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allegro-cpa
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| Posted: 04 Mar 2010 at 13:58 | IP Logged
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What are the factors of your application that are most important in order of most important to least?
My guess the big four first looks at:
1. GPA
2. School Attended and prestige.
3. Achievements Extracurriculars
4. Experience
5. CPA exam - met requirements or have passed it.
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nycaccounting
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| Posted: 04 Mar 2010 at 14:45 | IP Logged
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6. Good looks
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allegro-cpa
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| Posted: 04 Mar 2010 at 14:51 | IP Logged
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Good looks is probably #3
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stochastic
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| Posted: 05 Mar 2010 at 02:28 | IP Logged
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In no particular order:
-Previous (public) accounting internship experience - this is probably the biggest of them all in my experience, given recent hiring trends; do not underestimate how important this is
-CPA exam eligibility; scores and number of attempts to pass do not matter; passing the exam does not help all that much if you have zero prior experience
-GPA somewhat, but only to the extent it gets you above the minimum threshold and your foot in the door for initial interviews; from there it's how you carry and present yourself (I only had a 3.14 GPA when I accepted my Big 4 offer in 2009, compare to lots of accounting
students who have 3.70+ cumulatives)
-Prestige of the institution matters in terms of hiring en mass; firms are most likely going to hire more students from top tier target schools (Texas, Illinois, Notre Dame, Ohio State, BYU, etc.) even if the students have less impressive credentials relative to students from less
renown schools
-Extracurriculars only to the extent you actively participated in leadership and can coherently express your roles and responsibilities during an interview
-Easy to relate to and converse with during the interview, if applicable; don't fire off FASB or IRC citations but be someone that your co-workers would want to be around for 60+ hours per week
-Difference between Bachelor's and MAcc is largely irrelevant if you can meet the above with just a Bachelor's
-Appearance perhaps, although this highly depends on what practice you are in (tax vs. audit, etc.), what location the office is in, and so on
So pretty much everything you listed with some extra emphasis, coming from someone who works at a Big 4 firm and went through the whole process not too long ago.
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allegro-cpa
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| Posted: 05 Mar 2010 at 08:47 | IP Logged
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Thanks stochastic, that was a very quality response you gave there. Very good.
Sounds like experience is the #1 factor really and what type of experience it is.
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Topic: Big 4 hiring, important factors
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