First, I am new to this forum. I apologize if this post is not in the correct section.
I am a senior in college looking to get into public accounting. I will be going to school an extra year because I changed my major 3 times and I would have to go an extra year anyways to reach 150 for the CPA exam. I am considering applying for jobs in public accounting in the recruiting period after I graduate instead of the recruiting period during my last year of school. The reason for this is because I will have more semesters of solid GPA at that point and I know grades are very important for getting into public accounting. I do not want to apply at the wrong time, get denied because of my grades, and then apply again at a later time when my grades are better and have them remember me as a person they denied because of grades. I am expecting my accounting GPA to be a 3.5/3.6 and my overall GPA to be a 2.9 by the time I graduate, but my grades may not be good enough for public accounting by the time of my normal recruiting period. I know going about applying for accounting jobs this way will eliminate me from the big 4, but I wouldn’t be able to get into the big 4 during my normal recruiting period anyways because of my grades, and wouldn’t want to work in the big 4 because I want my public accounting experience to be a learning experience with lots of variety, as opposed to a narrow experience at a big 4 firm where you specialize in one thing. I plan on taking both sections of the CMA exam before the recruiting period after I graduate, and one of the two sections before my normal recruiting period. While passing those should speak something of my capabilities, I am still aware that they care a lot about grades in public accounting. My question is, will applying in the recruiting period after I graduate reduce/eliminate my chances with non-big 4 firms? Will they be wondering why I didn’t get a public accounting job during my normal recruiting period? And how does this differ amongst firms that only hire their interns? Because not all students would be willing to take a semester off for an internship during busy season, so that would make me think firms in that situation are more open to giving internships to people that have already graduated. When I first came to school I was an exercise science major, and was heavily into advancing my career. I made a 75 page summer training program and sent it around to get my name out there. All of what I learned was from forum posts from Division I and NHL strength and conditioning coaches, so I was convinced that experience, knowledge, and people skills, rather than grades was the way to a successful career. When I realized that wasn’t for me anymore and decided to become an accounting major, I started trying harder in school and getting better grades. However, I couldn’t go back in time and change grades I had already gotten. Any thoughts and insight on this would be appreciated. I wouldn’t want to take the CPA exam until after I have a full-time job because many firms help pay for the exam fees and the Becker program. Thanks.