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Excellent post, taxguy! Last week I attended a conference with my state society for members in education. Our last session was "Skills for New Graduates." We had three panelists, including a partner for a Big 4 firm. He emphasized that in addition to a reasonable GPA (3.5+), a desirable candidate would have excellent writing skills, some kind of EC activity(ies) to show leadership and some kind of interest beyond the classroom, and excellent interpersonal skills. The example he used for interpersonal skills was of a candidate who would approach the campus interviewer and introduce themselves first rather than hang back. His office has a strong international presence and he said any experience in language, particularly Spanish, Chinese, or Japanese would be a plus. All three panelists used the term "self-starter" repeatedly.
One other comment - a number of states have reduced the requirements for sitting for the CPA exam to 120 hours (BA/BS), although liscensing is not complete until 150 hours are obtained and the experience requirement is fulfilled. The panelist from the Big 4 firm indicated that it would be a huge plus if a candidate came to the interview with parts (or all) of the exam complete since the new hire would be far more productive by not being torn away to study at night for the exam.
For those reading this post who may be close to sitting for the exam, our state board director encouraged students to sit for the FARS section ASAP since the shift to IFRS will be incorporated into the exam soon (2 years?) and students may not have had the classroom exposure on this shift in governance that is about to occur and he mentioned that it wasn't incorporated into current textbook literature as of yet.
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