When accounting goes unaccounted for
Wow — Texas, Illinois, BYU are the top three? No one saw this coming.
1. Texas – Austin
2. Illinois – Urbana-Champaign
3. BYU
4. Southern Cal
5. Michigan
6. Penn
7. Notre Dame
8. Indiana
9. NYU
10. Ohio St, Washington (tie)
Not exactly sure if Michigan jumped over Notre Dame at the last second in this year's ranking but I'd like to imagine a flurry of points coming in late to catapult the Wolverines over ND. Sorry, John. Btw, here's the methodology if you're into that sort of thing.
Keep your pants on, folks – we’re talking Post-its, t-shirts, and whatever else you got your grubby hands on at this season’s campus recruiting events.
Career fair season is in full swing and many of you have already met with the firms’ campus recruiting teams, waited in line for hours to shake the sweaty palm of a 1st year associate, attended countless Powerpoint-heavy presentations.
u were bound to receive some goodies to go along with the “work-life is amazing here!” speeches. Professionals, I’m sure you hoarded the highlighters and page flags. Because I am pinned to my desk in Midtown and Caleb is busy eavesdropping on Denver coffee shop regulars, we were not able to travel to campuses this semester but we would still like to be kept up to date on the latest and greatest (and lamest) in campus recruiting schwag. Dig through those “green” bags from the career fair and share the accounting firm lovin’ with us.
What to share:
1. Mail us your extras. If you’ve got some great goodies you want to share with us, email Caleb for his address and put that shit in the mail. As a thank you, he’ll return the favor by sending you Going Concern schwag. Nothing says “too cool for management accounting class” like a Going Concern bumper sticker.
2. Take some pictures. Don’t want to part with that leaky coffee mug from Grant Thornton? Did you win a XXL winter PwC fleece at the University of Miami career fair but want to hold on to it “for when it gets chilly”? Send Caleb (suitable for work) pictures of the gear. Bonus points if the EY teddy bear is taking it to the KPMG stuffed puppy.
3. Tell us a story. Did something ridiculous happen at one of the recruiting events? Partners making out with interns? Intern on intern action? Did someone lose an offer because they had one too many flaming nipple shots?
For those of you worried about your privacy…
Come on now, it’s a moot point by now. It’s no secret that this site would not exist without the anonymous sources, tips, career advice questions, and cutthroat comments that you all provide every day. You make this place bearable, welcoming, helpful, and funny as hell.
Think about some of the stories that Caleb has covered here – PwC’s re-branding strategy, KPMG’s random hiring freeze, McGladery firings. Does he ever blow the top on his sources? Do I ever turn around and call the HR department of every firm who’s professionals reach out to us about looking for jobs? Ummmmm…no. We’re grown ups. We respect your decisions and appreciate it when they are relevant to a story for GC.com. You scratch our backs with tips, and we provide you and the rest of the industry an opportunity to sound off.
Why are we doing this?
We want to keep everyone up to date on how their potential bonus money is being spent on frivolous travel alarm clocks, obviously. That, and we thought it’d be fun – brainless, thoughtless, and not-as-negative-as-every-other-story-in-the-news-today kind of fun. Plus, we know that all recruiting efforts are not created equal. What is handed out in Chicago is not what’s thrown your way in Dallas. Do you really think Greendale Community College see the same hand-outs as Lehigh students? Hell no. Share the stories, share the free schwag lovin’.
As previously discussed, the fall recruiting onslaught is a huge part of the major accounting firms’ strategy to keep as many bright-eyed and bushy-tailed auditors, tax and advisory professionals on staff. Some schools simply rely on their reputation for churning out dynamite candidates on paper to keep the firms coming back but what about other schools that don’t necessarily enjoy the sterling reputation?
Well for starters, you could burn those other schools to the ground. If doing a 6 to 10 stretch doesn’t work for your career plan, then perhaps getting your name out there before you meet the firms will help.
That’s exactly what the University of Tampa’s Beta Alpha Psi chapter is doing for their members – posting their photo, bio, résumés and email address to allow firms to get to know candidates prior to meeting on campus.
So far the feedback has been positive, including some from KPMG that was included in the chapter’s press release:
“It was a great resource for us to be able to recall the individuals that we had the opportunity to meet, and then easily review their goals and current status, and then further review their resumes. It allowed us to obtain quick and accurate information on those we met.”
Perusing around some of the other chapters like Texas, Notre Dame and BYU it’s pretty obvious that U. Tampa’s site is more interactive and easier to navigate. Plus, if you’re participating in the recruiting in the process for your firm, it’s a great way to prepare to meet recruits as opposed to the standard awkward small talk.
Kudos to U. Tampa BAP for getting their members names and faces out there. Hopefully other chapters will follow their example to engage more effectively with the firms in their cities and regions to assist members as they go through the recruiting process.
Less than thrilling news out of the Denver office of PwC as a source has filled us in the firm’s plans for tax graduate students:
“PwC told tax graduate students at the University of Denver that they werent [sic] hiring again until September 2011.”
We touched on this last month, as campus recruiters have found that their intern pipelines will end up filling their full-time budgets for the following year. We can only assume that students specializing in tax at the other schools that P. Dubs-Denver visits are being told the same thing. If you’ve got news on firms’ hiring expectations at your school, discuss or drop us a line at [email protected].