fla_examer85 wrote: ebitda wrote: Can anyone elaborate on why passing the exams don't help for recruiting (referring to stochastic's 2nd point)? Isn't that essentially what the career pretty much comes down to--becoming a CPA? I just thought it might be a sign of dedication to the career, and a stamp of approval because they don't have to worry about you passing (or even invest in you to pass them). The main reason I ask is, I will be taking accounting courses through an extension program to become CPA eligible (graduated in May 2009 with a finance degree but no offers, not surprisingly in this market). There is no campus recruiting there, which means I am at a disadvantage compared to current degree-seeking students that have on-campus opportunities. I thought the only way I would stand out from newly minted accounting graduates (especially MAcc students) was to have all 4 parts done beforehand. Am I not going about this correctly? Should I just network and try to get my foot into the door before taking the exams (not only Big 4 of course)? I went to a top 3 undergrad business program, but I don't think I can even leverage the school factor that much anymore because I studied finance, not accounting. Thanks for any advice. Because at the Big 4 they EXPECT you to be able to pass the CPA Exam.  If you can't, they were going to fire you anyway.  I've heard from some people if you are staff level and don't pass the exam in 4-5 years you automatically get the boot in a lot of Big4 offices.  Don't know if true or not.

I have a friend who is a year 2 senior, took 3-4 years to pass, took it like ~10 times and they were pretty supportive. Year 3 seniors w/o CPAs did get laid-off though...so she would have gone if she was up a step.

Anyway, to the main post, also, being personable is very important too.  There are a lot of super smart "bots" with 4.0 GPAscoming from the UCs and USC out here (LA area) and they will get looked over for students who are much more personable and will obviously be good with clients.

allegro-cpa wrote: Kfan wrote: Yes, it's definitely the time commitment. Also, Allegro, there's very little overlap between real world accounting and the CPA Exam. The CPA Exam is much more comprehensive and detailed than 99% of real world accounting. Ok well then it makes sense then.  The big four guys work 60+ hours and must be completely exhausted and probably can't put full effort into the exam.  You get home and probably want to go to sleep/rest.  I would have thought that at least the audit and tax sections of the cpa exam would be directly related to their job functions.  Auditor, Tax accountant, etc.

My friend (who is done) is an auditor with the big 4 and couldn't study from Jan-April/May because of busy season.  70+ hour weeks make it impossible.