Business Major Questions (Accounting concentration)

ChicagoBear
Wed, 13 Aug 2014 15:43:15 +0000

A CPA and father of a current Masters in Accounting student.

Hiring salaries are a function of location. For example, the Big 4 and other major accounting firms have a starting salary at each office that reflects the cost of living. A new hire in NYC makes more than one in Chicago, who makes more than one in Dallas, who makes more than one in Knoxville, TN. At least with the major firms, where you go to school does not impact starting salary; all new hires will typically get the same offer - no individual negotiation. There may be slight differences between the firms, but they will usually be within a thousand or so of each other. This makes sense since a new hire has not shown they are worth anymore than anyone else - the pay differentiation will occur once you join the firm and your performance evaluated. FYI - new hires to the Big 4 in Chicago are starting above the range you quoted.

However, to be eligible to get an offer with a Big 4 or national firm, you need to be eligible to sit for the CPA or be in the process of completing those classes. They will not hire you with 120 hours, unless you are going to grad school or otherwise taking classes to get to 150 - and in that case, you can not start until you have earned the hours. They do not want to be in a position of extending an offer to someone who can not sit for the exam and get licensed.

I don’t know what type of position your daughter is looking for, but I would be asking alot of questions about future advancement if she got hired as a clerk at a firm. At least with the bigger firms I know, there is a tendancy to want to hire new graduates for starting audit positions. The number of positions for “climbers” and “second career” cases can be limited or non-existant. Maybe the firm you are talking about has a program that allows for progression into the assurance/audit ranks, just make sure.

I believe you are a little confused about the work experience requirement. Most states have a work experience requirement for licensure - none, to my knowledge, have an experience requirement for eligibility to sit for the exam. In order to get your CPA license you must pass the uniform examination, pass a separate ethics test (in most states) and meet the experience requirement in your state. However, it should be noted that some states will allow you to sit for the exam with only 120 hours, but will not grant you a license until you have 150 hours. Other states will allow you to sit once you have registered for the final classes needed to meet the 150 hour requirement and other states will not allow you to sit until they have transcripts in-hand showing all 150 hours earned. Please also note that all states also have specific requirements as to the number of accounting hours and other business hours. Many states also have unique requirements related to business law, ethics, communication, research etc.

Regarding accreditation, AACSB is absolutely the gold standard in business school accreditation - all of the major business schools are AACSB accredited. These are the large recognized programs: Harvard, Michigan, UIUC, Notre Dame, Texas, USC etc. As such, these schools tend to have the best campus recruitment. The other major recognized accrediting body is - ACBSP. This body tends to accredit smaller “teaching” programs as it does not require a commitment to research that AACSB does. Not that there is anything necessarily wrong with these schools, but with smaller programs, they may or may not have numerous firms recuiting there. There is also a third accrediting body - IACBE, but it is relatively new and not as well respected. In fact, today I tried to get to their website and cound not - the domain owner put up a generic page, they must not have been paid.