Big 4 Accounting Firms Advice

[cookderosa]

I am a high school senior who will be majoring in Accounting in a B&M school, I will be starting as a junior. because of my high school's dual enrollment classes. I also plan on pursuing 2 online degrees from TESU during the same time, one in CIS, and the other probably in Finance. 


My questions are:

What can I do to increase my chances of working at one of the Big 4 Accounting Firms? I should be CPA eligible around the end of my Junior Year, as my total credits should equal around 150. 

Would pursuing the extra two online degrees be useful for employment by the Big 4? How do they feel about online degrees?

I will be graduating high school with an A.A degree in Liberal Arts, are there any jobs I can obtain in the Accounting field, that I can work part-time while in college, that will add to my resume?

Lastly, how do I stay motivated, as I will be pursuing 3 degrees at once? Will this be a waste of time?

The best advice I can give you is to enroll in a traditional, AACSB-accredited accounting program at a school where the Big-4 recruits heavily.  Almost all of the Big-4's entry-level recruiting and hiring is through selected schools. In my experience, new hires from schools they don't formally recruit at are uncommon. They result from "knowing somebody," or the applicant has a very unusual skill outside of accounting that they have a big need for at the time.

The lion's share of their entry-level hiring is through the internship process.  In most cases, there is a formal recruiting process at selected schools for students starting their junior year. Recruiting typically begins with a major recruiting event just for accounting majors in early-to-mid September. Interviewing for internships and full-time taking place over a subsequent four-to-five week period.  The internships are typically completed in spring semester of the junior year and are full-time and very well paid. Students do not usually take classes in the internships. semester (Kind of hard to take a class when you're working 60 hours a week).  Employment offers are made at the end of the internship for those who complete them successfully (good worker, good fit). The full-time start date is scheduled for when the 150-hour requirement is expected to be met.     

A second degree/major in CIS will help, but it should be at the institution at which you are earning your accounting degree. They would likely view simultaneous enrollment at a B&M and online school as weird and a negative.  If you want a second major or minor that would really catch their interest, consider data science or data analytics. 

In my experience, the Big-4 firms don't really care about a second major in finance.  From their perspective it's nice, but not necessarily viewed as adding value.  From your perspective, it would help with life in the corporate world after public accounting.  

Other things:

To participate in the accounting recruiting process, it is not sufficient to simply have obtained junior status. There is an expectation that certain business/writing/math/statistics courses have been completed and that you are at least enrolled in the first intermediate accounting course at the time you begin the recruiting process. While you may technically be a junior in terms of amount of credit, it might take you a year to have completed the expected courses.  

GRADES ARE ABSOLUTELY CRITICAL!   ESPECIALLY IN THE INTERMEDIATE ACCOUNTING COURSES. If you are considering non-traditional sources of credit, a lack of graded work, especially in accounting or quantitative courses, can take you out of consideration.

The 150 credit-hour requirement varies by state as to specific additional courses beyond the undergraduate degree must be taken.  It's not necessarily additional hours from random courses.

Some personal advice:  Slow down. Take the time to earn a masters degree even if you don't need one to meet the 150-hour requirement. I've had two students who had earned masters degrees before they were 20 years old and were hired by the Big-4.  Both were gone after a year.  They were simply too young and socially inexperienced to fit in with there co-workers and clients. Feel free to PM me with any questions.

I agree 100%. Of my 2 sons working on degrees, the one attending on campus has had more exposure and opportunities for networking- (he's doing an internship now) while my other son has none of those immediately in front of him (which is not to say we're not pursuing them, but as an example, the career fair he's attending this months is at a college he doesn't' attend instead of the one he does attend COSC. He will be at a disadvantage in some ways that he will have to work around.