@Publisher Thanks for the info! I have the remaining year to get it up, hopefully to around a 3.85 or 3.9 IF POSSIBLE. I know that for sure I would need to prepare for this. I understand very well that it is competitive and I am just 1 candidate of thousands. As a newcomer in the real world, I will apply to many different accounting firms but obviously pay extra attention to the firms I dream to work for.
If you look into Masters of Accounting (MAcc) programs & Masters of Taxation programs at various universities, it should help you to prepare for the interviews because you will see the areas that are covered by examining the course offerings.
SALT = State & Local Taxation
International Tax I & Int’l Tax II. = one of them will cover outbound transactions & the other inbound transactions.
Transfer Pricing (applies to multinational corporations) is another term with which to be familiar.
Of course, Corporate Taxation, Partnership Taxation, S Corps, pass through entities. Just go through list after list of course offerings to get familiar wit terminology & with potential practice areas.
If you are fluent in a foreign language, that will be a significant plus when working for or on a multi-national account or in checking over M&A documents & correspondence.
Find some areas to get excited about even though initially you will be performing mundane tasks.
Pay raises come every year and can be from 8% to 14% annually which is very good. With promotions you enter a different pay scale.
Income Taxation of Businesses & Investments is a cornerstone course as are Corp. Tax & Partnership Taxation(which many consider to be the hardest of the required courses.
Understand which courses are required in a MAcc program & why.
It is hard to convey the impact, credibility & prestige of having Big 4 employment on one’s resume other than to say that it is overwhelmingly positive & should open doors to many Fortune 500 companies. It can also help with one’s application to elite MBA schools if you receive a promotion or two or if you worked in a dynamic practice area such as M&A in the tax area.
Know the Big 4: KPMG, PwC, EY & Deloitte.
My point is that the more you research, the more excited & informed you should become which should lead to a memorable interview.
Of course, do not mention exit options as many become lifelong employees of Big 4 accounting firms & earn very high six figure amounts annually.
Each of the Big 4 employ around 200,000 people worldwide. That can be researched easily.
The Big 4 offer a world of opportunity.
Deloitte is big in consulting. Lots of CS (computer science) type work regarding recommendation & installation & adaptation of various computer systems. How can this program help us or how can it solve a problem, etc.
Consulting tends to be the most picky about one’s school pedigree as you can see from the EY-Parthenon list of target schools from which to recruit.
@johnho433 Google Big 4 Accounting and you will find several articles that will give you a fairly decent idea of each one’s focus. Fwiw, the big 4 have various “invasion” days on my dd’s campus and it is not listed in the previous posts.
Have you had any accting work experience? Any summer internships or during the academic yr? If not, I would apply for the 12 week internship for the experience.
If you haven’t had any internship yet, can you apply for and manage the load of an internship during the academic yr with a local firm? Internships will help strengthen your resume. My Dd is a sophomore but is working part-time for a local to her U accting office. She is being trained on accting software and learning other basic skills there that she is finding helpful, not to mention a peek into what it is like to work for a small firm. The pay is great, too. She is planning on applying for summer internships as well.
Good luck as you move forward.
The reason that your school may not have appeared in any post above is that there are 3 other Big 4 accounting firms with their own target list of schools. KPMG’s is quite extensive, for example. I was surprised that EY’s list of undergraduate target schools did not include Penn State, for example. And target schools can change over time.
Also, OP your GPA is more important at this stage for Big 4 employment than an internship during the school year that may affect your grades. If you do better academically when on a tight schedule, then try for an accounting internship during the school year; if not, then focus on getting your GPA up.
@Mom2aphysicsgeek: Were/are the Big 4 invasion days targeting the Honors College students at the Univ. of South Carolina ?
Were all Big 4 firms present ?
I ask because we have been through a similar discussion before with respect to UGA Foundation Fellows which comprises well less than 1% of the undergraduate student body at UGA. And Univ. of South Carolina is quite aggressive at trying to attract recruiters to look at their honors students (such as finance honors trip to NYC IB firms & banks) just as UGA does for its 68 or so Foundation Fellows.
I have repeatedly recognized USC for their efforts. And I have also written that some Big 4 are open to all–but the non-target school applicants need stellar GPAs close to 4.0.
I don’t know much about it, only what Dd has shared. From what I understand there are different events; some are open sessions with anyone being able to RSVP and some are by invitation only.