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Big 4 Wanna-Be Who’d Even Settle For BDO Just Can’t Get a Break

Posted on by Adrienne Gonzalez

Ed. note: While we can’t go rough up recruiters on your behalf, we’re happy to give you advice on how to make them do your bidding for you. Get in touch, we’ll put our team of trained monkeys on your problem right away. Also, I apologize in advance for the length of this letter.

Good evening Adrienne,

I’m a senior at the University of Michigan due to graduate in 2012 with a double major in accounting & finance with over 150 credits. I recently went through the recruiting process at the University to try and land an internship and I happened to land a couple.

My issue here is that I didn’t get any internships with any of the firms that I was really looking forward to interning with. I interviewed with GM, Chrysler, another Fortune 500 corporation, Baker Tilly, Plante Moran, and another regional public accounting firm. My favorites which were Plante Moran and Baker Tilly didn’t seem to like my performance at the interviews and so I never heard back from them. But I did get offers from the regional public accounting firm for a winter and summer internship with a large Fortune 500 corporation that I did accept.

The reasons why I did not perform well during my first few interviews was because it was my first time having job interviews of this sort and so I was unprepared. I have since had numerous mock interviews with family and friends and I am now very good at interviewing, but I feel that it is a little too late because the damage has already been done, all of the firms have already gone through the recruiting process at our University.

I did apply for PwC, Deloitte, and E&Y early on but I never heard back from them. KPMG does not recruit at our campus. I thought that I was a very solid candidate with an overall GPA over 3.8 and a 4.0 accounting GPA which I have maintained while holding a part time job throughout my college career. I think the area where I am lacking is the volunteering department but I have been active in Beta Alpha Psi which I do volunteer work through. I have participated in programs such as Junior Achievement amongst others. I would have done a lot more volunteer work but I am the oldest child from a single parent home. We have 5 younger children in our family whom I help my mother take care of (if you’re wondering where our father is, I am too; we haven’t heard from him since 2001)!

My dream is to work for a Big 4 firm but I am having a hard time landing any interviews with them. Considering that I will be interning with a regional this winter and a large corporate firm during the summer of 2012, do you think I will ever break into the Big 4? They say that once you start working for a regional firm, it is extremely tough to move up into a larger firm such as one of the Big 6. I have worked very hard over the past 4 years and I feel that I deserve it, but I understand that I am not entitled to it just because I have worked hard up to this point. If it is at all possible to break into the Big 4, do you have any advice on how I should go about doing so considering that I will be graduating soon? I only have about 4 classes left before I graduate so I won’t be in school for that much longer.

The regional accounting firm is a great firm but I just don’t feel like it would be a good fit for me. I’m not ungrateful, I do realize that there are hundreds of students in the same position that I’m in who interviewed with numerous firms and didn’t get a single offer. I’m happy that I got 2 offers from different firms. I just feel that I would be much happier with either a Big 4 firm or maybe even BDO or Grant Thornton. Can you give me any advice about breaking into any one of these firms?

Also, I feel that since I didn’t do well at the interviews with Plante Moran and Baker Tilly which are 2 very highly regarded firms, I will never be able to work for these firms in the future. Do you think I have a chance of redeeming myself with them? What advice do can you give a person such as myself?

In case anyone finds this to be TL;DR, I’ll save you a few minutes and sum up the predicament: soon to graduate, 3.8 GPA, flopped Plante Moran and Baker Tilly interviews and wants to get into the Big 4, BAD. You’re welcome.

Anyway, I have to admit I’m a little stumped. On paper, you sound great. High GPA, u spell gud, Junior Achievement and BAP experience, able to express yourself… wait a minute, maybe that’s it. You know how to express yourself.

I’m going to go way out here and wonder out loud if your lack of success with the firms you want centers around the fact that you have a pretty good idea of what you want. You probably also have opinions you are not afraid to express. You realize that scares the crap out of firms looking for a blank, unquestioning canvas they can mold into their own private workhorse, right? You use words like “I feel,” which you are not allowed to do when you work for the Big 4. I kid. Kind of.

Your point about being unprepared for interviews should serve as a lesson to the junior accounting students out there reading this: interview skills are critical for landing a gig in public before you leave school. Anyone who actually works in a public accounting office can confirm that you don’t even have to be much of a step above completely awkward to get the job, you just have to know how to shine at an interview.

Are you doomed forever? Doubtful. There is not some master list the firms share amongst themselves that brands you as a loser for the entirety of your life in public.

My suggestion to you would be to fast track the CPA exam as having that done will definitely make you more marketable. Also make sure you are discoverable to recruiters by having a strong LinkedIn presence once you have some work experience under your belt, and try to do as much networking as possible both online and in the real world; any professional events you might be able to sneak off to will allow you to make personal impressions with those in positions you are working toward.

In the meantime, try not to feel too butthurt about the regional firm gig (try this discussion earlier about mid-size firm opportunities). On the bright side, you actually got an internship, so use it.

Can anyone else help this guy out? I’m kind of stuck for ideas.

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How the ACFE is Promoting CFE Awareness

After Caleb forced me to write a few posts on Credentials for Accountants meant specifically for those of you who still do not know what you want to be when you grow up, I managed to bumble one so badly I was contacted by Scott Grossfeld, CFE CPA and Cttp://www.acfe.com/”>Association of Certified Fraud Examiners. See, it appears I made a typical media mistake in using fraud and forensics as interchangeable fields within the industry and Scott felt compelled to speak up.

This wasn’t exactly wrong (I was being lazy actually) but as CEO of the ACFE, he’s got a responsibility to make sure the media represent the field of fraud examination correctly, especially when it comes to giving forensic accountants credit for what he and his fellow CFEs do out there. Thankfully, we had a nice little chat and cleared up that little point.


Additionally, Scott promised us access to recent salary survey information available shortly that will give us a better idea of what CFEs make. For now, he told us that the data confirms a 22% pay premium for individuals with the CFE compared to individuals in the same position without the CFE. We liked this approach and wish more organizations would take an active role in monitoring and engaging in the conversation, as Scott was obviously doing by reading our series on credentials.

Along the way, however, I discovered that the ACFE is also on top of things by promoting the credential, interacting with their audience and reaching potential new members through new avenues like blogging and social media. The ACFE is excited to be launching a new social media campaign shortly that we can only hope rivals that of the AICPA’s total social media genius (except for that whole Feed the Pig thing, which still creeps us out but is brilliant and weird enough to get a pass).

The strategy of having a CFE on staff is akin to carrying insurance on your home or car, and diversifying a company’s staff can mean the difference between a lawsuit and a slap on the wrist thanks to our favorite unnecessary accounting legislation of all time, Sarbanes-Oxley. “If you look at the CFE, originally the idea behind it was that we had accountants who really didn’t know how to investigate and investigators who don’t know accounting so we were able to bring those two together,” he said. “If you look now, Enron was the big thing that really changed perspective… here’s a big financial risk but you could lose your company if you’re not careful (with SOX) and I think that really raised awareness. Before that fraud work was sort of like insurance, you knew you needed it but you couldn’t always justify it.”

But CFEs do justify their price from a prevention standpoint, assuming fraud to be a risk all companies are exposed to. “5 – 7% of the company’s revenue is lost to fraud, that’s where the fraud examiner pays for themselves,” he told us.

But how does the ACFE promote the usefulness of a 20 year old credential like the CFE? By getting to the kids when they’re still undecided, of course.

“It used to be that the CFE was a secondary credential. [Promoting the credential is the goal of] the higher education partnership we provide to educators. We have 300 colleges and universities in that program. Now it’s part of the discussion; risk is on the radar in terms of what companies are looking for. What we typically see is fraud being an elective type class though there are a few schools that specialize in fraud and or forensics.”

The ACFE also promotes its mission by encouraging those interested in pursuing a career in fraud-fighting to join the organization as a student member for something like $20 a year. Student Associate membership is open to undergraduate students enrolled in 9 semester hours (or equivalent), or graduate students enrolled in 6 semester hours (or equivalent) in an accredited college or university. We agree with this approach, as surrounding yourself with like-minded folks gives you a chance to expose yourself to those already on your desired path. There’s plenty of opportunity for mentorship, commiserating and gaining insight into what the credential actually means for your career.

All in all we approve of what the ACFE is doing and look forward to seeing whatever else they have up their sleeve unfold in the months and years ahead. Let’s face it, they’re pretty much guaranteed a job forever. We like.

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