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Can Someone Help This Guy Know What It Feels Like To Be Wanted?

I am pretty sure some of you have some sage advice for this poor lost little sheep who can’t seem to elbow his way into the Big 4.

I have a question. I go to a small college where I am an accounting major. I hold a high GPA, several internships, involved in campus activity and in the community and a member of a fraternity. I understand that your resume is not going to get you an interview with one of the big 4. However, since I do not attend a school that the big 4 recruit from I am not able to gain any face time. I cannot get the time of day from any recruiter because I am not in their “pipleline” and I am always told that they willl keep it for consideration come time to recruit in the fall. I have networked like crazy through alumni of my school, my fraternity, my friends, my church, and my community. I am always referred to the recruiter and then I am always told that I will be considered. If you can shed any advice on how to obtain an interview from the big 4 that does not recruit your school I would appreciate it. I am I just out of luck and should of went to a bigger university?

Ahem. “Should have gone to a bigger university” for starters. This particular OP also attached a resume which I obviously won’t share and didn’t even open. I didn’t need to. And I’m a no-CPA-having, pissed off blogger, imagine what Big 4 recruiters would think reading a submission like the one above.

When you say you’ve “networked,” what exactly does that mean? “Networking” with your fraternity usually doesn’t have anything to do with work, and unless you are a member of the St H&R Block congregation, I’m unclear as to how your church is helping you get in at the Big 4. It’s good that you are making the rounds to get advice and support on this but the best thing you can do is evaluate your own way of approaching this because something obviously isn’t working.

In any correspondence with the firm, double-check this list to make sure you aren’t making any of these. I wouldn’t dare say working at the Big 4 is like rocket science or that you need to write a perfectly-worded dissertation to get in but maybe your fraternity experience is better expressed in person than written. You’d probably do great at a recruiting event if you had the opportunity to go to one.

There is a back door you can take by attending other professional events to see if you can meet someone who knows someone that likes your __________ (knowledge; ability to be molded into whatever they need; desire to please people whose job it is to bullshit you into one more busy season) and get you in. I don’t think writing to these people is going to help you.

In short, your fast track to the “pipeline” is to make yourself marketable and desirable to these bloodthirsty sharks. Slit your wrists in the water if you have to knowwhatI’msayin.

In a followup email to the OP, I asked “How are you approaching these recruiters? ‘Hey I kinda want a job with you guys’ or ‘I have x to offer and will take y assrape in exchange for it’ ?”

“I am pretty assertive so I am probably approaching it the second way you mentioned it. I am not sure if I would want to stay forever but, I want the name on my resume and I am willing to put in the time while I am young and single,” he wrote. I’d have to see his communications with recruiters or HR shlubs to confirm if he is being explicit about the level of assrape he’s willing to endure and for how long.

They can smell it, you know.