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The Big 4 Continue to Impress College Students, Dominate Latest Universum List

It’s been far too long since we had a Big 4 dominated list to share with you. The last that we can dig up was PwC’s three-peat for Training 125. We were starting to get the shakes…

Thankfully the drought has ended with the latest list from Universum, who we last hear from in the fall with their 50 Most Attractive Employers.

This time around, it’s the Top 100 IDEAL Employers, that is described as “annual employer image survey…based on more than 163,246 employer evaluations, reflecting the opinions of approximately 56,900 Undergraduate students.” In the “Business” field of study, the Big 4 have, once again, landed high on the list:


Ernst & Young – #2
PricewaterhouseCoopers – #3
Deloitte – #4
KPMG – #6

Big 4 domination on a college student list is nothing new. Their recruiting strategy is aggressive and any company getting bested by Google in anything is exactly a surprise. Some other notables:

FBI – #11
IRS – #23 (IRS 2, Sarah Palin 0)
Grant Thornton – #30
Accenture – #66

Frankly, the number beside the firm name is irrelevant. The firms will boast the latest ranking in press releases and on campus visits per standard operating procedure. This continues to demonstrate that the firms are impressing college recruits effectively. They are presenting the image they want to present and they are doing so with an ever increasing online presence. We will continue to see them high on these lists.

The Universum American Student Survey [Universum]
Universum USA Presents the 2010 Top IDEAL Employers [Press Release]

PwC Is Going to Teach You Some Manners

manners.jpgEven though lots of you are beyond help but regardless, we’ve heard that P. Dubs hosts dining etiquette get-togethers in order to teach you heathens how to use a napkin, leave your feet off the table, not to lick your plate when finished, etc.
Never having the pleasure, inform us and our less dignified readers about your experiences at these or similar events so we can all learn something.
And for God’s sake, if you’re going to one of these events this week, we’ll remind you of our only advice: wear pants.

AICPA Report: Accounting is Still Sexy on Campus

sexy accountant.jpgAccounting is still a hot degree according to the latest report from the AICPA. For the 2007-2008 school year, 66,000 bachelor’s and master’s degrees were awarded, a 3.5% increase from the previous school year.
Enrollments were also up, to 213,000 students in undergraduate, graduate, and doctoral programs, a 4.7% increase.
One thought we have is that this trend can’t possibly continue forever. We talked to one campus recruiter for a Big 4 firm and they said that while the trend of graduates and enrollment will eventually slow down, the number of students at on-campus events is not getting smaller. “Lots of finance majors have seen the banking sector implode and rather than become biology majors, they jump into accounting because it’s an easy transition.”
More after the jump


While the need for accountants is obvious, we’re wondering if these students know what they’re getting themselves into. What would be interesting is to know how many of them end up leaving the industry after a few years and do something entirely different (like become a D-list blogger).
What continues to impress us, however, is how the Big 4 and the larger regional firms are able to make accounting so glamorous. The students are drooling at these recruiting events, mostly for beer, but they’re drooling nonetheless. The competition for the top talent is fierce and the firms pull out all the stops to get that talent. It also doesn’t hurt that most campus recruiting professionals are dead sexy but whoever heard of someone taking a job for shallow reasons?
Accounting Degrees Continue Historic Upward Trend, According to AICPA Report [AICPA Press Release]
2009 Trends in the Supply of Accounting Graduates and the Demand for Public Accounting Recruits [AICPA.org]