Recent Accounting Grad from a Non-target School

Hello,

I just graduated magna cum laude (GPA: 3.8) from a non-target school (UT Tyler) with a major in accounting and minor in finance. I served as treasurer for Enactus from February 2014 until May 2014 and was a candidate for Beta Alpha Psi from August 2013 - January 2014. I have no professional accounting or finance-related experience-- my only work-related experience is that I have worked at Sears as a consultative sales associate since my sophomore year of college. I am very concerned about my future and am studying for the GMAT like crazy so that I can get into a better graduate school. Right now my goal is to get into Baylor, University of Houston, or some other more prestigious school. I joined this site in order to help me land an audit internship with one of the big 4 accounting firms or an IB analyst position with a respectable bank. Many of you on this site are probably wondering why in the heck I didn't get an internship earlier-- the problem is that I had been taking 18-21 hours at school each semester for the last year or so (Except during Fall of 2013, when I had taken 15 hours) and barely had time to even sleep. I also took had taken two courses during the summer this past year as well. I had two interviews with CGI, and they were very interested in me until recently. I'm not quire sure what made them lose interest in me. I can provide more details on that in a later post. Anyways, I am highly interested in tech, plan on learning more programming as a hobby (I already have some background in C++), and am freaking out about the future.

4 Comments
 

Welcome

Quite a predicament to not have any internships.The good thing about accounting is that you don't need to go to a really prestigious school to get into big 4(as opposed to MBAs). Just make sure you go to a MAcc program that has a good relationship with the big 4 and go from there.

Really surprised you weren't able to get an offer from a big 4 or 2nd tier firm(DT, BDO etc) with that high of a GPA. Did any firms come to your campus to recruit?

 

None of the big 4 recruit directly from my campus, just some smaller local firms. The only relationship my school has with the big 4 is my tax teacher used to work at KPMG for several years. The small firms usually are only willing to hire graduate students or students that can sit for the CPA exam.

 

Your stats look fine for a potential Big 4 hire. You can probably even make it through the screening process if you submit your resume online. Most firms heavily recruit in the fall, but if a decent resume lands on their laps, they may make an extra effort to get you for the summer. Otherwise you can try asking your tax professor if he still knows anyone at the firms. You should have a decent resume based on your history that I'm sure he wouldn't mind forwarding to a manager/partner at the firm.

 

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