPMG, EY Hanyoung and Deloitte Anjin — are hiring far fewer CPAs this year:

The four were able to offer jobs to all 1,009 new CPAs last year, when they collectively posted nearly 2 trillion won ($1.7 billion) in sales due to growing demand for external audits and consulting. Their 38 executives also earned annual salaries of over 500 million won each that year.

This year, the four firms plan to hire around 770 new CPAs of a total 1,100.

Samjong [KPMG], which hired 380 last year, recently recruited 267 new CPAs. Samil [PwC] decided to reduce the number of CPAs to hire to 220 this year from 279 last year, citing its digitization. Anjin [Deloitte] and Hanyoung [EY] each plan to hire less than 200.

Two suspects are to blame for reduced demand for new CPAs, one old and one new: increased automation in this sector (a.k.a. the robots that are coming for your job) and COVID-19’s impact on firm bottom lines and demand from clients for professional services. As we’ve learned this year, there’s literally nothing you can do about the ‘rona and its innumerable and far-reaching effects however you can at least prepare yourself for the robot takeover by keeping your tech skills sharp. And even then the ‘rona might still win out when it comes to finding a job (or basically everything but let’s not go there).

The news of Big 4 job shortages in Korea has led the Korean Institute of Certified Public Accountants to call on its licensing body to reduce the number of new CPAs. The Financial Services Commission (FSC) is considering doing just that, reducing the number of new CPAs in 2022 to 1,050, down from 1,100 this year. Just for comparison’s sake, there were 23,941 newly-licensed CPAs in the United States in 2018, according to the most recent available AICPA data.

The post Talent Crunch: There Are Far More CPAs in Korea Than Big 4 Firms Have Jobs appeared first on Going Concern.

My experience

To clarify, I didn’t struggle in accounting classes and then throw in the towel because of that. I actually struggled about the same amount as friends of mine who went to midsize or Big 4 firms. A lot of them have been successful and earned their CPA license since we graduated in June 2017. The main reason was that I worked in two internships during college—one was sales and marketing for a startup, and the other was in accounting with a large company.

Performance

In a nutshell, I did well in the sales job and had a lot of trouble getting my head around simple tasks in the accounting one. There were definitely some external factors at play, but I still don’t think I would have made it six months in public or corporate accounting if I’d done that right out of school. The other thing was that I did want to try a full-time sales gig and figured it would always be easier to transition from sales into an accounting job rather than accounting to sales.

The language of business

Anybody who has ever majored in business has probably at some point heard how “accounting is the language of business.” Well, it’s true. More accurately, accounting is the language of any entity that deals with money or other mediums of exchange. Understanding the basics of accounting is key to fully understanding how a place of work functions. Chances are if you don’t completely understand the place where you’re employed, that might reflect negatively on your reputation (eventually).

Job security

As a retired partner (also my tax professor) once said, “Bad economy or good economy, everybody still needs accountants.” I know there’s lots of outsourcing happening and some jobs are being cut because of the pandemic, but most people who work for firms or do any kind of complex accounting work are probably safe. At least the non-bottom 10% are safe.

Entrepreneurship

I’m pretty sure CLA’s website used to say “we want the entrepreneurs” in their career section or something like that. Not what I’m talking about. For some reason, it seemed like the second I cracked open my first accounting textbook sophomore year, I’ve since been seeing business opportunities everywhere. That was, like, six years ago and it hasn’t stopped.

Projects

This is where you’ll think I’m fully insane. I swear on my 2017 copy of Becker’s FAR that whenever I need to get over a hurdle with one of my business-attempt projects, I read a couple pages out of one of the CPA books. I’m literally studying for the exam (an outdated version of it at least) because it’s helping me get closer to making money online at some point. Almost every major design or tech milestone I’ve cleared with building my main project always seems to come after I rip through 30 pages and a few practice problems (so far with FAR). I genuinely don’t think I’d be filing a patent soon if it wasn’t for reading these $10 books off Amazon.

How will it affect you?

Even though everybody’s different, it still wouldn’t hurt to study accounting. If you don’t have a plan and no major really sticks out in school, it’s like, what’s the worst that could happen? You could major in one of those ones where no real jobs exist, that’s what.

I get that there probably aren’t many undecided college students reading Going Concern. Fine. Please send this to your 19-year-old cousin who’s still scared of accounting from that time they saw you on April 16.

About the author:

Bob Buckley is an account executive with a major legal book publisher. He’s been getting into writing and blogging more to stay sane during the quarantine.

The post Why Pretty Much Everybody Should Major In Accounting appeared first on Going Concern.

The AICPA announced this week a new AICPA Foundation scholarship to benefit accounting students who “experienced extenuating circumstances such as job loss, internship loss, etc. due to COVID-19.” The AICPA COVID-19 Student Hardship Grant will provide up to $2,000 for 25 qualified students who complete an application before Aug. 31, 2020.

The full list of requirements and necessary documents, along with the application, can be found at This Way to CPA but the gist of it is:

• Current accounting student who is not currently a CPA but plans to pursue licensure.
• Not a current AICPA Legacy Scholar or AICPA Foundation CPA Exam Scholarship recipient.
• Have personally experienced hardship due to COVID-19 and need some help with school expenses.

There are a few more, including a minimum GPA requirement of at least 3.0, so head over to This Way to CPA to see the full list. As with other AICPA Foundation scholarships, you’ll also have to submit a personal statement, transcripts, and in this case supporting documents if your hardship came in the form of employment or internship termination.

Applications are being accepted until the end of the August so get working on that 1,000-word essay on why Rona is the worst and how you can use $2,000 to continue your educational goals while the world is crumbling down before us.

The post Attention Accounting Students, the AICPA Is Giving Away Money Because COVID-19 Was Such a PITA appeared first on Going Concern.

The Wall Street Journal reported over the weekend that three of the Big 4 have confirmed that yes, seniors, your existing offers still stand [paywall]:

Major accounting and consulting firms together hire tens of thousands of newly minted graduates every year through a fall recruiting process that can make many seniors’ spring semester a worry-free one. Company spokespeople for Ernst & Young, Accenture PLC, PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP and KPMG LLP confirmed that the employers plan to honor offer letters already extended to graduating seniors for 2020.

The WSJ doesn’t have a ton of details so we’re not sure if “seniors” means strictly actual seniors or includes graduate program students with offers as well. We’ll see if we can get some clarification on that. Additionally, you’ll notice Deloitte missing from that list; we’ve reached out to them to see if they’ll jump on the bandwagon regarding new hire offers.

We did manage to scrape up a discussion on Fishbowl including comment from someone at Deloitte, so take that for what it’s worth until we get more official information.

Even without the reassurance from our favorite assurance firms, it has always been a pretty safe bet to assume that new hire offers were safe at least for the foreseeable future. We can’t picture a scenario in which firms would risk their hard-earned relationships with the schools they recruit from, unless things go full-on Fallout in which case you’re going to be worrying more about feral ghouls than tie-outs. Fun!

The post Three Out of Four Big 4 Firms Have Pledged to Honor New Hire Offers For 2020 Grads appeared first on Going Concern.

This year, they have more than $650,000 in total scholarships available with an open application period to March 1, 2020. According to an AICPA press release, “these scholarships provide support to students with a variety of backgrounds, including liberal arts majors pursuing a graduate degree in accounting, minority and female scholars or those transferring from a two-year to a four-year institution.”

$10,000
AICPA/Robert Half Student Scholarship Award
This scholarship award, provided by the AICPA and Robert Half, grants financial assistance to outstanding full-time undergraduate or graduate-level accounting students who demonstrate potential to become leaders in the CPA profession. Applicants must have a GPA of at least 3.0 (on a 4.0 scale) and be a U.S. citizen or permanent resident.

$5,000
AWSCPA Scholarship Award
This award provides financial assistance to outstanding female students majoring in accounting or an accounting-related field. The AICPA Foundation, the AICPA’s Women’s Initiatives Executive Committee, and its AWSCPA task force sponsor the AWSCPA Scholarship Award to support the success of women in the accounting profession.

$5,000
AICPA Foundation Scholarship for Future CPAs
This scholarship award provides financial assistance to undergraduate or graduate degree students interested in pursuing the CPA license after graduation. Recipients will be considered based on their overall potential and commitment to becoming licensed CPA professionals after graduation. Applicants must be enrolled as a full-time student and be a U.S. citizen or permanent resident.

$5,000
AICPA John L. Carey Scholarship Award
This scholarship award provides financial assistance to liberal arts and non-business undergraduate degree holders who are pursuing both graduate studies in accounting and CPA licensure. Applicants must be enrolled as a full-time graduate student and be a U.S. citizen or permanent resident.

$3,000 – $5,000
AICPA Scholarship Award for Minority Accounting Students
This scholarship award provides financial awards to full-time minority students pursuing an undergraduate or graduate degree in accounting or an accounting-related major. Applicants must have a GPA of at least a 3.0 (on a 4.0 scale) and be a U.S. citizen or permanent resident.

$5,000
AICPA Foundation Two-year Transfer Scholarship Award
This scholarship award is available to students looking to transfer from a two-year college to a four-year institution to complete their degree in accounting or an accounting-related field. Applicants must have a GPA of at least 3.0 (on a 4.0 scale) and be a U.S. citizen or permanent resident.

As always, even if you don’t qualify for any of the above, you can do a national scholarship search to see if there’s one out there that’s a better fit.

For more information and/or to apply, get thee to This Way to CPA. And good luck!

The post The AICPA Is (Still) Giving Out Free Money For Education, Here’s How to Get Yours appeared first on Going Concern.

According to the AICPA, “attendees will participate in learning sessions and panel discussions covering a wide array of topics such as developing leadership skills and passing the CPA exam. Students will have the opportunity to interact with accomplished CPA professionals who will share priceless knowledge regarding career opportunities in accounting and the value of networking.” So yeah. Rub some elbows, get some tips, and enjoy some free grub. Nice deal, yeah?

Interested in applying? Just follow this link. You’ll need to provide unofficial transcripts, two letters of recommendation (at least one must be from either a faculty member or a licensed CPA), a video essay (up to two minutes), and a motivational quote. If anyone needs help with quotes, give us a holla.

via GIPHY

On second thought, don’t ask us for help on that.

To qualify, you have to meet the following:

• Be a declared accounting, finance, or tax major who intends to pursue the CPA credential.
• Be a sophomore, junior, senior, 5th year, or graduate student for the 2019-2020 academic year.
• Have maintained a minimum 3.0 GPA.
• Be actively involved in campus and community activities.
• Have not attended a past workshop.
• Be an ethnic minority (i.e., Black or African American; Hispanic or Latino; Native American; or Asian, etc.).
• Be a U.S. citizen or Permanent Resident (green card holder).
• Be a Student Affiliate Member of the AICPA.

The application period is open until January 20, 2020, so if you want to go, you should probably get on that.

The post Attn Minority Accounting Students: The AICPA Wants to Send You to a Leadership Conference (Free!) appeared first on Going Concern.

This list was put together by the website College Consensus, which researched more than 600 schools in the U.S. and weighed three factors in … ugh … reaching a consensus on its ranking:

• Affordability
• Convenience
• Reputation

If you’re expecting a ranking full of big-name schools, well, you’ll be disappointed. It does include the likes of Penn State, Rutgers, Arizona, and Maryland, but most of these schools you’ll never see on “College GameDay” or on your March Madness bracket.

So, here are the best online master’s in accounting degree programs, according to College Consensus:

1. Penn State (Penn State World Campus School of Business Administration)
2. Rutgers University (Rutgers Business School)
3. Marshall University (Lewis College of Business)
4. Pittsburg State University (Kelce College of Business)
5. Southeastern Oklahoma State University (John Massey School of Business)
6. Clarion University (College of Business Administration and Information Sciences)
7. University of the Cumberlands (Hutton School of Business)
8. Fitchburg State University (Business Administration Department)
9. American Public University (School of Business)
10. West Liberty University (Gary E. West College of Business)
11. University of West Alabama (School of Graduate Studies)
12. Wilmington University (College of Business)
13. Lindenwood University (Plaster School of Business & Entrepreneurship)
14. Indiana Tech (College of Business)
15. Tennessee Wesleyan University (Goodfriend School of Business)
16. Western Governors University (College of Business)
17. University of Arizona (Eller College of Management)
18. Plymouth State University (School of Business)
19. Saint Joseph’s College (Business Department)
20. University of South Carolina-Aiken (School of Business Administration)
21. University of Maryland (University College Business & Management Department)
22. Gardner-Webb University (Graduate School of Business)
23. Columbia (Mo.) College (School of Business Administration)
24. (tie) Colorado State University (CSU Global Campus)
24. (tie) Touro University Worldwide (School of Business)

If your alma mater made this list, congrats. If it didn’t, your school must suck or something.

Related articles:

Here Are the Best Graduate Accounting Programs as Ranked By U.S. News & World Report
Here Is Another Top 50 Accounting Schools In 2019 List for You Guys to Debate
Where Did Your Alma Mater Rank In This List of the Top 50 Accounting Schools In 2019?

The post Here Are the Top 25 Online Graduate Accounting Degree Programs In 2019, According to Some Site appeared first on Going Concern.

Are MAcc numbers down? Are accounting grads still shunning the CPA exam? Are accounting firms finally addressing diversity? All of those are questions we’ll answer in a more comprehensive look at the report soon, but for now we want to address an interesting hiring factoid from this year’s report.

A press release from the AICPA reveals that a shocking 31% of new hires are non-accounting graduates, crediting “rapid advances in technology skills” for the shift. The non-accounting grad figure is an increase of 11 percentage points from 2016 to 2018.

“Increased demand for technology skills is shifting the accounting firm hiring model. This is leading to more non-accounting graduates being hired, particularly in the audit function,” said Barry Melancon, CPA, CGMA, AICPA president and CEO, and CEO of the Association of International Certified Professional Accountants. “CPAs have an unmatched reputation for trust and integrity, earned through decades of working in the public interest. However, to play this vital role in the future will require an increased focus on technology. It is incumbent upon the profession to ensure accounting graduates and newly licensed CPAs have these skills and expertise needed to support the evolution of the audit.”

Yeah, so, what about audit?

Overall CPA firms hired about 11 percent fewer accounting graduates in 2018 than they did in 2016, and nearly 30 percent fewer than in 2014. As firms continue to embrace technology and evolve their approach to the audit, they are seeking employees with data science and data analytics skills. They are largely filling those needs with non-accounting graduates, though there is anecdotal evidence from firms to suggest that some of this technology-specific hiring is occurring at the experienced hire level.

Is this the robot apocalypse we’ve been joking about not happening for years now? It may not be the Asimo-in-chinos-and-a-mint-button-up future we pictured, but it certainly sounds like traditional hires are rapidly falling out of fashion in favor of technology and the digital magicians who can harness it. Get on the boat or get left behind, I guess.

Photo by cottonbro from Pexels

The post AICPA Report: Accounting Firms Just Aren’t Hiring Accounting Grads Like They Used To appeared first on Going Concern.

In 2017’s ranking, only two Big 4 firms made the top 10 (EY at No. 8 and Deloitte at No. 9), while three of the four did make 2018’s top 10 list (EY at No. 7, Deloitte at No. 8, and PwC at No. 10).

But Universum’s 2019 list of the top 100 companies in the business category only included two Big 4 firms in the top 10 once again:

1. Google
2. J.P. Morgan
3. Amazon
4. Apple
5. Goldman Sachs
6. The Walt Disney Company
7. Nike
8. Deloitte
9. Netflix
10. EY

Where did PwC and KPMG place? PwC finished just outside of the top 10 at No. 11, while KPMG came in at No. 15 behind Tesla, Morgan Stanley, and Spotify.

Other notables include:

• Treasury Department (No. 81)
• IRS (No. 87)
• Grant Thornton (No. 94)

Universum surveyed 53,237 students, of whom 17,429 are business students, from 218 universities between October 2018 to February 2019 for its ranking of the most attractive employers.

Are PwC and KPMG worried that they didn’t make the top 10? Of course not. Sure, making the top 10 is a nice feather in Deloitte’s and EY’s caps, but PwC’s and KPMG’s college recruiting efforts are just as strong as most of, if not all of, the companies ranked in the top 10. Thousands of college students will continue to knock down their doors to work there.

Some Big 4 firms also placed in the top 100 most attractive employers in categories other than business. Among engineering students, Deloitte was ranked No. 74; computer science students ranked Deloitte No. 42, PwC No. 64, and EY No. 79; Deloitte was ranked No. 79 by students studying natural sciences; and Deloitte placed No. 69 and EY No. 99 by students in humanities/liberal arts/education.

The post College Students Would Rather Work at Walt Disney World Than at the Big 4 appeared first on Going Concern.

At an October 4 “initiation” for first-years, committee hopefuls were asked to engage in a variety of tasks, starting with popping a balloon placed between their partner’s legs. OK, that’s not so bad. Next, they were divided up by singles and those in a relationship; the singles were asked to make out with each other to advance to the next round, while the folks in a relationship played a Truth or Dare-style game that consisted only of dares and ended up with at least one guy texting his girlfriend to say he had an STD.

The two-hour rager took place on campus, and also involved some dude getting wasted and falling off a table while stripping down to his skivvies. The last man standing (literally) would win a coveted first-year rep position with the club.

In a statement, the DCU Students’ Union said they denounce the events that took place at the A&F event:

The Society Life Committee who are the governing body of societies at DCU have assured the students’ union that appropriate action has been taken against the society with a further action planned to address this culture as a whole such as running respect and dignity workshops for society committees.

Over 460 people have signed a petition started by the DCU Feminist Society calling for the immediate resignation of the current A&F Society governing executive committee. It reads:

We are deeply concerned about the unspeakable conduct of the A&F Society governing executive committee at their EGM on Thursday 4th October and the lack of appropriate response thus far. It has come to light that the committee knowingly and repeatedly harassed multiple first year students continuously throughout the event, and in fact, that this harassment took prime focus of the event itself.

Aside from the obvious fact that this gross misconduct has no part in the democratic election of a first year representative, this behaviour by all accounts constitutes harassment. This is not just a violation of the DCU Policy to Promote Respect and to Protect Dignity (2003) but a deeply serious violation of the trust placed in the A&F governing executive committee by its membership and the DCU student body at large.

Clearly, these kids know how to party.

The post Party Animals at Irish University Accounting Club Suspended for Fratty Rager on Campus appeared first on Going Concern.

But before we get to the catch, let’s look at the program itself a little more.

The KPMG Master’s Degree Program

Per Accounting Today, the cohort of 135 program participants for the 2018-2019 start class will get their tuition fully paid, a guaranteed internship at KPMG while earning their degree, and a full-time position when they graduate the program.

Oh, and to sweeten the deal, KPMG also offers some extra cash to cover your tax liabilities. Per the FAQs:

KPMG’s funding of tuition, and reasonable costs for room and board, books, and fees is taxable to the student. However, to further demonstrate KPMG’s commitment to the student’s success and value we place on the student’s future with KPMG, the firm will fund each student in an amount intended to approximate the additional tax liability incurred by a typical student as a result of this KPMG funding.

The sticker price of a free ride

KPMG spares no expense on this program. For example, the tuition for the one-year, 30 credit hour Master of Accounting with Data Analytics program at Villanova is $42,000. Another participating school, The Ohio State University, has one-year tuition costs of $54,315. That doesn’t even factor in room and board, or any of the other expenses paid by KPMG. All said and done, I estimate it’s about $75,000 – $100,000 per program participant.

Nine universities are participating, so the costs vary by program. In fact, while all of the programs emphasize Data Analytics, the programs themselves vary quite a bit. In some cases, like the program at Ohio State, you join the rest of the Master of Accounting students. Other schools have two different MAcc programs: their normal one and the one they made special for KPMG. If you opt for one of the latter, you’ll study only with other KPMG’ers and build a smaller network. While KPMG is relying on their prestigious name to get you to sign up for the exclusive program, it’s possible that the super specialized degree might not be as versatile on the outside. It’s worth it to look at all the options. One of the schools even has a tax emphasis, in case you’re not willing to let your love for the IRC go without a fight.

The catch

It’s suspiciously generous until you read this:

Upon acceptance to the Program, Program participants are contractually committed to remain in good academic standing and to professional employment with KPMG for three years after graduation with their Master Degree associated with the program (to begin from the date of full-time hire). Otherwise, 100 percent of the tuition, room and board, books, fees, and other amounts, including taxes, paid by KPMG on behalf of the Program participants are to be paid back to KPMG. Employees otherwise remain employees at will during (and after) the three-year period.

Hmm… you may recall my experience with the bonus clawback. This looks very similar if you ask me, but the numbers would be much, much bigger. And, you’d be much less likely to bow out early.

Smart move, KPMG

Nothing says “I’ll stay three years, even if it kills me…” like having to pay back something in the neighborhood of $100,000. It goes back to the philosophy that a great way to retain people is by holding them hostage. It reminds me of the military service academy model. For example, the Air Force Academy graduates owe five years of service for their education worth approximately $416,000. Military pilot training ranges from 8-10 years for training that is valued at about $1 million. Now, a three-year service obligation for a measly Masters of Accounting that costs approximately $100,000 seems steep. That is about two years too long.

The concept is not new, since firms are often deceptively generous to keep their employees from quitting. I recall a senior staff level bonus policy that offered a cash bonus if you committed to staying for another couple of years. One other perk this particular program provides is protecting firms from those overtime wage lawsuits. The more education their workforce has, the more firms can plausibly argue that their employees — particularly the unlicensed ones — should be considered exempt.

And don’t forget KPMG’s been in hot water with this PCAOB leak forays. While it may blow over in 3-5 years, it may be the tip the iceberg. No wonder KPMG is looking ahead and saying, “Hey, let’s round up 135 high-performing people who can’t quit” for several years in a row. They’ll be able to take on the auditing load after everything hits the fan and the reputation is in the tank. It’s pretty genius, really.

Image: Joe Mabel/Wikimedia Commons

The post KPMG Master’s Degree Program Admits 135 into Indentured Service in 2018 appeared first on Going Concern.

When you first went to work for your current company, it was pretty cool.

Your friends and family were excited about your new job. You were excited. You were meeting new people, learning new things, making a difference and probably making more money than you ever had before.

Let’s face it, though. Your job just isn’t quite as exciting anymore. Routine has set in, and you’re probably starting to wonder how to make the jump to the next level in your career.

For you, maybe that means a big promotion. Maybe it means moving to a new role in a different discipline. Heck, maybe it means working for a new company.

But none of those things are going to happen by themselves. The accounting profession is filled with are big opportunities, but are you ready to take full advantage of them? Are you truly prepared for the next big step in your career?

> Take our short quiz: “Is it the Right Time for Grad School?

How to seize your next opportunity

No matter how badly you want that new job or a big promotion, desire alone won’t deliver it.

Here are four key factors to evaluate as you prepare to grab your next big opportunity:

1) Your work environment

The best career opportunities are likely to be in firms and companies that are growing or have the potential for growth. Ask yourself: Is your company progressive? Is the leadership strong? Does it embrace new technologies and industry best practices? If you’re working for a laggard, you may want to look somewhere else for new prospects.

2) Your track record

Do an honest, objective assessment of your work track record. Consider these factors:

• Have you embraced opportunities to take on new challenges and let your skills shine?
• What projects or initiatives have you supported and participated in?
• Do you go beyond the call of duty when the pressure is on?
• Is there someone — a boss, former manager or senior executive — who will vouch for you on these key qualities?

If you don’t have good answers to all of these questions, you may need to seek out new opportunities at your current company or make a fresh start at a company that allows you to use your skills to stand out. How will you do that?

3) Your network

Who you know can be just as important as what you know. A strong professional network can alert you to new opportunities, provide you with insider guidance and advice, and help get you past gatekeepers and reach the real decision makers. You should always be cultivating your network – even when you think you don’t need it – so it’s there when you do.

4) Your skills and knowledge

You’ve got to have deep skills or knowledge that differentiates you from other job candidates. Do you have your CPA license? Having specific technical skills or credential will improve your job prospects. Are you an expert in a particular area of accounting or finance that you could use to help you step into that next big job role? Ask yourself, “Do I really have what it’s going to take to move to the next level?”

If you don’t have the requisite skills and knowledge, it might be time to consider pursuing a master’s degree in accounting. While a master’s degree is a big commitment, it can have a huge impact on your career. Plus, some schools have Master’s programs that can be completed online while you continue to work.

Earning her degree online while she continued to work helped UNC Master of Accounting student Leanne Fredericks point her career in the right direction.

Higher education will also expand your professional network and can help you make the jump to a new company, a new department or even a new discipline.

Your next steps

Curious as to whether grad school is the answer for you? Take our quiz, “Is it the Right Time for Grad School?” to find out.

Or, if you’re already considering grad school, check out our “Quality Control Audit” worksheet, which can help you evaluate key criteria in your search for the best graduate program.

What’s your next career move? Consider the #1-ranked online Master of Accounting degree from the University of North Carolina. With flexible schedules, evening courses delivered by world-class faculty, and a career services team dedicated to the needs of working professionals, the program can give your career the boost it needs.

The post Are You Ready for the Next Big Step in Your Accounting Career? appeared first on Going Concern.

“What do the numbers tell us?”

“Let’s dig into the data!”

“Can we analyze this in real-time?”

It’s very likely that you’ve heard these expressions around the office. Big data. Data analytics. Data science. This is important stuff.

But why is this important? And what does data analytics have to do with accounting?

Accountants use data analytics to help businesses uncover valuable insights within their financials, identify process improvements that can increase efficiency, and better manage risk. “Accountants will be increasingly expected to add value to the business decision making within their organizations and for their clients,” comments Associate Professor Wendell Gilland, who teaches Data Analytics for Accountants at the University of North Carolina’s online Kenan-Flagler Business School. “A strong facility with data analytics gives them the toolset to help strengthen their partnership with business leaders.”

Here are a few examples:

Auditors, both those working internally and externally, can shift from a sample-based model to employ continuous monitoring where much larger data sets are analyzed and verified. The result: less margin of error resulting in more precise recommendations.

Tax accountants use data science to quickly analyze complex taxation questions related to investment scenarios. In turn, investment decisions can be expedited, which allows companies to respond faster to opportunities to beat their competition — and the market — to the punch.

Accountants who assist, or act as, investment advisors use big data to find behavioral patterns in consumers and the market. These patterns can help businesses build analytic models that, in turn, help them identify investment opportunities and generate higher profit margins.

Four types of data analytics

To get a better handle on big data, it’s important to understand four key types of data analytics

1. Descriptive analytics = “What is happening?”

This is used most often and includes the categorization and classification of information. Accountants report on the flow of money through their organizations: revenue and expenses, inventory counts, sales tax collected. Accurate reporting is a hallmark of solid accounting practices. Compiling and verifying large amounts of data is important to this accurate reporting.

2. Diagnostic analytics = “Why did it happen?”

Diagnostics are used to monitor changes in data. Accountants regularly analyze variances and calculate historical performance. Because historical precedent is often an excellent indicator of future performance, these calculations are critical to build reasonable forecasts.

3. Predictive analytics = “What’s going to happen?”

Here, data is used to assess the likelihood of future outcomes. Accountants are instrumental in building forecasts and identifying patterns that shape those forecasts. When accountants act as trusted advisors and build forecasts, business leaders grow increasingly confident in following them.

4. Prescriptive analytics = “What should happen?”

Tangible actions — and critical business decisions — arise from prescriptive analytics. Accountants use the forecasts they create to make recommendations for future growth opportunities or, in some cases, raise an alert on poor choices. This insight is an example of the significant impact that accountants make in the business world.

Why accountants make excellent data scientists

Accountants have outstanding technical skills. Gilland notes, “Accountants are used to aggregating information to create a picture of an organization that summarizes the details contained in each transaction. Working with descriptive analytics, predictive analytics, and prescriptive analytics comes more easily to people who already possess excellent quantitative skills.”

Accountants are natural-born problem solvers. The jump from descriptive and diagnostic analytics to predictive and prescriptive analytics requires that one shift from an organizational mindset to an inquisitive mindset; a shift from stacking and sorting information to figuring out how to use that information to make key business decisions. Accountants are experts at making this jump.

Accountants see the larger context and business implications. The true value of data analysis comes not at the point when the data is compiled, but rather when decisions are made using insights derived from the data. To uncover these insights, a data scientist must first understand the business context. Not only do accountants understand this context, they live it.

Jeff Burgess, National Manager Partner of Audit Services for Grant Thornton, discusses the relationship between the practice of accounting and broader business issues.

How can you become more data savvy?

Build your skills. Strong graduate-level accounting programs, for example, will expand your knowledge of data analytics, often through specific courses that cover the topic. In other cases, data analytics is infused into the overall curriculum so that students can acquire this critical training in context with many other key topics.

Interested in data analytics? Here are a few things to try:

Complete the “What would the accountant say?” worksheet, attempting to solve a common business problem through the lens of an accounting data scientist.

Take the Business IQ quiz, a self-evaluation tool that measures numerous aspects of your business savvy, including, of course, your penchant for data and your analytics mindset.

What’s your next career move?  Consider the #1-ranked online Master of Accounting degree from the University of North Carolina. With flexible schedules, evening courses delivered by world-class faculty, and a career services team dedicated to the needs of working professionals, the program can give your career the boost it needs.

The post Why Does (and Why Should!) Data Analytics Matter to Accountants? appeared first on Going Concern.

Good night, nurse, what is this:

Executives at UHY Advisors are sounding the alarm about online scammers who have been impersonating recruiters at accounting firms, offering enthusiastic young job seekers new career opportunities and internships. All the applicant must do, scammers tell them, is sign an acceptance letter and provide personal and banking information, and in some cases, a cash payment so they can be reimbursed for materials associated with starting their new job.

In one instance, a recruit received a reimbursement check for $3k for “job preparation materials.” It bounced.

Of all the worries that recruits have these days — nerve-wracking interviews, wardrobe choices, finding an employer who keeps organic produce in the kitchen — you’d hope they wouldn’t have to fret about getting ripped off, too. Not even getting a job at accounting firm is sacred anymore.

[JofA]

Image: iStock/scyther5

The post Protip: Don’t Give Your Bank Information to Anyone Claiming to Be an Accounting Firm Recruiter appeared first on Going Concern.

TSAGDPAR aka AICPA Trends is a big report with lots of details, so we’ll dispense with a comprehensive post and revisit it a few times as we look things over. Of course, if you see anything interesting you want us to cover, let us know by emailing editor@goingconcern.com.

For now, we’ll focus on two tables from the summary. The first shows enrollment by program type:

Source: AICPA

The first thing that jumps out is the drop in enrollment in Master’s in Accounting programs. Ten thousand fewer enrollments is a 25% percent reduction, marking the lowest point in the statistic since 2007-2008. The enrollment in bachelor’s programs increased 4.5 percent, but overall enrollment in 2015-2016 is flat compared with 2014-2015, following more than a decade of students plowing into bachelor’s and master’s programs.

What’s interesting is the report also states that “The number of new CPA Examination candidates increased 13% between 2015 and 2016.”

The trend of more students in bachelor’s programs, but fewer in master’s programs, yet more CPA exam candidates might suggest that the WAY TO THE CPA — which requires 150 credit hours — doesn’t necessarily have to go through a graduate program.

So, what else we got? How about some hiring:

Source: AICPA

Historically, the total number of hires is still very high. But the drop that occurred in 2016 from 2014 of nearly 20 percent is significant. And, contrary to the trend in enrollment, CPA firms hired fewer bachelor degree recipients, 15 percent fewer.

I have no idea if these trends are indicating a shift coming to the labor market for CPAs. And I suck at making predictions, so I’ll refrain to prognosticate on where this will lead, but the CPA party had to end sometime and, while the music is still playing, there are definitely fewer people dancing.

Prior coverage of AICPA Trends report:

• Accounting Firms Desperate for Talent Aren’t Gonna Like This (2015)
• At This Rate, Accountants Will Soon Be More in Demand Than Diamonds and Rolling Stones Tickets (2013)

Original image: iStock/scyther5

The post AICPA Trends Report Finds Enrollment in Master’s Programs, Hiring by CPA Firms Taking a Breather appeared first on Going Concern.

The post Exposure Drafts: Attracting New CPA Talent Starts Early appeared first on Going Concern.

I was the first in my family to go to college. I did well, and was aggressively recruited by the then-Big Eight and a few more firms. My final decision was between Price Waterhouse, now PwC, and McGladrey Hendrickson, now RSM. Arthur Andersen, which had developed a business model chasing blue-collar kids like me, came in third.

Like many students, I sought the advice of trusted professors. They told me that PW was the hardest firm in which to make partner, but that only increased the stature of the firm for me. My final decision to choose PW was based on the silliest of reasons. Because PW did the Oscars, my mother knew who they were, while my family knew nothing about the other firms.

There’s been a fair amount written about the brand damage that the firm will suffer, but I will reiterate: PwC has seriously damaged its brand with the Oscars fiasco. They won’t lose many clients over it; I doubt they’ll even lose the Oscars. Brian Cullinan has been humiliated, but will not be fired.

But somewhere tonight or tomorrow or next fall, some talented blue-collar kid is going to choose another firm and that is where the real damage will be done.

Paul Gillis PhD CPA, is a retired PwC partner who is currently a Professor at Peking University

Image: iStock/AntonioGuillem

The post PwC’s Recruiting Will Take a Hit Over the Oscars Debacle appeared first on Going Concern.

Googling online graduate programs can be a nightmare. First off, it will take a while to trudge through 25 million search results. Ugh… ain’t nobody got time for that. Why is it so hard to find a worthwhile program to make all your CPA (or CFA) dreams come true, let alone set you up for long-term career success?

You are in this predicament because, unfortunately, putting your life on hold to attend a top 10 B-school isn’t in the cards. It’s a tough pill to swallow, but, oh well. The good news is that if you can sift through the junk and marginally accredited for-profit colleges, there are some great programs that not only will help you check the 150 credit hour box but help advance your career too.

We did a little digging and found five great online graduate programs that are worth hearing more about:

1. Georgetown University Master of Science in Finance
Georgetown’s MSF program gives you a deep dive into finance that’s more focused than an MBA. It also has a leg up on many other online schools since it utilizes two-way video communication in virtual class sessions. While it’s not completely asynchronous it simulates a brick and mortar classroom better than most online schools.

Another neat attribute is that it has a weeklong onsite residency program where you have the opportunity to meet the faculty and other students in person before being forced to work together on group projects. D.C. road trip, anyone?

2. University of Scranton Master of Accountancy
If a Master of Accountancy (MAcc) is more your style, check out the University of Scranton. It’s a program designed for the online environment by current and former public accounting partners. One unique aspect of the program is the opportunity to specialize in forensic accounting (“CFE”).

The school offers three specialized courses to help you become a certified fraud examiner. Mixing accounting with criminal justice will be sure to spice up your work if you are sick of the run of the mill audit testing. Plus, get more bang for your buck if you're still working on the CPA exam. University of Scranton has partnered with Wiley CPAExcel with an integrated curriculum. Two birds, one stone.

3. Saint Mary's University of Minnesota MS in Accountancy
Calling all Accountants who want to do a program that is exactly 30 credit hours. Bingo. This program is for you. Not only does the curriculum not waste your time with accounting basics (like MBAs tend to do) it primes you to be ready to tackle the CPA and Certified Management Accountant (“CMA”) exams. Blend in some great professors who are prompt with their feedback and high-tech mobile apps, it’s a program that is perfect for the busy accounting professional who doesn’t have any time to waste.

4. Saint Xavier University Masters in Finance
Is your current work life making you dread Sunday night? The Master of Finance at Saint Xavier is a great fit for both professionals currently working in finance and those who want a career change and don’t have a background in finance. This program prepares students to sit for all three levels of the chartered financial analyst (“CFA”) exam. Like Georgetown, Saint Xavier requires a one-time residency. But, rather than D.C., this time we are talking about an adventure to Chicago. Not a bad place to visit.

5. Creighton University Master of Investment Management and Financial Analysis
Creighton offers a super unique program for go-getters who want to become a CFA. The program is 100% online and taught exclusively by professors who have their CFA credential. If you already have studied more accounting to make your eyes bleed, why not ditch accounting altogether? What about transitioning into a financial analyst role? Or, set your sights on becoming a private wealth manager or equity strategist. This program is for you.

Do any of these programs intrigue you? Browse over to the landing pages linked above to request more information.

Image: iStockPhoto

The post 5 Unique Master’s Programs That Might Not Be on Your Radar appeared first on Going Concern.

This is a sponsored conversation brought to you by Utica College.

At some point in your career, you may have heard a self-deprecating quip from someone who claimed to be a "jack of all trades, but a master of none." It's a slight nod to the idea that someone couldn't decide what they wanted to be when they grew up, but also the regret that didn't identify a specialization in their career.

And there's little debate these days — a niche is crucial to a successful career. Early on, a lot of people are afraid of being pigeon-holed into one area of knowledge, but as your career progresses, the lack of an expertise may resign you to a "master or none."

Today, we're speaking with two Utica College professors, Stephanie Nesbitt and Donna Dulansky, about the importance of specializations in education. Stephanie is the Director of the MBA and RMI Programs and Assistant Professor of Risk Management and Insurance. Donna is a graduate of the Utica MBA program and is now a Professor of Practice in accounting. She is a CPA and prior to joining the school, she was a vice president with a regional bank.

The post Let’s Talk MBA Specializations With Utica College appeared first on Going Concern.

If you’re an ambitious accounting professional, you might have the title of CFO on your career bucket list. Chief financial officers are quickly becoming the most indispensable and sought after talent for any organization.

The Sarbanes-Oxley Act became law in 2002. In the years that followed, companies needed CFOs with strong backgrounds in accounting and internal controls to deal with the new compliance challenges. Slowly but surely, as companies began to assimilate, CFOs were expected to be more strategic, looking for business opportunities and ways to finance them.

This means businesses today want CFOs with more diverse backgrounds. People who understand risk, corporate finance and mergers & acquisitions are the most viable candidates and snatching up some of the most prestigious roles in the world.

These days, many accounting professionals are working toward a chief accounting officer-like role. One that focuses on the understanding the financial reporting, tax and compliance needs related to those areas. CFOs are not deeply involved with these matters like they once were.

The fluid nature of the CFO role is likely to continue, which means other paths could be more sensible or attainable. But what if you’re an accounting professional and CFO is still a career milestone for you? How can you give yourself the best chance to achieve that goal?

The short answer is: you need the skills. The tricky part is how you get them. You can either learn them on the job or in the classroom. Both paths have their advantages and disadvantages, but there’s no doubt that the skills are not optional.

This doesn’t discount the importance or utility of an accounting background. Financial reporting, controls, disclosures and technical issues that come are all fair game when it comes to expectations for a CFO’s scope of knowledge. But these days those are just table stakes. A broader more robust background in finance and relevant work experience will put you light years ahead of your competition for CFO roles.

If you think a CFO role is on your horizon and want to know more about Georgetown’s Master in Finance on-campus and online program, please visit the Frequently Asked Questions page.

The post Sponsored: The CFO Track Demands More Skills Than Ever appeared first on Going Concern.

Interviews are one of those things that you either walk into with a little moxy or you walk in terrified. Ideally, you've done your research and know almost everything and anything about the firm and the person you're interviewing with, your resume is prepped and you know whether the grey suit will fly or if the blue one is better.

But interviews aren't just for the employer — they're the gateway for the interviewee to find out everything they don't know about the job and the company. While everyone knows you should have some questions ready for the interviewer, not every question is a good question and the questions you ask can be the tipping point for whether or not you land the job.

What’s really special about this place?

Every employer thinks they’re special, so sometimes you have to dig to find out if there’s truth behind their claims.

These days, lots of firms are making news by offering truly unique perks. Grant Thornton announced unlimited vacation for its employees last year. PwC’s loan assistance program rolled out this year after its announcement last fall. Many firms now allow professionals to wear casual dress every day of the week.

Using examples like these is a good way to discover how an employer differentiates itself from competitors. And perhaps more importantly for anyone pursuing the CPA, the 150-hour credit requirement means extra schooling, oftentimes a master’s degree. Perks like tuition reimbursement or loan assistance are an especially rare find.

Advice from someone who knows

According to Jeff Johanns, a lecturer in the accounting department at McCombs School of Business at the University of Texas Austin and former U.S. Assurance risk management leader with PricewaterhouseCoopers, those questions need to be specific and distinctive enough to make you stand out from others competing for the same job.

“Stay away from the mundane questions about things like work-life balance — show specialization. Understand the industry and the employer. What areas do they practice in? What do they think are the important parts of their accounting areas and ask them: Why are you in that area? Where do you see your practice going? You demonstrate awareness of the profession: what are the important things going on in the industry and what should the employer be involved in?” said Johanns.

Johanns recommends asking questions about how the firm is handling current issues in the industry such an implementation of the new revenue recognition standards. Other questions he recommends that job seekers of all experience levels ask include:

• What challenges are your clients facing with ____ (issue/trend/practice area)?
• Where are you on social issues? Sustainability?
• Where does your firm fit into society?

Corporate culture should be on your mind, too

From another perspective, the questions you should ask have everything to do with whether or not the firm is a good fit for you.

Melinda Guillemette, a communications coach who's worked with CPA firms for more than a decade, says it's important to get a feel for how people within the firm work with one another.

“I would ask them to describe their company culture. Ask lots of open-ended questions, such as how does the firm celebrate achievements and how often do employees gather face to face,” she said. “These are much more important questions than questions about the leave policy or benefits. These are the things that will sustain you, no matter where you are at in your career.”

Other culture-centric questions she recommends include:

• How does the firm acknowledge its employees?
• What are the company's core values and how does it demonstrate those values?

Regardless of the questions you ask, one thing is key: be specific and ask questions about things that will affect you, the employer and your ability to work well with the employer. Johanns, who interviewed many during his 22-year tenure at PwC, said the most disappointing interviews were “the ones who didn't demonstrate an inquisitive nature and knowledge of the business they were applying for. Their questions were the generic, uninformed questions.”

The post Sponsored: Questions to Ask an Interviewer appeared first on Going Concern.

This increase is slightly down from last year, but the Bob Half people say the competition for able-bodied number crunchers is still intense:

The prediction trails the unusually high forecast for 2016, when the guide said starting salaries in accounting and finance would rise 4.0% to 5.3%, depending on the position. But the magnitude of the projected increase for 2017 doesn’t indicate a decrease in competitiveness in the job market, said Tim Hird, executive director of Robert Half Management Resources.

“We’re not seeing any slowdown by any means,” Hird said in an interview. “And, if anything, we’re seeing companies flex their muscles a bit more as it relates to the negotiation process and recognizing that they have to do things differently.”

Being flexible on pay is one thing, however, the hiring process itself is quite another:

Accounting employers, meanwhile, are most successful recruiting if they embrace a number of strategies, Hird said. The willingness to negotiate is one key, and a streamlined hiring process is another. Hird said companies and firms that subject candidates to a lengthy hiring regimen are losing potential employees who have multiple job offers.

So I guess the strategy for accounting firms and businesses looking to hire accountants this fall boils down to this: pay more and be snappy about it.

[JofA]

Earlier:    
KPMG UK Succumbs to Millennials’ Bellyaching on Slow Recruitment Process

The post Starting Salaries for Accounting Positions Keep Going Up appeared first on Going Concern.

To the Twitter!

BDO is excited to welcome over 300 summer #interns! Check out some tips from former #BDO interns: https://t.co/2pEUkFzabk

— BDO USA Careers (@GetToKnowBDO) June 15, 2016

Welcome Start Interns! We hope you have an amazing #internship! Share your experiences, use the hashtag #PwCStart pic.twitter.com/8sa3l7xM3a

— PwC US Careers (@PwC_US_Careers) June 14, 2016

Excited to train our new #pwcadvisory #interns #pwc #consulting #training pic.twitter.com/Cv9oUvinDo

— Michael Oliveri (@michaeljoliveri) June 12, 2016

So cool: EY's welcome to interns in the firm's front lobby today. pic.twitter.com/CVnduczCes

— maryleesachs (@maryleesachs) June 16, 2016

KPMG seems to have a balloon thing going on:

1,700 interns finished @KPMG_US National Intern Training. Best of luck as future alumni @KPMGCampusUS #KPMGUSalumni pic.twitter.com/QMKARDLMDw

— KPMG US Alumni (@KPMGUSAlumni) June 15, 2016

KPMG Mpls interns from @CarlsonUG at National Intern Training in Orlando! @KPMGCampusUS @CarlsonUBCC pic.twitter.com/jlzUsIF0B9

— Amy Sundet (@AmySundet) June 16, 2016

Welcome to the more than 230 interns joining us this summer. https://t.co/SbiQAdY99a

— Crowe Horwath LLP (@Crowe_Careers) June 9, 2016

RSM couldn't resist a pun in Baltimore:

Welcome to our RSM Baltimore Summer interns. They're ready to Do more, See more, B'more! #lifeatrsmus pic.twitter.com/He8eCOI9Yn

— RSM US Careers (@LifeatRSMUS) June 15, 2016

Now, interns — you will hear lots of advice over the next several weeks. Some of it will be good (e.g. "Don't be afraid to ask questions"; "Read Going Concern everyday.") and some of it will be bad (e.g. "SALY"). The important thing to remember is that your life will be over if you screw this up.

Ha, not really. Most of you will be fine until you realize that you've made a big mistake and still don't know what to do with your lives. Good luck, interns!

Who else has advice for the 2016 interns? They need all the help they can get.

The post Let’s Welcome Public Accounting’s Summer Interns appeared first on Going Concern.

A group of 170 Brooklyn Law School students cut short their winter break and headed back to campus in January for an intensive three-day training session. But not in the law.

 

Instead, they spent the “boot camp” sessions learning about accounting principles, reading financial statements, valuing assets and other basics of the business world — subjects that not long ago were thought to have no place in classic law school education.

For the boot camp, Brooklyn Law joined with Deloitte Financial Advisory Services, which had developed a program to give new hires at law firms some business background. The Deloitte team worked with John P. Oswald, chief executive of the investment and merchant bank Capital Trust Group. Mr. Oswald, a Brooklyn Law alumnus and board trustee, has financed the program for three years, helping to shape it for law students.

 

“The programs law firms offer are very specific, but our program covers a broad diversity of topics, following a business from its inception, through various phases, including franchising and purchasing an overseas business,” said Mr. Oswald, who is also a certified public accountant.

The post A Few Law Schools Come to Their Senses, Start Offering Accounting Boot Camps appeared first on Going Concern.

Let's take a look:

The American Institute of CPAs is pleased to announce that the AICPA Legacy Scholarship application is now available on ThisWayToCPA.com for the 2015-2016 academic year. The new application process is more streamlined and convenient, allowing students to fill out a single application for all four AICPA Legacy Scholarship awards.

The AICPA Legacy Scholars Program will provide more than 100 scholarships for the 2015-2016 academic year, totaling more than $380,000, to deserving undergraduate and graduate accounting students from across the nation.

“The AICPA has a long history of investing in the future of the profession by awarding scholarships to highly qualified accounting students,” said Joanne Fiore, AICPA vice president, professional media, pathways and inclusion. “Our AICPA Legacy Scholars program helps students defray the cost of their education, while helping instill a commitment to public service that the accounting profession is known for.”

There are four distinct scholarships:

AICPA/Accountemps Student Scholarship
$10,000 per scholarship, 4 awarded

AICPA Foundation Two-Year Transfer Scholarship
$3,000 per scholarship, 15 awarded, open only to those with an associate’s degree in business, accounting, finance or economics with a declared intent to major in accounting at a four-year college or university

AICPA John L. Carey Scholarship
$5,000 per scholarship, 5 awarded, open to liberal arts and non-business degree holders who are pursuing both graduate studies in accounting and the CPA licensure

AICPA Scholarship for Minority Accounting Students
$1,000 – $5,000 per scholarship, 80 awarded, open to students that are "an underrepresented minority in the accounting profession (including but not limited to: Black or African American; Hispanic or Latino; Native American; Pacific Islander; or Asian American)"

In addition to meeting the requirements above, applicants must be student affiliate members of the AICPA. A full list of requirements for each can be found at the links above. You have until April 15, 2015 to apply.

The post AICPA Making it Rain (on College Students) appeared first on Going Concern.

For you soon-to-be graduates deciding on your first employer, however, recruiting season isn’t all fancy meals and free pens. It’s stressful, dammit; and generally speaking, the greatest source of consternation is whether the accounting industry boils down to “Big 4 or Bust.”

While I’d love to tell you this distinction is overblown, it’s simply not true. Because despite what I’ve been told by a long line of sympathetic yet clearly disappointed women, size really does matter.

So with that in mind, should you be eliminating all but four options from your job search? Well, if you go to the Big 4, you’re likely to make a little more money and work a few more hours, so there’s that. The rest of the decision will come down to what kind of person you are.  

Perception Dictates Reality

My first job was with Arthur Andersen, my second with PwC. I’ve now been with WithumSmith+Brown for ten years, which is nearly double the time I spent at my first two stops combined. Yet whenever I’m asked to provide my professional bio, I always manage to shoehorn my experience with the Big 5 4 into the first two sentences. Why? Because it matters.

Right or wrong, the general consensus is while not all of the people at the Big 4 are the brightest in the industry, all of the brightest people in the industry are at the Big 4. Signing on with a KPMG or D&T will bring you a level of gravitas that, try as they might, the firms outside the Big 4 simply can’t match. And as I’ve experienced, even after you’re long gone, the years you spent with the Big 4 will afford you instant credibility, even if, like me, you spent the majority of those days hoarding Cliff Bars from the breakroom and plotting the murder of your senior manager.

Is the perception of the Big 4 as the best of the best fair? Of course not. A lot of that perception was created by the big firms beating everyone over the head with just how great they are. A freestyle rap battle has less obnoxious arrogance and self-congratulation than the standard Big 4 recruiting pitch.

Deserved or not, ultimately, perception dictates reality. There’s a reason the majority of CFO and tax director positions require Big 4 experience; the perception is that only those who’ve tested their mettle with the big boys are prepared to handle those roles.

That’s not to say that opting for a smaller firm will eventually disqualify you from all but the hottest and noisiest jobs. But the reality is, without the Big 4 on your resume, you may find that some doors are much harder to open.   

Do you crave attention?

Maybe you don’t want to be a CFO or a tax director. Maybe your primary concern is finding a job where you can learn as much as possible during your formative years while you figure out if public accounting is for you. And maybe you prefer to learn via hands-on direction and a lot of personal one-on-one time with your supervisors.  If that’s the case, going to a smaller firm is likely a better fit for you.

As I wrote above, there is an abundance of smart people in the Big 4. The problem, however, is that at the giant firms, the people who are best positioned to teach you what you need to be successful –- the managers — are the least likely to have the time to do it.

When you’re a manager in the Big 4, it means that you are the point person for a long list of clients, responsible for the detailed review work that partners are too expensive and staff too stupid to do, and you’re supposed to bear the burden of developing the next generation. It’s the most exhausting activity one can engage in, outside of soccer.

Something’s got to give, and because managers are under constant scrutiny as to whether they belong on the partner track, it’s sure as hell not going to be client service or placating the decision makers. It’s going to be the development of the manager’s underlings: i.e., you.

At a smaller firm, while managers have the same responsibilities as their Big 4 counterparts, competition to make partner isn’t quite as fierce as it is in the large firms. In addition, because smaller firms tend to lack the formalized training programs for staff (more on that next), greater emphasis is placed on the managers to develop their staff and seniors. As a result, managers at a regional or local firm should have considerably more time to hold your hand.  

Or prefer to be left alone?

If, however, you hate dealing with people (like me!) and prefer to learn without one-on-one interaction (like me!) then the bigger you go, the better off you’ll be.

Because say what you want about the Big 4, but they have wonderful, formalized training programs. At AA, we would get shuttled off to St. Charles for a week to learn oodles of tax law. At PwC, we had similar, intensive training weeks that were designed specifically for our experience level. And just recently, a former co-worker of mine went to work at E&Y, and when he asked for some reading material about the niche he would be working within, E&Y sent him two three-hundred page manuals on the matter, both authored by E&Y experts. That ain’t happening at a 40-person firm.

So if your preferred method of learning has more to do with reading quietly and less to do with a senior’s coffee breath, head to the Big 4.  

Protect yourself from yourself

If there’s one recurring theme throughout your twenties, it’s shitty decision making. Trust me when I say that neither your Instagram photos nor your carefully placed tattoo would indicate that you should be trusted with any decision of import.  

And this makes going straight to the Big 4 a dicey proposition. Because if you head off to PwC or D&T, they’re going to ask you to commit to either audit or tax, despite the rather seemingly important fact that you don’t know anything about either. Yeah, you can eventually switch if you change your mind, but let’s be honest, if you don’t pull the chute on your first choice within the first six months, you’re not going to want to deal with starting all over again much beyond that.

Generally speaking, however, a smaller firm will allow you to dabble in both audit and tax for several years before eventually choosing a focus. Based on my conversations with the young staff at WS+B, this is the primary reason they landed at a regional firm; to get a feel for where they may find an area of interest within public accounting, rather than being asked to jump in with both feet to untested waters. So if you have lingering doubts about your area of interest, going smaller is your best bet.

Ski or surf?

If you’re certain that you’ll be involved with tax return prep in some capacity, however, consider whether you would prefer to see the light of day in winter or summer. At smaller firms, getting a return done before the original due date is a badge of honor, so for reasons I can’t comprehend, these firms will typically work you into submission from January through April rather than just file a piece of paper that, you know…buys you an extra six months.  

To the contrary, the April 15th tax season in the Big 4 is an afterthought; nearly everything gets extended, which means that while your winter shouldn’t be too stressful, you might find yourself spending Labor Day weekend in the office while your small-firm counterparts are lounging oceanside.

Bright Lights, Big City

I’m a firm believer that everyone should get to feel like a Big Fucking Deal at some point in their life. To throw on a nice suit and eat at a fancy restaurant and wash it all down with a private box at the Knicks game, without spending a dime of your own money. And nobody does luxury like the Big 4.

When I was with AA in Denver, people would routinely grab you during the middle of the day to go check out a couple of innings of the Rockies game from the firm’s club seats. Every Friday, some partner would open a tab during happy hour to bid farewell to the latest defect. Post-project celebration dinners required tips that with four digits. I’ll confess: while all this was going on, I felt like the Pope of Chillitown.  

And you know what? That’s OK. Because for the overwhelming majority of us, our college years were spent barely scraping together enough cash to keep the fridge stocked with Busch Light. To suddenly be thrust into a life of open bars and free filets is understandably intoxicating.

But it won’t last. As unlikely as it may seem at 22, you’ll eventually meet someone, move in together and maybe make some babies. Before you know it, human nature sets in, and the lure of free drinks and box seats won’t seem nearly as enticing as Netflix and a good night’s sleep.  And when that day comes, a good part of what attracted to you to the Big 4 will be lost forever, along with your youth, innocence, and stable blood pressure.

But until that day comes, there’s no harm in relishing in the Patrick Bateman lifestyle, minus the axe murders. Go the Big 4 and live it up.

Obviously, there are other things you’ve got to take into consideration: big city versus small town, the opportunity for niche services like M&A or consulting at the Big 4, and the potential for more work-life balance at a small firm (though I don’t necessarily see that to be the case). But keep an eye on the items discussed here, and you just might wind up happy with your first job. For a year or two. Then you’ll be ready to read this.
 

The post Let’s End the Big 4 or Bust Myth Once and For All appeared first on Going Concern.

Excited?  About an exam?  Seriously?

Yes, seriously.  As studious and determined people with big dreams and ambitious life goals, we’re used to being tasked with reciting formulas, choosing the best answer and memorizing large quantities of information in order to prove our aptitude in traditional school subjects.  But how do you prove aptitude in the things that are important to business, like strategy?  Business savvy?  Leadership?   Rote learning will not suffice for demonstrating abilities that, in reality, do not have right or wrong answers.  Learning on the job is about the ability to consume lots of information from disparate sources, distilling that information, analyzing the situation, and making recommendations based on your analysis for how to address the business problem at hand.  In a word, it’s about adaptability.  And so is the CGMA exam.

Barf.

The post goes on to explain what the CGMA exam is and how much fun you'll have taking it because you will be proving that you are of a higher caliber than the CGMAs before you who didn't have to take an exam and simply wrote out a check to get their credential.

The most successful candidates are multi-dimensional with a collection of competencies from all four buckets of the CGMA competency framework.  Success on the CGMA exam mimics success as a management accountant in the real world: proven ability to adapt quickly to new situations, providing logical and data-driven recommendations to propel the business forward. The exam gives you the opportunity to shine and prove that you not only have the technical knowledge, but also the leadership skills and confidence to make important business decisions at an executive level.

If you were that competent and logical and absolutely insisted upon it, you'd just become a CGMA now before January and say screw the exam, ain't nobody got time for that. The choice is yours.

The post The CGMA Blog is Excited About the CGMA Exam appeared first on Going Concern.

The post Why are People in Public Accounting So Ridiculously Good Looking? appeared first on Going Concern.

Here's how LinkedIn analyzed the ranking:

1. First, we identified the top companies where Accounting Professionals are choosing to work.
2. Next, we found people on LinkedIn who work as Accounting Professionals and saw where they went to school.
3. Finally, for each school, we found the percentage of these alumni who've landed Accounting jobs at these top companies, then compared the percentages to come up with the list.

How did they figure out "top companies"? Glad you asked!

Defining “desirable jobs”
We define a desirable job to be a job at a desirable company for the relevant profession. For example, we define desirable finance jobs as finance jobs at companies desirable for finance professionals.

We start with identifying desirable companies for each profession.We let the career choices of our members tell us how desirable it is to work at a company. To illustrate this, imagine there are two companies, A and B. If more finance professionals are choosing to leave company A to work at company B, the data indicates that getting a finance job at B is more desirable. This is based on the hypothesis that when a professional moves from one company to another, she gives the company she moves to a strong vote of confidence.

Similarly, the ability of a company to retain its employees is a strong indicator of that employer’s attractiveness. So, hypothetically, if A and B are both attracting external employees at similar rates, but A has a much larger employee turnover than B, the data would show B to be a more desirable employer.

In other words, the most desirable companies in a profession are those that are the best at attracting and retaining talent in that profession.

Now, let's get to that ranking.

So Villanova has the most graduates working in the most desireable accounting jobs? Is that how we are supposed to read this?

The post LinkedIn Ranks the Best Undergrad Accounting Programs Based on Employability appeared first on Going Concern.

At Ernst & Young, the global accounting firm, good grades are a key qualification for entry-level jobs and a reliable measurement of “technical ability and work ethic”, says Dan Black, who directs recruiting for the Americas.

While EY does not have a minimum GPA requirement, certain strictures exist. “There is no hard-and-fast rule, but the lower the GPA, the more evidence we need to see of other competencies,” he says.

“If someone comes to us with a 3.9 from a great school, that’s an indicator that they can handle the technical rigours of the job. If someone has a GPA in the lower 3.0 range we would want to see that they had a part-time job to help get through school, or played a sport, or were active in student government. There needs to be a reason [for it].”

Note he says "lower 3.0 range" and not "mid 2.5 range" (I'm looking directly at you, Reddit posters). We already knew 3.0 is pretty much the cut off assuming you are personable and not a completely awful human being.

A few years back, a disappointed recruit emailed us to ask if Big 4 firms were raising their GPA requirements. Back then, Braddock explained things thusly:

Why are the GPA requirements rising? To weed out résumés, obviously. Why look through 500 when you can whittle things down to 400 by cutting out the bottom? If you fall into this range, beg, borrow, and NETWORK your way to an interview. Circumstances are individual – if you have a story or reason as to why you’re on the cusp, track down the recruiter (not a audit/tax professional) at the career fair and state your case. Hard work can be rewarded in cases like this.

So, just as Dan says in the FT article, a 3.0 with minimal social skills and a good cover story such as "I worked three jobs while I was in school so I wouldn't graduate buried in student loan debt" has a better shot than a 3.9 toolbag no one would want to spend even 30 seconds with in the audit room. But we already knew that, too.

Just last year, Dan told Susan Adams at Forbes that grades do matter because how else are they supposed to know if you're not an idiot?

He says, absolutely, he expects to see a GPA on a résumé. “Grades certainly do matter when we’re recruiting students,” he says. “It’s really one of the only indications we have of a student’s technical ability or competence to do the job.”

Wait a second, I thought he just said there are exceptions to the 3.9 rule? So which is it: high GPA and nothing more or decent GPA and a well-rounded package that includes something other than studying for four years straight?

The post EY Admits They’ll Still Take You Even if Your GPA Sucks appeared first on Going Concern.

RANKINGS. Love them or hate them, how else are we supposed to know who we're better than?

The 30th edition of U.S. News and World Report best colleges rankings are out and here's how your top 5 accounting ungrad programs stack up:

#1 University of Illinois–Urbana-Champaign

#2 Brigham Young University–Provo

#3 University of Notre Dame

#4 (Tie) University of Pennsylvania

#4 (Tie) University of Southern California

Notably, the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign also ranks #3 on the list of top graduate accounting schools.

Let's check out the table for more info:

You can see the ranking methodology here, and then you can take to the comments to bicker about these rankings and tell us how much better your school is than any of these clowns.

UPDATE: The real #1 here is University of Texas – Austin according to U.S News' updated, corrected rankings. The top five schools listed above are still in correct order, just one position lower than before.

The post (UPDATE) Which School Tops U.S. News Rankings in Undergrad Accounting? appeared first on Going Concern.

Students would have to cover the cost of fees, books and meet a slew of conditions including a 3.0 GPA, be willing to relocate to "a new market," be in good financial standing with university, completed an internship etc. etc. All the details about the employment guarantee can be seen here. 

The employability of accounting graduates hasn't really been an issue up to this point but I suppose offering a job guarantee might get a few more asses in the seats. 

Any Davenport grads out there want to testify to the program? Any firms out there got unspoken arrangements to take the poor souls who can't land a job elsewhere? We'd love to hear some reactions to this.

[WZZM, Davenport University]

The post Davenport University Guarantees Employment for Accounting Students appeared first on Going Concern.

This year's Accounting Competition is unique in that, well, I'll let you see for yourself. Here's the assignment:

2014 AICPA Accounting Competition: Management Accounting

Humble Pies, Inc. is the genius of childhood neighbors and best friends Linda Jackson and Taylor Johnson. Though almost inseparable through high school, the two parted ways after graduation—Linda heading abroad to study the art of pasty making in some of the most elite patisseries in Paris, and Taylor pursuing his love of food (especially bacon) by landing jobs in some of the finest restaurants in their hometown of Charlotte, N.C.

A chance encounter back in 2005 reunited the two and got them talking of their mutual love of food and what they’d been learning. Soon they were spending their free time crafting quirky but sophisticated (not to mention delicious) pies—passing them out to friends and family, and building a grassroots fan base around town. When the operation outgrew the Jackson family kitchen, Linda and Taylor applied for a small business loan. With it, they bought a small pie factory in Charlotte and became the proud owners of a 60,000 square-foot facility where they now produce high-quality pies.

A couple years ago, as demand for the pies grew to a national market (thanks to the company’s Instagram account), the co-owners hired a new Controller, a CPA with her Chartered Global Management Accountant (CGMA) designation from their CPA firm to help them continue to grow and stay profitable. Now they just landed their largest grocery store yet. In 2013, the company had $6.1 million in sales revenue and is on track to do $9.3 million this year.

The theme changes every year so it was only a matter of time before the CGMA reared its ugly, unwanted head to scare these kids into thinking they want one. BUT HEY, whatever.

Submissions are due September 29th so if you think you're up to the challenge, get a team together and tear it up. Remember, though, the competition is only open to legal U.S. residents who are currently-enrolled undergraduate students at two-year and four-year colleges, community colleges, and universities. Competitors must be student members of the AICPA.

Knock yourselves out…

The post This Year’s AICPA Accounting Competition Will Double as CGMA Advertising appeared first on Going Concern.

Here’s what we know: a former San Francisco State University accounting professor is accused of inviting a handful of current and former students over to his house to party and secretly filming them when his guests used his bathroom:

Mark Landis, 38, of San Francisco was arrested Wednesday and charged with 15 misdemeanor counts of invasion of privacy, Assistant District Attorney Alex Bastian said.

Landis is no longer a member of the faculty, having resigned July 18, according to SFSU spokeswoman Adrianne Bee.

This all started last November, after a student who went to Landis’ place to party had to, uh, answer nature’s call. While in the bathroom, the student observed a suspicious tissue box that seemed to have a flashing light in it. Upon investigating the box, the student found a camera, snatched the memory card out of it, and “examined the contents” of said memory card. The memory card contained “many instances of guests being filmed in the bathroom.” At the moment, there are 15 victims in the complaint but the D.A.’s office says there may be more.

For now, Landis is out on $100,000 bail and returns to court July 29. The District Attorney called Landis’ alleged actions “egregious.” More like really freaking creepy but whatever.

As far as inappropriate behavior by accounting professors goes, we have to say this is a notch less egregious than the Kennesaw State University professor who stripped in class for no apparent reason. But still a lot more egregious than simply throwing a party for students at your house — which is questionable at best — and not recording their trips to the porcelain throne.

The post Ex-Accounting Professor Invited Students Over to Party, Secretly Filmed Them Using Bathroom (Allegedly!) appeared first on Going Concern.

Take a look at the data on new accounting grads hired by accounting firms. The report shows historical data going back to 1971 (when total demand was a whopping 8,800 graduates). Below, you'll see demand for bachelor's grads (B), master's grads (M) and total demand (T):

• 2008: 19,110 (B), 6,378 (M), 25,488 (T)
• 2010: 19,870 (B), 13,451 (M), 33,321 (T)
• 2012: 23,793 (B), 16,557 (M), 40,350 (T)

As you can clearly see, demand for master's grads more than doubled from 2008 to 2010. Throughout the 80s and most of the 90s, that number was closer to an average of 2500 grads per reporting year. Note the report states 90% of new CPA firm master's hires are MAcc graduates. Meanwhile, Master's in Tax isn't as popular and the report calls the continuing decline "a concern."

Now… to the point (surely you knew I was going to make a point eventually?).

U.S. News loves to shill about opportunities in accounting almost as much as Yahoo!, and this latest article on "leveraging" (their word, not mine) job prospects with a master's in accounting is no exception. Let's take a peek:

Accounting has long been considered a reliable profession, but it's recently become something else: in-demand.

Out of 565 employers from around the world, 45 percent plan to hire master of accounting graduates this year, according to a survey from the Graduate Management Admission Council. In last year's survey, only 36 percent of employers planned to hire business school graduates with this degree.

Full-time master in accounting​ programs usually take one year to complete and accept students fresh out of undergrad. The job hunt for many of these students begins before they step foot on campus.

"We can connect with the students that have been accepted into the program – immediately – and start working with them and preparing them for fall recruiting," says Andy Rabitoy, director for undergraduate career services at the Foster School of Business at the University of Washington, which also works with students pursuing a master of professional accounting​. His office helps students with several job-related needs such as interview preparation and fine-tuning their resumes.

And this differs from bachelor's grads how, exactly? They get to go to recruiting events too.

The difference, according to Michael Akers, chairman of the accounting department at Marquette University, is that master's candidates are more well-rounded and well-spoken:

A master's program can help students meet the credit requirement and help students become familiar with material that will be on the tests. These programs are certainly not necessary for getting into accounting, experts say, but they offer benefits that students may not get with just a bachelor's degree.

"The learning experience is different at the undergraduate level," says Akers. "What graduate programs are trying to do are provide lifelong skills – whether it be more on writing, communicating, analytical reasoning – that will benefit them down the road."

Overall, the Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates that employment of accountants and auditors is projected to grow 13 percent from 2012 to 2022. While the BLS doesn't lay out demand based on degree, it does say "some employers prefer to hire applicants who have a master’s degree, either in accounting or in business administration with a concentration in accounting."

So go ahead and keep leveraging that master's. Just make sure you do it for the right reasons and not because some shill article told you to.

The post Master’s in Accounting Grads Becoming More Popular With Employers appeared first on Going Concern.

“I see it as (Millennials) adapting to the world as it is today, not as it was when their parents came of age,” [lead author of the study Joyce] Serido says. “What we saw was this lengthening period of emerging adulthood.”

Ah, that must be it. Because our parents and their parents never took nearly a decade after graduating high school to "find themselves" and figure out how to pay their own way in the world. I grew up hearing tales of how my mom left my grandparents' house just after high school to hitchhike across the United States and Canada with little more than a backpack and her dog; sure my grandparents would bail her out when she got picked up by mounties for who-knows-what but she mostly funded her adventure by picking up random jobs town to town like working carnivals or picking oranges in Florida. She returned after a year or two, worked shitty factory jobs, put herself through nursing school, and had me midway through. I don't see any studies on the "emerging" adults of 1970s hippie culture.

Back to the Millennials, here's what being an "adult" looks like now for one young lady following her dreams on mommy and daddy's dime:

Kay Sorin, 23, graduated from Colombia [sic] University with degrees in Psychology and Creative Writing and is currently pursuing her MFA while tutoring on the side. Her goal is to publish a novel and then become a writing teacher.

While her parents pay for grad school and living expenses, which she said is “kind of embarrassing,” Sorin’s parents – her mother is also an artist and her father is a retired lawyer-turned record producer – see the value in her pursuing her dream career with as little financial burden as possible.

“There is some stigma attached to it, I really don’t want to extend that indefinitely,” Sorin said of the financial support. “But when I am writing something or making progress with my art, those doubts sort of fade away and I think, ‘I’m going to be successful in this and this is just a time I need some help.’”

Despite needing a handout — or, seed money, really, since these young adults are basically adult startups that need their parents' venture capital — Millennials want to leave their mark on the world and work independently (being dependent on one's parents must not factor in to those lofty goals):

Research from Deloitte backs up Serido’s findings: In its 2014 Millennial Survey, Deloitte researchers found “Millennials want to leave their mark on the world … More than previous generations, they are ready to work independently if their needs are not being met by a traditional organization.”

With the initial lack of financial independence, full-time careers and traditional adult milestones being met, it seems reasonable that so many worry about the future of Gen-Y. But according to Serido, Millennials are simply adapting to the ever-changing world around them as every previous generation has.

As the Deloitte survey further supports, Millennials are interested in changing the way businesses work and the world around them.

“They think differently, behave differently,” she says. “And thank goodness. We have to solve some hard problems. They give me hope.”

Another interesting bit direct from the Deloitte survey:

Millennials are eager to make a difference.  Millennials believe the success of a business should be measured in terms of more than just its financial performance, with a focus on improving society among the most important things it should seek to achieve.

Of course someone who doesn't have to pay their own bills might think that way. Try picking up a mortgage, a car loan, and a couple kids and report back on how important "improving society" is.

Newsflash: not everyone gets to change the world.

The post Deloitte Survey: Millennials Ready to Change the World But Still Need to Borrow a Few Bucks for Rent and Bills appeared first on Going Concern.

NACAC’s  new 2014 “College Openings Update” list is out and there are a whopping 470 colleges listed as still urgently seeking either freshman or transfers students. This large and growing list of colleges that are unable to attract enough students is an alarming reminder of how troubled and inefficient the market for higher education is in the U.S. The vast majority of colleges continue to engage in “prestige” pricing, but ultimately are forced to quietly offer deep discounts in an attempt to fill up their classes. Then, when even that doesn’t work, hundreds report that they still can’t find enough “customers.”

What's up, Class of 2018? Just not feeling the whole college thing?

The listed schools are still accepting applications for Fall of 2014 and some schools are discounting tuition to entice fresh meat in time for fall.

50 schools on NACAC's list also appear in the Princeton Review Best 378 Colleges guide and run the gamut from liberal liberal arts (Sarah Lawrence) to the bro fest at SUNY Binghamton. The percentage of freshman receiving institutional grants is 100% for several schools; the average grant size is often in excess of $20K. Schools with sizaeble enrollments are also on the list, including Arizona, Arizona State, Colorado State, Florida-Gainesville, Iowa and Oregon.

Arizona State boasts a massive 66,224 students, which puts it at the highest enrollment of the schools on Forbes' 50 but apparently that isn't enough.

Referring to NASBA's 2011 CPA Exam Candidate Performance Book, we see Michigan Tech was 21st nationally by pass rate on first time exams. Marquette, Gonzaga, Baylor, and Cornell all ranked on that list as well.

So, if you have been thinking about going back to school or know a fresh faced youngster who put off college applications this year for whatever reason, you know what to do. Nothing like a good bargain bin education!

The post These 50 Colleges are So Desperate for Students, They’re Putting Education on Sale appeared first on Going Concern.

Now, there is a new form of campus predator: your fellow student.

We found this tidbit in the 2014 Accounting MOVE Project, a report that focuses on "the Return on Investment of women’s initiates within Firms" – an investment which starts on campus:

Although internship programs have existed at some firms for decades, many offices are shaking up traditional practices to net even greater results. Clark Nuber of Bellevue, Washington, has a secret recruiting weapon at Seattle University: Cassie Stanford. An intern since the summer following her sophomore year, and set to join the firm in October 2014, her on-campus part-time job is getting the word out to students that a local firm is interested in meeting them.

She has a fully loaded Starbucks card for treating other students to coffee, courtesy of Clark Nuber. She gives away water bottles and pens. She represents the firm at accounting honor society events and during autumn recruiting season, helps other students talk through their accounting career options, based on her stints in audit and tax.

“I think that I could get all the way to the top,” she says of her expectations for her career at Clark Nuber. “It’s exciting to start to invest in a firm where you’ll be and in clients you think you should get. Now, when I take my accounting classes, I’m thinking about big- picture things, instead of just debits and credits.”

Download the full report here. And be cautious when accepting coffee dates and/or water bottles.

The post Trends in Campus Recruiting: Never Trust a Big Starbucks Card and a Smile appeared first on Going Concern.

If you want to make an investment that’s guaranteed to grow, buy some stock in the character index.

Recent studies have found that appropriating new global leaders is the top challenge facing businesses of tomorrow. That’s because 66% of organizations are weak in their ability to develop leaders from the Millennial generation.

You can make an investment to help change that.

Somehow, Millennials have baffled leader-makers since the first bunch of us emerged 30 years ago, and yet with just a few hundred dollars and a two day programming session in some hotel ballroom, problem solved!

The Sponsor a Leader Campaign provides leadership and ethics training to outstanding college students through the annual Student Leadership Conference. Attendees workshop real-life ethical dilemmas, network with top industry professionals and glean wisdom from keynotes by world-class executives.

Leadership with integrity is the linchpin of a healthy economy. It inspires not only better business, but a better community. Character pays dividends.

The market of the future demands new leaders with both the skillset to make smart decisions and the values to make right ones. Companies who invest in developing such leaders lay an ethical foundation for generations of future growth.

Just how much is this investment opportunity going to run you? Glad you asked. You can sponsor a team of 5 students for the low low price of $5000. A single leader will run you a cool grand and, for the budget-minded, there's also the option to co-sponsor a leader for $500.

That means for the price of just 125 Venti black eyes at the coffee shop, you can invest in the future. *cue sad Sarah McLachlan music and pictures of doe-eyed students*

The post For Just the Cost of 125 Cups of Coffee, You Can Sponsor a Future Leader in Need appeared first on Going Concern.

I did the math and I'm willing to go to school for 3 years after my undergraduate to make 6 figures out of law school.

— Cadillactica Pimp (@RaganGotEm) April 21, 2014

h/t Law School Lemmings via ATL

The post Math-Challenged Future Barista With Law Degree Seeks Clue appeared first on Going Concern.

Here's our jump off point from CPA Trendlines:

Bolstering reports of a suddenly surging profession with a high demand for top talent, CPA firms are hiring a record number of graduates.

At the same time, the pipeline of accounting students is bulging, suggesting to some that the continuing high demand for new recruits can be met by newly minted graduates for the next few years.

Awesome, right? JOBS, JOBS, JOBS. The firms are always on the lookout for not only top talent but any accounting grad with a pulse and fewer than 3 DUIs. Seems like a win-win for everyone, really.

Back in 2010, Barry Melancon was more than happy to point out that a record number of candidates sat for the exam in 2009 when Prometric, the AICPA and NASBA all joined hands to sing Kumbaya over signing a new agreement that would bond the 3 organizations in holy CPA exam matrimony at least through 2024.

Let's pull up the 2013 Trends in Accounting report from the AICPA if you need a quick refresher:

Now, I wouldn't call that Peak Accounting Grad or anything but a reasonable person might ask themselves out loud if demand for accounting grads is infinite or if one day in the not-so-distant future, interns will be replaced by robots, rendering new grads obsolete.

That's great and all but let's not even discuss the shortage of qualified accounting professors.

At some point, something's got to give.

The post Accounting Grads are More in Demand Than Ever, But When Does it End? appeared first on Going Concern.

Let’s recall a few details from Part 1, as this article is really only relevant to two unique groups of students:

• Double majors who declared a first major and subsequently added accounting for the purpose of obtaining a CPA
• Anyone who obtained a non-accounting degree who decided to go back to school to obtain the courses necessary to sit for the CPA

I’ve decided to add an additional blanket assumption whereby out of financial or otherwise necessity, these students need to finish their accounting studies (and become CPA eligible in the process) as quickly as humanly possible¹

Why does this matter?
In my experience, you have two relevant entities here: a state board of accountancy and a university who would seem to have similar interests with respect to their students/customers, however this is not necessarily the case. This is where the efficiency and expedited timing of getting through an accounting program can become as confusing as watching David Bowie’s “Labyrinth” while in the throes of an LSD trip.

So here’s our situation: our friends from above just finished meeting with their accounting faculty advisor. Their simple question was taken verbatim from the paragraph above:

“How can we become CPA eligible as fast as humanly possible?”

In response, their advisor gave them a brochure including the university’s accounting degree requirements and said:

“Take these courses and you’ll get there, no problem.”

Here’s my question: Did the students receive an adequate response from their advisor? In my opinion: no, they didn’t. In fact, their advisor (potentially) could have done each of his students a great disservice by offering such a response.

Let’s take a look at the Virginia Board of Accountancy’s accounting-specific education requirements:

“Minimum of 24 semester hours of accounting courses, to include: courses in auditing, financial accounting, management accounting, and taxation;”

In more transparent² terms, Virginia is telling you:

If you want to sit for the CPA: Take Audit, Intermediate, Cost, Tax and 12 hours of whatever-the-fuck-other accounting courses you want.  But let me be crystal-fucking-clear: Take Audit, Intermediate, Cost and Tax. I couldn't care less what the other 4 classes are. Just make sure they begin with “Acct” and end with a 300 – 500 number.

Seems simple enough, right? So let’s look at the accounting degree requirements³ from Virginia Commonwealth University, a public school located in VA (duh), just for giggles.

Required (24 hours):
ACCT 205 Introductory Accounting Survey
ACCT 303 Intermediate Accounting I
ACCT 304 Intermediate Accounting II
ACCT 305 Intermediate Accounting III
ACCT 306 Cost Accounting
ACCT 307 Accounting Systems
ACCT 405 Tax Accounting Principles
ACCT 406 Auditing

Not rocket science here. The state CPA’s requirements seem different — albeit in subtle ways — than what is going on here at this school. This, however, doesn’t even scratch the surface that is the often arbitrary and always complex web of required prerequisites students must navigate through when selecting courses. By way of example, at the referenced school a student must take Intermediate Accounting I and Accounting Systems before enrolling in Audit (one of the four, explicitly required courses by the VA BOA). Where is Accounting Systems located in the VA BOA list of requirements?⁴

Imagine this scenario: it is your last semester prior to sitting for the CPA. You have 21 accounting credit hours knocked out and only need one last class: Audit. You attempt to enroll in Audit, but are denied the ability to do so.

Why did this happen?
You did not take Accounting Systems. You took another arbitrary accounting elective, deemed perfectly suitable by the VA BOA, but in the eyes of university administration, you are unfit and thus ineligible to enroll in Audit.

So what’s the big deal?
Recall our completely fictitious, not-at-all-based-in-reality students' primary interest in completing these CPA requirements was to do so in the most efficient manner possible. In this example, the university’s prerequisites have inhibited their ability to fulfill the VA BOA requirements in the most timely and cost efficient manner possible. The added cost comes in both monetary terms (at least $1,000 for an extra 3-credit course + books) and more importantly, in that student’s time. On a normal semester schedule, a student who would have completed their studies in December of a given year may now have to wait until May. A thousand bucks and 6 months: this is accounting education’s version of a DUI.

What’s the answer?
Assuming our students eventually pass the CPA exam, this will probably be a long forgotten memory. As a few of GC’s coolest/most-humble/overall-best readers commented, the “route” an individual takes to the CPA is virtually never detailed by anyone once it is obtained and I’ve never been in a position where anyone, no matter what, cared about what undergraduate or otherwise ancillary set of studies a person completed prior to or in fulfillment of the CPA. The only question anyone ever cares about is: CPA, got it or not?

The fact remains that you as the student are in the position of walking the delicate tightrope that is balancing the incompetence of state accountancy boards/university administration and the not-so-hidden agenda of whatever university is holding your wallet hostage. Educate thyself accordingly.

¹ This timing prerequisite is everything, boys and girls

² I’ve spoken with VA BOA representatives on numerous occasion as to why this requirement is not more clearly spelled out

³ The below includes only the specific course requirements; there are additional suggested electives not listed below

⁴ It’s not (explicitly, anyway)

The post No Shirt, No Shoes, No Accounting Degree, No Probl– Actually, Small Problem appeared first on Going Concern.

Seems simple enough; CPA requirements are set by the given state board of accountancy. Universities set their program curriculums. 

One might assume, of all curriculums in particular, accounting degrees should mirror, identically, their state’s CPA requirements. Never has the old adage, “assumption: the mother of all fuck-ups” been more appropriately used.  Maybe the above equation should look more like this:
 

We need to preface any further discussion by stating this issue is most applicable to two specific sets of would-be CPAs:

1. Double majors who declared a first major and subsequently added accounting for the purpose of obtaining a CPA
2. Anyone who obtained a non-accounting degree who decided¹ to go back to school to obtain the courses necessary to sit for the CPA

This void has become a prevalent conversation topic for me over the years, as I found myself within the confines of one of the two above listed groups. As luck would have it, I was able to complete my state’s CPA accounting coursework requirement, begin sitting for the CPA exams, passed the exams and was awarded a CPA certificate.

What you will not find anywhere on my C.V. or transcripts, however, is a degree in accounting.  This has led to a few bizarrely-awkward conversations, not unlike the following:

Boss: So where did you get your accounting degree?

Me: Well, technically speaking…I don’t have an accounting degree.  I do have a degree in finance?²

Boss: But you’re a CPA³?

Me: Yes, I am.  My university set an arbitrary accounting course curriculum that included a handful of accounting classes that were nowhere to be found on the state’s CPA accounting course requirements.  So I didn’t take them; and the university refused to award me a degree in accounting.

Boss: So the university refused to award you a degree in a field of study where the very state regulator deemed you perfectly fit to sit for the certification exam, where you ultimately passed and were awarded that very certificate by the state regulatory body?

Me: Exactly.

Boss: That is fucking bullshit.

Me: Exactly.

Stay tuned for the rest of this story later this week. We are going to examine actual requirements, still currently in place by both the state in which I was licensed and the university I attended. In the meantime, we would love to hear from you if you too took this untraditional path to the CPA.  Please share the university and related state board of accountancy.

¹ Horrible, horrible decision here guys

² Boss mumbles: “Why the fuck can’t you just give me a simple answer here?” – Me: I blame the universities!

³ Boss: (expressing high degree of skepticism)

The post No Shirt, No Shoes, No Accounting Degree, No Problem! appeared first on Going Concern.

GC,



So I interned at a Big 4 firm this summer in Advisory and was fortunate enough to get an offer full-time. I excitedly jumped at this offer and signed, where I'll start in the fall. I know this might sound like a dumb question, but I want to be REALLY sharp at Excel… like doing the most important, heavily used and exciting functions/shortcuts in my sleep kind of sharp. What skills do you recommend I learn or brush up on and what resources do you suggest I utilize to know these really well before I start? I took 2 Excel classes in school when I was a freshman and sophomore, but they've long been forgotten sadly.



Thanks,



Scared for the Real World
 

Scared,

Acknowledging a weakness is the first step toward converting deficits into strengths. Most likely the two Excel classes you took two or three years ago left you with only a rudimentary sense of what one can do with spreadsheets. The risks and opportunities in Excel lie in discovering its nuances. That's why I coined the phrase “Either you work Excel, or it works you.” The vast majority of spreadsheet users fall into the latter category.

You can turn the tide, but note that Malcolm Gladwell says it takes 10,000 hours to become an expert. James Altucher says it takes five years to reinvent yourself, which is in effect your goal. Others beg to differ. No matter who’s right, you’re clearly going to need some serious keyboard time if you want to pwn Excel. Between now and this fall, carry out every imaginable life task in Excel:

Make a grocery list
Track your workouts
Maintain a reading list
Build a personal budget
Plot your retirement

However, don’t just fill in the blanks in these templates. Rewrite them from scratch, and apply Steve Krug’s “Don’t Make Me Think” philosophy to every spreadsheet you build. Google every question that arises about Excel. Pay attention when you’re working in Excel—press the Alt key and note all of the keyboard shortcuts that appear. Hover your mouse over commands to see if a tip that contains a keyboards shortcut appears. Double-click and right-click on aspects of Excel to find hidden features. Use the function wizard, and click on those little tips that appear when you’re editing a formula.

Spend as much time as you can on message boards, such as Mr. Excel, OzGrid, and Stack Overflow. Try your hand at answering questions. Ask your own questions. Message boards are Excel school where people reveal how they use and misuse Excel, and experts disabuse end-user misconceptions.

Next, visit a bookstore, either online or bricks-and-mortar, and buy a handful of Excel reference books. Authors at the top of their game include John Walkenbach and Bill Jelen, but don’t miss quick reference guides such as those published by Beezix. Do your best to read every Excel book you can from cover to cover. The more you learn about Excel, the easier it becomes to learn that the next technique.

Switch to YouTube when your eyes get bleary from reading. Seek out webinars, such as the High Impact Excel series, which offers 1 hour of free CPE per month. Pepper webinar instructors with questions. They’re there to help you. Supplement books and videos with Excel blogs, such as Chandoo, Daily Dose of Excel, and Contextures. Comment on posts. Ask why if something doesn’t make sense. Engage Excel experts on Twitter. Start your own Excel blog or Twitter feed to document everything you’re learning, and to help others. The French essayist Joseph Joubert noted “To teach is to learn twice.” Get in over your head by bidding on Excel projects at sites like Odesk and Elance, or mine your social network connections for projects. Then use all of the aforementioned resources to get yourself out of any jams. This fall, use your new found skills to rewrite the crappy spreadsheets you inherit.

The sooner you accomplish all of the above tasks, the faster you’ll become “in my sleep kind of sharp”. That’s the point where you’ll have forgotten more about Excel than most users ever learn.

David H. Ringstrom, CPA — @excelwriter on Twitter — heads up Accounting Advisors, Inc., an Atlanta-based software and database consulting firm.

The post How To Be a Master of Excel From the Master of Excel appeared first on Going Concern.

Accounting Degree Review mashed together the lists of US News, Bloomberg BusinessWeek, and Public Accounting Report to come up with their own 30 Best Accounting Schools for Undergrads. I suppose we'll have to live with this until a playoff system is developed.

Regardless, it's a pretty unremarkable list — aside from an inexplicable appearance by Arizona State — and I honestly don't know if it's the slightest bit reputable but the Winston-Salem Journal ran a story about Wake Forest's 8th place ranking, so that's something.

Here's the rundown:

1. BYU
2. Illinois
3. Notre Dame
4. Texas (McCombs)
5. Indiana (Kelley)
6. Pennsylvania (Wharton)
7. Southern California (Marshall)
8. Wake Forest
9. Washington (Foster)
10. Georgia (Terry)
11. Texas A&M
12. Virginia (McIntire)
13. Michigan State
14. NYU
15. Bentley
16. Arizona State
17. Wisconsin-Madison
18. Penn State
19. Ohio State
20. Florida (Warrington)
21. Michigan (Ross)
22. California (Haas)
23. Cornell
24. North Carolina (Kenan-Flager)
25. SMU
26. Missouri (Trulaske)
27. Boston College
28. Miami (Ohio)
29. Nothern Illinois
30. Tennessee

I'm a little surprised that SMU didn't buy its way into a higher spot, but I suppose anything better than 25 would attract too much attention.

If you see anything else interesting in this ranking, discuss it below.

[ADR]

The post Let’s Exchange Heated Words About: The Top 30 Accounting Undergrad Programs appeared first on Going Concern.

Grading exams, I'm overflowing with confidence in the next generation of CPAs. @going_concern pic.twitter.com/OzFNkUStAN

— Brad Kendrex (@bradkendrex) December 19, 2013

The post Accounting Student Gets Stumped by Journal Entry Exam Question; Doodles Boat appeared first on Going Concern.

Hahaha. No, no he didn't. But here's something interesting not related to Breaking Bad that we read on Twitter this morning: 

Spoke to @UChicago MBA students Sat. about patsy "rogues". Surprised when I said walk away from recruiters looking for "fit". #RedFlag

— Francine McKenna (@retheauditors) September 30, 2013

I know a lot of you immediately dismiss anything Francine McKenna says or writes, but if a person attempts to think about the message firms on campus are reciting rather than desperately trying to say and do all the right things, hearing a recruiter mention the "right fit" or "team players" should get you to reflect on what kind of employee they're looking for. It will vary from firm to firm and office to office, but any firm looking for recruits to "fit in" should be a warning sign. 

If you just want a job that pays well and don't mind conforming to rigid expectations and culture, then this shouldn't concern you. However, if you get the sense that a firm's culture doesn't differ that much from a prime time teen drama and that's something you want to avoid, then yeah, Francine's suggestion to "walk away" is solid advice. 

The "patsy rogues" she mentions isn't something you'll experience in a LHO kind of way insofar as it will be a "just following orders" sort of way. We've said it many times before, but the large accounting firms recruiting on campus this fall will say a lot about "future leaders" and "people who aren't afraid speak up" and "ask questions" but that's lip service. Recruits who "fit" and who can be "team players" are what they want because it'll keep the well-oiled machine chugging along. It allows the brand of their firm to stay intact while the worsdsmiths in marketing research the buzziest phrase for the future to keep their competitive edge in this "war for talent." Let other firms experiment with boat rockers and contrarians, the big firms like things just the way they are and have the name recognition and influence to keep it all in line.

Plus, "fit" is a big and convenient bucket for rejecting people who appear to be ideal candidates but are too ambitious, too outspoken, hell, too smart, to fit into a large accounting firm's culture. These people sneak through regularly but it doesn't take long for them to discover that their kind isn't welcome for overextended visits. They get counseled out or move on.

And please do not mistake being a "team player" with being able to "work on a team." Team players smile and nod; working on a team means not accepting BS like "we've always done it this way" or using bureaucracy as an excuse for the status quo. "Fitting in" and being a "team player" is the last thing you should want to do at your job and it should be the last attribute any accounting firm should be looking for in a candidate. 

As a recruit, you have options; don't settle for firm that wants more of the people they already have. You'll quickly find out that you're easily replaceable. 

The post Recruiting Season: Be Wary of Accounting Firms ‘Looking for a Fit’ appeared first on Going Concern.

Fourth, while you're being genuine, you don't want to be too genuine. As Braddock once pointed out, just because "99.99997% of Beta Alpha Psi members join the society because it looks good on a résumé," don't actually admit that to recruiters.

DO: Be real.

DON'T: Be so real you freak people out.

Lastly, if you run out of things to talk about, remember that everyone loves to talk about themselves. So you can always ask the recruiter about themselves and their experience within the firm. Remember though, while I like to say there are no stupid questions, only stupid people, that doesn't quite apply here. Asking stupid questions that could easily be answered by 3 minutes of Googling for the sake of asking questions is a waste of everyone's time.

As always, the peanut gallery is encouraged to drop their wisdom in the comment section.

The post How To Talk to Public Accounting Recruiters Without Coming Off Like a Tool appeared first on Going Concern.

We all know the youth of America is pretty doomed as is but I'm fairly sure little kids saying they want to be CPAs when they grow up is one of the signs of the Apocalypse.

"And I saw another mighty intern come down from heaven, clothed with a wrinkled blue shirt: and a smart haircut was upon his head, and his face was as it were the sun, and his feet as pillars of loafers: And he had in his hand a Financial Accounting book open: and he set his right foot upon the sea, and his left foot on the earth, And cried with a loud voice, as when a lion roareth: and when he had cried, seven audit committee members uttered their voices. And when the seven audit committee members had uttered their voices, I was about to write: and I heard a voice from heaven saying unto me, Seal up those things which the seven audit committee members uttered, and audit them not."

Be afraid. Be very afraid.

The post Kids Don’t Say They Want to Grow Up to Be CPAs Because Kids are Dumb appeared first on Going Concern.

FYI: We made the Annual Meeting video private until we get a version with standard music. The music on the first version is copyrighted. Thank you for your patience.

Here's the video proudly posted on Facebook on August 14th:

And then the oopsie news two days later:

Yeah, that's only slightly embarrassing. But hey, at least they didn't delete it completely to try and hide their tracks.

The post Beta Alpha Psi Recently Got a Crash Course in Free and Fair Use appeared first on Going Concern.

"To make things even better for our Summer 2013 Interns, KPMG gave each male a $200 giftcard to Men's Wearhouse and each female a $200 giftcard to Ann Taylor Factory. Men's Wearhouse and Ann Taylor Factory also provided ties and necklaces, along with coupons to their stores, to help our interns start building their professional wardrobe in style!"

And that wasn't enough either. They apparently humiliated their freakishly hot Campus Recruiters by forcing them to strut around in a fashion show, presumably to show the interns a variety of work-appropriate and casual looks. That's great and all but kind of creepy.

You can stalk all the fun in Orlando on the KPMG US Careers Facebook page.

The post KPMG Is Going To Like the Way You (Interns) Look appeared first on Going Concern.

• No shorts unless its specified. Even if they are given the okay, that doesn’t mean your Old Navy flip flops can tag along. 
• Wear a closed toe shoe, like a boat shoe. Ladies can wear nice sandals, but then again their feet don’t look like they belong to a zombie in the Walking Dead. 
• TOMS are slippers. Don’t even think about it. 
• Keep your shirt tucked in. This isn’t a frat house. 
• Before wearing a polo/golf shirt to the office for business casual, see what the local protocol is. Things are differ between NYC and St. Louis so it is best to follow, not lead, when it comes to fashion in the office.
• Avoid cargo shorts, pants, anything. You are an accountant, not a roadie on tour with the Lumineers. 

• It’s summer and it’s hot out, so if you decide to wear summer dresses, keep them to an appropriate length. Also, cover up your shoulders with a cardigan if you’re wearing spaghetti straps. I overhear conversations between cranky, over-the-hill campus recruiters who point out the “inappropriateness” of your young shoulders gracing the group with their presence. I’m sure senior partner Dick Johnson doesn’t mind, but consider yourself warned that high school gossip never dies; it just gets grey hair. 
• Only wear heels if you can walk in them. Any lady with common sense in a big city will keep a pair of nice flats with her at all times. Also, avoid changing into your heels at the event. Stop a block away and make the switch so you’re fully put together when you roll up to the event. You never know what partner will be outside on their cell or having a smoke.

The post The Definitive Guide to a Successful Public Accounting Summer Internship appeared first on Going Concern.

In an e-mail interview, Abraham, 22, said an online program [at Pace's Lubin School of Business] makes it easier to juggle her work and parenting responsibilities, while avoiding any problems that might crop up “with students and teachers who could not handle themselves around me. I find it better to do online so I can focus without distractions.”

 

Abraham said she plans to concentrate in accounting and internal auditing at Pace. “I have career plans for my first restaurant to open by the beginning of next year, as I complete my bachelors. I would hope to have a couple of restaurants open by that point, and do other business projects.”

The post Teen Mom-cum-Porn Star Farrah Abraham Is Going to Concentrate on Internal Auditing Because of Course She Is appeared first on Going Concern.

The following was sent to us from a student who told us that "one of my buddies who was able to slip in a Dr. Dre/Eminem reference in a paper for his capstone accounting class and was called out on it."  

If you're not familiar with hip-hop, the excerpt highlighted comes from the song Forget About Dre, a single from Dr. Dre's album 2001 that features Eminem. I doubt that either man ever dreamed that any words they've written or uttered would ever wind up in an accounting paper, but there you have it.

It's equally remarkable that this professor recognized it and we're told that the "12" was 100% of the points possible, so the prof rewarded the student appropriately.

Really nice job all around.

The post The Only Thing Better Than Working an Eminem Lyric into Your Accounting Paper Is Your Professor Calling You Out For It appeared first on Going Concern.

The average starting salary for accounting graduates this year is $53,300, up from $49,700 in 2012, Andrea Koncz, employment information manager for the NACE, told AccountingWEB. In 2011, the average starting salary for accounting graduates was $50,500.

The post Comp Watch ’13: This Year’s Accounting Graduates Will Be Resented More Than Ever appeared first on Going Concern.

The post Let’s Bicker About: Top Undergrad Accounting Programs appeared first on Going Concern.

Yes, we've been getting a lot of anxious messages from the winter interns, so hopefully this will satisfy the eager beavers that have received their offers, been rejected, are having second thoughts, or are so excited to be Big 4 associate that you're doing the I'm-about-to-wet-myself dance. 

Or those of you that made off with a fortune in swag your firms have been throwing around.

This is a message we received from "I have a GAAS Problem":

I have a question that has been on my mind for a while; who gave out the best free swag? I interviewed with and interned with McGladrey and can personally say they gave out some legit swag.

 

1st Interview: Large Clear McGladrey water bottle complete with screw top

 

Office Interview: McGladrey Umbrella

 

While Interning: Leather Bond portfolio with McGladrey Name, Office Supplies in a neat carrying case with McGladrey Name, Shirt for when they took us to a baseball game with customize design, pretty sick. 

 

Accepting Offer: McGladrey Hoodie and Gym Bag.

 

I know some people who interviewed with McGladrey this year and they got an updated Large Clear McGladrey water bottle and a fleece blanket for the office interview.

 

I also know some people that interviewed and interned with P dub. They got shitty headphones for the interview but a pretty nice backpack for accepting a job offer.

 

Just curious what other people are getting.

Since your haul of swag will become very useful for bartering purposes, it is an important inquiry. The weird stuff is what we want to see. PwC shoe polish? A KPMG kimono? An Ernst & Young drum? Grant Thornton temporary tattoos? Email us that stuff.

But really this is post is your chance to discuss anything you like — money, firms, acceptance, rejection, the end of your lives as you know it, whatever your little Xerox-operator hearts desire. Have fun.

The post We Haven’t Forgotten About You, Public Accounting Winter Interns! appeared first on Going Concern.

Welcome to the final recruiting season roundup for 2012. Thanks for all your questions and freak outs this fall. If you ever encounter any interesting situations or simply have something on your mind that you want to run by us as you prance along in your accounting career, email advice@goingconcern.com.

Okay, here we are, the moment many of you have been waiting for. The moment you realize that next year's first year associates will be making a gazillion percent more than you did when you started your career at a public accounting firm. Yes, it's a sad state of affairs for you.

For the future first years out there – congrats! You are about to win the resentment of your superiors before setting foot in your sensible business casual shoes. 

Before we get to the numbers, a little bit of administrative information on what exactly we did here just because that will make this exercise slightly more legit.

Methodology – Uh, what? This is about as unscientific as data collection gets. Until we employ more sophisticated procedures (or you start scanning and emailing us your offer letters), you have the right to take our data as seriously as Big 4 communications teams take our emails and phone calls. That is, not very. We asked for starting salary details and you emailed them to us, sometimes without all the pertinent details. The population isn't large (~6090 submissions) but we hope more of you will share your offer details with us so we can compile the most accurate data possible. Our understanding is that there are some offices that haven't quite wrapped up recruiting (including most of NYC) so email us the details (salary, city, practice, sign-on bonus, etc.) to tips@goingconcern.com and we'll continue to update this post.

Enough already. Here's the skinny on starting salaries for 2013 that we've compiled so far. 

Audit – UPDATED on 11.27.12

• Average salary offer for auditors was $52,643.
• Average salaries for the Big 4 firms were as follows: PwC – $53,700$53,214; KPMG – $51,600$51,833; Ernst & Young – $52,000$52,500; Deloitte – $52,750. 
• The average offer for audit positions that were from non-Big 4 firms was $52,350 $52,893.
• The range of audit salaries was $57,000 on the high end to $48,000 on the low end.
• The highest offers received so far were in Chicago, DC, and Boston.
• The lowest offer received so far was in Oklahoma City.

Tax – UPDATED on 11.27.12

• Average salary offer for tax was $55,409$55,611.
• We're withholding average salaries for Big 4 for now until we get more submissions.  For now we'll give averages for 3 of the Big 4: PwC – $54,666; E&Y – $53,375; Deloitte – $55,500. The submissions we have for KPMG so far don't get us to an average that even remotely reflects reality, so we'll hold off until we get more submissions. Send us your tax offer details, stat!
• Ditto for non-Big 4 firms.
• Tax salaries range from a high of $69,000 to a low $49,000.
• The highest offer so far was in New York.
• The lowest offer was in Greenville, South Carolina.

Other – UPDATED on 11.27.12

• Only details for two (come on!) offers in non-audit/tax and they were both for IT Risk Assurance in Los Angeles: E&Y – $60,000 and PwC – $56,000. UPDATE – SEE BULLET #2
• A few more details but not enough to share firm averages: The overall average for non-assurance, non-tax salary is $55,570 so far.
• The highest salaries are in NYC: $61k-$62k.
• The lowest salaries so far is in Salt Lake City: $51,000.

Internships – UPDATED on 11.27.12

We only received a couple handfuls of intern offer details but here they are:

Compensation ranged from $22 to $24$26.50 per hour but it was for a wide variety of firms including: Cherry, Bekaert & Holland, GT, Dixon Hughes Goodman, BDO, PwC, and McGladrey. And one tipster from a North Carolina school that shall not be named had this to share:

No KPMG office visit- Don't know whether this is a good thing or a bad thing.

UPDATE: With a few more submissions we can report that the average hourly wage for the interns so far is $23.95 per hour.

Sign-on Bonuses – UPDATED on 11.27.12

• Sign-on bonuses were not that common this year but there were a few and those that did come in ranged from $1,500 to $3,000. UPDATE: The average sign-on bonus was $2,500. 
• They given by all the Big 4 with the exception of KPMG and in both tax and audit. Oh, and there was this guy who went with PwC that reported that his bonus was a "Bonus: Long Sleeve T-Shirt….."

Other noteworthy Items:

• Another source went with Deloitte, landing a $60k salary after "I went back to them and GT with the PwC offer," which was considerably less.

• Surprising (no, really) news out of Oklahoma City: "For what it's worth, I received 3 other offers (2 from Big 4, 1 from a regional firm) and GT's starting salary was the highest."
• One tipster was eager to share her experience with KPMG:

I wanted to note that while I interned in the KPMG Tax practice this summer in New York and Paris (I was a Global Internship Program participant, which means that I had the opportunity to work with some of our European clients at the KPMG U.S. Tax desk in Paris for the entire month of July – which it is also worth commenting that KPMG covered ALL of my expenses associated with that opportunity, including my flight, my studio apartment overlooking the Eiffel Tower, and even a per diem allowance for my meals and the exchange rate difference), I received paychecks based on my same full-time annualized salary (plus overtime!!) but was also given a $2,500 (less applicable taxes, of course) "relocation bonus" since I lived out-of-state.

• And another source was not impressed with Ernst & Young Charlotte:

Didn't apply to E&Y–too many nerds. They also made their people pick up all the recruits' used plates and cups at a campus event while the club's wait staff stood around and watched. Pretty good glimpse into the EY world right there.

• And yet another from Hartford shared this sentiment and threw in KPMG for good measure:

Would just like to point out that I was not impressed with E&Y and KPMG at all. They both did not have office visits. What are they hiiding?

The post (UPDATE) Recruiting Season: Public Accounting Salaries for The Starting Class of 2013 appeared first on Going Concern.

All right, boys and girls, this is the last recruiting season post before we spill all the salary details on you. We're getting lots of questions about which firm to choose, so it's obviously crunch time. If you didn't get your question answered, hopefully you found some other accounting gossip website that was willing to lay some tough love on you. 

If you have received an offer, we want to know all the gory details including your firm, city, signing bonus, etc. etc. Email them to tips@goingconcern.com with "Starting Salary Details" in the subject line.

Now, this week's letters.

BJL:

My questions are only tangentially related to accounting, but I have to ask somebody. I recently accepted a full time audit position with Deloitte to begin in Fall 2013. My girlfriend has been working in PwC tax for a few months. Is the rivalry going to destroy our relationship, or will it be hotter because it’s naughty? Also, her starting salary with PwC was 10% higher than mine will be, and she has an extra year on me to boot. Yet she tells me I still have to pay for everything. What. The. Heck. It’s bad enough that my lower pay makes me feel inadequate and my apartment is a hole compared to hers, but now I have to comp Ms. Moneybag’s Caesar salad and movie theatre popcorn?! This is to say nothing of her taste for fine wine and jewelry and exotic vacations. So, how do I get her to pay for everything? Alternatively, should I just break up with her, lower my expectations, and settle for a plain girl from KPMG?

To answer the initial question, the so-called rivalry you asked about will not destroy your relationship nor will it make it hotter. If I am wrong (it's been known to happen) and your relationship ends because your respective employers are rivals, then this relationship is even more shallow then you let on. If I am wrong and the flame of love is reignited, then this relationship is even more shallow then you let on.

The only real benefit that I see to this dual firm relationship is that you have access to far more tchotchkes than the average Big 4 employee. Most Big 4 romantic relationships occur within one firm, thereby only allowing to hoard the Nalgene bottles, Post-It notes, pens, polo shirts, golf hats et al. from one organization. By transcending the Big 4 divide, not only will you double your tchtochke riches, it will diversify your holdings. This will ultimately give you a better chance to cash in BIG TIME when one of the firms fails in spectacular fashion.

As for your relationship trouble, I don't know what to tell you, man. Sounds like she's bossing you into paying for stuff. Either get a pair and tell her to chip in every once in a while or she can subsidize her own pricey taste. And you're wrong to think that the girls at KPMG are "plain." You probably just need to date outside the accounting pool. 

John:

I have FT offers from EY in their FSO – BAP in NYC as well as an offer for PwC – Core Assurance in NYC. 

 

My dilemma is audit v. advisory. I have been actively talking to PwC about possibilities there, but Core Assurance seems to be the only spot open for now. I am very open to working in audit, I just don't know if I could do it for a career, and I would eventually want to transfer into either advisory or a more finance – facing role. When joining PwC, I would want to work in their Financial Services division, so getting experience in the industry wouldn't be a problem. 

 

EY on paper seems like the best opportunity. I would get paid more and it is the area I think I would want to work in eventually. Getting my CPA and CFA wouldn't be looked down upon as well at EY, and actually encouraged. (I have been warned that getting your CFA while in audit may be looked down upon, that I shouldn't mention it, and I wouldn't be reimbursed. Despite that, I have read that getting a CFA will definitely help me transfer over to advisory, I should do it, and once completed, it is seen to be as good as an MBA). 

 

My internal conflict if that though the people at EY are great, and would be fine to work with, I naturally like PwC better and think their people are awesome. 

 

So the question is, do I go with my gut and do PwC, or should I go with my brain and do the easiest track with EY advisory? 

I recently accepted an offer with one of the big 4. The day after emailing my contract back, I got a confirmation that they had received my acceptance, and a few emails from people I interviewed with congratulating me on accepting. My college was a small college, and we had very few people go into public accounting at all, let alone big 4. I was wondering if you could tell me what communications to expect- start date, specifics, etc. and the general time period to expect them.

Long story short, I have offers from both [GT and KPMG] and I am having a ridiculously hard time deciding between the two.  At this point in my career, I am aiming to make partner but I understand there is a big chance this might not happen.  Is the Big 4 name really that important?  Will my career still be worthwhile if I go to GT?

The post Recruiting Season: Is Inter-Big 4 Romance a Relationship Killer? appeared first on Going Concern.

Just a friendly reminder – if you have received an offer from a public accounting firm, by all means, share your excitement with us. We've received a fair amount so far, but we are definitely looking to compile a wide sample. Please include your firm, office, practice, starting salary, bonus (if applicable) and any other information that you feel like oversharing. Now, this week's letters.

Chowda Head:

Any thoughts on which firm is the best in Boston? I have offers from all four Big 4, but ultimately torn between Deloitte and PwC. I was also shocked when PwC offered me a bit less $$ than the rest, since I've heard they are supposedly known to compensate well… What's that about?

Well, you may have heard that PwC Boston does a lot of work for Bain Capital and a certain Presidential candidate so if that seems to be your speed, I'd go that route. Other than that, I'll largely defer to the peanut gallery on this one since I'm not that familiar with either PwC or Deloitte in Boston but I can personally testify that the KPMG people from Boston were great. And by "great" I mean they were DRINKERS and great to hang out with at national training. That, and there was this nice gal from the Boston office that I always saw at these national trainings who always answered the age-old training question of "If you weren't an accountant, what would you do?" with "dog walker." I always thought that was a WAY better answer than most of the clowns that said "a financial analyst" or "lawyer" or "I can't imagine not being an accountant" because dog walking is actually fun. You get to learn a lot about the different personalities of dogs, it's a good excuse to go to the park, and I really don't mind picking up after them even though their shit is RANCID. Anyway, Boston is great even though everyone there has awful taste in sports teams. 

As for the slightly lower salary, you'll be happy to know that PwC intends on making it up to you. You won't be starving.

BillsToPay:

I've just received a full time Big Four offer in the Midwest (Not Chicago), and I was a little underwhelmed by the salary.  I know that it's not going to make a huge difference, but is there any precedent of college grads negotiation a higher starting salary with the Big Four, or is the starting salary in an office pretty much set?

Think of it this way – There are probably a few dozen college students that would gladly take your Big 4 job for the money offered in a nanosecond. 

Still on a BlackBerry:

I got an offer to intern at WithumSmith+Brown, EisnerAmper and ParenteBeard, but I really wanted Deloitte… Which should I choose to (a) secure a definite position after graduation, and (b) when I apply to Deloitte again which program will they look at with more prestige?

I see how it is – you want to land a guaranteed job and then you want to use that job to land the job you actually want. The first question is impossible to answer because we don't know the individual needs of the offices that extended you offers. They all have a need for new recruits, so it'll be up to you to determine which firm fits you best.

As far as prestige goes, it's much easier to defer to the 2013 rankings over at Vault (methodology) which has the three firms listed thusly (2012 in parenthesis):

16 (13) EisnerAmper
21 (24) ParenteBeard
38 (32) WithumSmith + Brown

Now before you rush to sign with EA, we'd be remiss if we didn't mention that the flagship Vault ranking (methodology) has them ordered quite differently:

13 (7) WithumSmith + Brown
26 (35) ParenteBeard
34 (10) EisnerAmper

The disparity in the rankings should tell you something. Internships are more than just a springboard into capital market servitude; you should actually, ya know, enjoy the experience. But if prestige is all you're worried about, then I'd say go with EisnerAmper. 

Handout Harry:

Like every breathing intern, I got an offer. The offer was low, but I'll deal with it. Its going to be hard pill to swallow when I compare it to my Goldman and tech friends, but I'm thankful. I'll be accepting the offer with KPMG, regardless of how some posters feel about the firm. A few of my friends are looking to get into a big 4 as a non-intern, how wrong/unethical would it be for me to apply for the other Big 4 in order to guide them and help them along in the social and pre-interview events?

So let me get this straight – you completed an internship, received an offer that you plan to accept, and now are asking if you think it's wrong/unethical to go through the whole process all over again just for the hell of it? Yes, I read the part where you wrote that you were going to "guide" your friends and help them along in the social and pre-interview events, but that's the weirdest part. What are you, some kind of Big 4 sherpa? Do your friends speak English? Are they potty-trained? Do they chew with their mouths closed? Why do you feel compelled to hold their hands through this? Furthermore, what do you plan to tell the recruiting professionals when you show up at these events? That situation will be filled with so much awk, I'm getting uncomfortable for you just thinking about it. 

I imagine it going something like this:

Recruiter who's easy on the eyes: Hey, I'm Jennifer. 

HH: Hi, Jennifer. I'm Harry. 

Recruiter who's easy on the eyes: Harry? Did we meet last year at this thing?

HH: Yep we did.

Recruiter who's easy on the eyes: I knew you looked familiar. How's it going?

HH: Oh pretty good. I graduate soon and will start with KPMG next year.

Recruiter who's easy on the eyes and now completely perplexed: Yeah? That's…cool. What are you doing at this thing again?

HH: Just guiding my buddies through the process.

Recruiter who's easy on the eyes and now even more perplexed: Oh? Who are your friends?

HH: See those guys over there whose faces are covered in chicken wing sauce? That's them. Lemme introduce you.

You're asking if it would be "wrong/unethical" to be a "guide" but I'd be more inclined to call you a "cockblock." No one wants a cockblock.

Good luck, everyone.

The post Recruiting Season: Best of Big 4 in Beantown; Underwhelming Salaries; Second-tier Stepping Stones appeared first on Going Concern.

Hello GC fellows,

Bottom line up front: from a top MAcc program but got rejected by all the big 4. 

 

Bio: 1) 22 years old, 2) Russian nationality (foreign student), 3) 3.77 GPA undegrad in bus. admin; 4) 3.6 current GPA in a leading U.S. MAcc program. Oh yes, 750 GMAT. 

 

More details:

 

I came to the U.S. in 2009. By December 2011 I managed to get 2 degrees (1 from Russia in Public management, another is BSBA in Management from a middle-tier school in the U.S.) After graduation in 2011 I got accepted to one of THE best MAcc programs in the U.S. The program is famous for a ridiculously high student placement percentage.

 

The school started in May. In June recruiters came on campus and stayed here until the end of September. I got 5 interviews – all the companies that sponsored H1-B visas. I networked heavily. I attended 4 networking events for EVERY company I was recruiting with (panels, meet-the-firms events, socials, and pre interview reception). 

 

So for right now I was rejected by ALL the companies I was interviewing with. 

 

I smell OK. I speak VERY fluent English as I spent almost 4 years in the U.S. I am slightly introverted, but feel comfortable during networking events. I got all the interviews I was asking for. I have business experience. I am able to bring diversity of thought and background to companies (they were ALL talking about this stupid diversity.) Long story short: I feel more than qualified and for some reason got rejected. As well as ALL other international (120 people class, 10 internationals), NOT EVEN A FUCKING SINGLE OFFICE VISIT

 

I was looking through topics and never found a topic dedicated to international students. 

 

Can you help a truly pissed off Russian national? For what am I paying $52,000? 

The post Russian National Is Feeling Rejected By Big 4 appeared first on Going Concern.

How about an open thread for recruiter horror stories at Meet the Firms events?  I attended only one this year and my top three WTF moments were:

• A hussy who wore her going to the club skirt with a blazer.  Um, no one wants to see that much thigh from a job seeker.
• A Mickey Mouse tie is only appropriate if Disney is at the event looking for accounting interns, mkay.
• A) You should take the nose ring out. B) You should make sure blood isn’t surrounding said nose ring nor smeared on your face. C) No, I don’t want to shake your biological wasteland of a hand.

You don't need to be a recruiter to share a tale from Meet the Firms, surely you've come across the inappropriately dressed, slobby, knuckle tattooed horrors without enough self awareness to tighten it up before showing their face at one of these things.

Now, we haven't discussed Meet the Firms specifically much here on Going Concern because this stuff is elementary and we aren't the accounting school counselor but let's get back to the horror stories in a second and quickly brush over some basics.

Narrowing the GAAP has some great – if slightly old – tips on how to do Meet the Firms right I'd definitely suggest checking out if you yourself are not quite a horror story but too socially awkward and dense to have the common sense to nail one of these events. A highlight:

As a general rule, most of candidates tend to gravitate towards the senior management present at the Big 4. I think the mindset is that “This person is important, he must have a bigger say in things, I need to impress him.” Fair enough.

However, if I were you, I would start from the bottom up. I would engage the lower-level associates first. They are easier to access because a lot of the candidates are busy focusing on the managers and the partners. They are also more likely to be pretty close in age to you. I would talk to them about their experiences, challenges, and rewards at the Big 4. I would get as much knowledge out of them as possible. It’s very important that you do. To end the conversation, ask them permission to contact them in the future for any questions, get their business cards, thank them for their time, and politely ask them if they could introduce you to a senior manager or partner.

Congratulations, you have effectively by-passed the twenty or so people waiting to talk to the partner or manager. The psychological effect of being introduced by someone who is already working for the firm is big, and is not lost on the partners. In a way, you have been pre-screened and you carry a subliminal stamp of approval from the associates.

It's sad we even have to say this (again!) but if you don't already own a nice, clean, appropriate suit, you better buy one before MTF or just stay home. As previously mentioned, no hoe skirts (and no, putting a blazer over your coochie cutter does not magically turn your club outfit professional), no 5/8ga bones through your septum, no silly ties, no acrylic hooker heels, no clothes that look like you borrowed them from the bottom of your big brother's dirty laundry hamper and no tacky accessories. While we're at it, keep in mind that many people are sensitive to perfume so PLEASE, no dousing yourself in Axe or stripper spray in the car. If you smoke, it wouldn't be a bad idea to pick up a throw away e-cig just for that night as gum will not cover up the smell on your clothes and many people are highly offended by the stench of cigarettes.

Are a few cat hairs stuck to your ill-fitting suit or stank breath going to ruin your chances of getting hired? Depends on how tore up everyone else in the room is, I suppose, but unless you are a 4.0 with stellar social skills and a great attitude, you better tighten up your game just for this one night. Don't worry, you can go back to being a slob once you have the job.

Commence to sharing your Meet the Firms horror stories in the comments.

The post Recruiting Season Reason: Meet the Firms Basics For Complete Morons appeared first on Going Concern.

Adrienne,

 

The Master's in Accountancy Programs are widely panned here on Going Concern, so I wanted to see what your take on the Certificate in Accountancy programs that are out there being offered by legitimate colleges. It is basically a program designed to get you to your state's requirement to sit for the CPA exam.  For me, in Texas, it was just 30 hours of upper-level accounting classes. They can be pricey, but I was able to sucker my employer into paying for mine. It set me up perfectly to pass the CPA exam. 

 

Since you are the authority on this stuff, just wanted to see what you thought about it.

The post Are Post-Grad Certificate Programs Sufficient If All You Want To Do Is Pass the CPA Exam and Move On? appeared first on Going Concern.