Understanding the Public Accounting Campus Recruiting Timeline
Large public accounting firms have extensive internship and student outreach programs to get students involved early in their academic career with the eventual goal of converting enough students into full time hires. Unfortunately, not all students understand how these programs work and often miss excellent career opportunities because of their lack of knowledge. Today, I’m going to explain the modern public accounting firm internship pipeline so you, the student, can be better prepared for the recruiters and opportunities as they come to campus. Let’s dive in:
The Firms’ Goal
Firms have an ultimate goal to fill their future associate-level positions, and these programs help secure a pipeline of candidates to make that happen. It’s important to understand that they care about filling THEIR positions more than they care about YOU having a job after graduation. Sometimes, those two goals align with one another, and other times, the candidate and the firm will go their separate ways. It’s important to understand this dynamic so you can act accordingly to support your own interests during the whole process.
CPA Eligibility
It’s important to understand that many of the associate-level positions at public accounting firms require CPA eligibility for the main service lines of tax and audit. As a result, the timeline outlined below isn’t necessarily tied to a student’s years at the university, but instead it’s tied to the years until they are eligible to become a licensed CPA after passing the CPA exam. You can read more about CPA eligibility in my other blog here. Understanding your timeline to become CPA eligible is a critical component of navigating the internship pipeline.
The Early Years: Information Sessions
Before you are even far enough into your academic career to qualify for the internships and externships outlined below, firms may host information sessions about careers in accounting and what their firm does. Typically, these sessions will involve the campus recruiter, a very important person to network with and have a good relationship with. I recommend going to these information sessions and learning about your options as early as you are able.
Externships:
Many large firms will host externships, which are short-term professional learning experiences that typically last around a week. Firms will bring groups of students in to learn about the professional world through a combination of presentations and shadowing working professionals. While doing this, the firm is able to network with students and see how they interact in a more professional environment, even if it is for a short time. Firms will target students who are one year out from their internship eligibility for these externships so they can provide internship offers to those students who stand out in the externship.
Internships:
Internships are the core of the campus recruitment process for public accounting firms as they provide the student with hands-on professional experience that directly translates to entry level roles along with the opportunity to extend a full-time job offer shortly after the internship. This is all possible because internships are targeted for students who will be CPA eligible and graduating within 12-16 months of the internship date.
For example: a student who graduates in May 2025 will be targeted to have a busy season internship in spring 2024, or a summer internship in the summer of 2024. This student would also be eligible for an externship in summer 2023.
While it's important to know when these internships occur, it’s even more important to know when the firms take applications for them. Most firms do a considerable amount of recruiting during the fall semester and most have their postings ready in late August or even earlier!
Full-time offers:
Every year, firms are trying to fill their entry level positions with eligible students so the public accounting machine can continue to function as designed. Firms will map out their anticipated staffing needs based on client load, attrition, and expected growth so that campus recruiters can target a number of full time candidates for each service line. The recruiters will use this information to give job offers to certain students during or right after their internship, and fill the remaining spots through direct on-campus recruiting as needed. If you are fortunate enough to find yourself with an offer after an internship, congratulations! If you find yourself in a situation where you need to apply directly to full-time positions, having internship experience on your resume is a huge help.
Full-time offers are typically posted with a 1-year timeline, where an application for an October 2025 start date would be posted in August of 2024. However, these timelines can vary from an immediate hiring need to slightly more than one year out from the start date.
What Should I Do With All This?
If you are a student who is interested in public accounting as a first step in your career, study up on the campus recruiting process! Getting involved with campus recruiting initiatives is more important than having the best grades in many cases, so understanding how everything works is an excellent first step. Arm yourself with this knowledge and take the proactive steps to starting your career in public accounting!