There is lots of talk about interviewing going on this week so we’ll run a thread on questions that you recruits might be getting or are getting. Hopefully this first question isn’t “Where are your pants?”
Most firms, regardless of size, seem to ask the same questions, so if you feel inclined, tally the cliché ones in the comments. You’ll get more interesting responses here anyway.
But also feel free to submit questions that you are asking your potential employers and their less-than satisfactory responses. This will most certainly be the place where you can ask the questions you want to ask and you’ll get honest responses from our brilliant readers. Do your worst.
Related Posts
Memo to E&Y’s Steve Howe: Choose Your Ice Breaker Carefully
If you’ve got nothing going on tonight and you’re in the Chapel Hill, NC neck of the woods, Steve Howe, E&Y’s Americas Area Managing Partner will be speaking at UNC tonight starting at 5:30. Don’t worry, it’s scheduled to end at 7:00 sharp so you’ll have plenty of time to get home in time for baseball or whatever else is on TV these days.
We’re mostly curious how Steve-o will break the ice with the audience, considering it’s been an awkward moment for some of his fellow partners in the past. We’re confident he’ll be fine though, especially since he’s not phoning in the speech and leaving a voicemail for everyone.
It’s not clear if there will be a Q&A, so if you have questions that you’d like to ask Steve-o, kindly leave them in the comments and we’ll pass them along.
Dean’s Speaker Series – Steve Howe, Americas Area Managing Partner of Ernst & Young [UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School]
Accounting Student Demands
Maybe demands are a stretch but they do have some ideas of what they would like. CPA Success has a short list that covers stuff that isn’t related to money or free booze:
• Mentoring with senior people in your organization.
• An understand the big picture and why they are doing things.
• A career pathway or road map: What are the rules of the game and what do they need to do to get promoted?
• Flexibility when possible. They believe work is an activity, not a place to go.
• An open-door policy to the senior management.
• Involvement and a sense that they are valued for their talents and education.
How realistic do you, as the current members of the bean counter workforce, believe these to be? “Rules of the game” sounds a little like, “how do I get promoted without being good at my job”. Plus, “sense that they are valued for their talents” isn’t exactly a strong suit from what we hear.
Are students in for a rude awakening? Help them out people For the students out there, feel free to add other demands to the list, this can’t cover everything. Run with it.
What if the Final Four Was Based on Accounting Research Production?
We realize this is a strange question but hear us out. Many of you have had brackets on the brain for the last couple of weeks and this was not lost on some faculty members at Brigham Young University. David Wood, Brady Williams, Scott Summers and Joshua Coyne created the bracket below to demonstrate what this year’s NCAA tournament would look like if the schools advanced based on the productivity of accounting researchers. It was based on their paper entitled, “Accounting Program Research Rankings by Topical Area and Methodology.”
We spoke with David Wood, Assistant Professor at BYU and he clarified for us that the bracket was based solely on the schools in the 2010 tournament. “For example, Stanford is rated first for number of articles published but they weren’t in this year’s tournament, so their productivity isn’t seen here,” David said.
As you can see above, BYU did okay for themselves, reaching the Final Four, along with real-life Final Four teams Michigan State and Duke. Ultimately, accounting powerhouse Texas-Austin came out on top, taking out the CPA mavens at Wake Forest in the first round. Professor Wood explained, “There is a disconnect between CPA exam success and research production,” thus a research program like McCombs that produces many papers every year will always come out on top.
Eleven journals were selected for the purposes of the paper:
• Accounting, Organizations, and Society
• Auditing: A Journal of Practice & Theory
• Behavioral Research in Accounting
• Contemporary Accounting Research
• Journal of Accounting & Economics
• Journal of Accounting Information Systems
• Journal of Accounting Research
• Journal of Management Accounting Research
• Journal of the American Taxation Association
• Review of Accounting Studies
• The Accounting Review
Now before you judge, this particular method of illustrating both basketball and accounting prowess may serve those of you well that are considering a PhD in future. Don’t laugh, we know you’re out there.
Accounting Program Research Rankings by Topical Area and Methodology [SSRN]
NCAA Tournament Simulated Using Accounting Research Rankings