How hard is it to get hired as a CA student? What about making partner?
A reader wrote to ask:
is it fairly easy to get hired at CA training office in Toronto? How
difficult it is, what do they look for while hiring new interns?
Good question.
The short answer is no, it's not that easy, unless you have top marks in your accounting and audit courses and some strong supporting interests on your resume, like participation in student groups, part-time job experience or something else that helps you stand out from the crowd.
If all you do is put together a resume and blindly shoot of resumes to every firm in sight, your chances of getting hired - either full-time or as an intern - are going to be 'average' at best.
But you want to fly around the world doing audits - how do you stand out? It's not too hard.
It starts with planning. And to plan, you need to set some goals.
Your goals are as follows:
- Know what you're doing. This includes knowing when you should apply for the job.
- Show potential employers you know what you're doing. This includes getting the right marks and experience, and meeting with potential recruiters when you have the chance.
- Figure out that this is really what you want to do.
The first point is easiest to answer here - ask around, either at your university or by contacting the firms themselves to learn when recruiting season occurs. It's often 9 to 12 months ahead of the date when you'll start working. Exceptions sometimes pop up, but as I've written, I wouldn't count on that approach.
If you plan on starting full-time work at a Big Four in Canada around September 2009, you're going to be applying for work this September/October. If you're applying for internships for the summer of 2009, you will similarly be showing up for those fall recruiting events. Sometimes there are separate events for full-time job seekers and interns, but I've seen them just as often combined into one event.
Some firms invite you to visit their offices as a group from school, others will come visit your campus. Many do both.
Take advantage of those trips. You'll feel busy balancing life with firm visits, but if you want to get a head start on applying, this is probably the best thing you can do. I was going to say I didn't bother much with recruiting events as a student - which is true - but I did do a few firm visits as a member of my campus accounting students group - I was the newsmagazine editor, naturally.
Marks and resume building
Mentioning the Student Group angle is a good segue to the second point - you need to plan ahead to have a strong resume to get in to the more competitive offices. If you know you're not going to get straight A's, plan to have some strong extra-curriculars to shore up your resume. Even if you get perfect on all your tests and rarely flub your CR's and DR's, you need to show you have a life outside the classroom, so do find some activity to show you have a life.
I went to the crazy extreme of being somewhat bored with classes, so I definitely overloaded on the extracurricular side, but it worked out well for me - nothing like explaining that your non-A marks were due to being involved in so many extra-curriculars and getting hired anyway.
I don't find anything wrong with this, naturally - who else would have experience filing corporate meeting minutes, doing tax returns for a federal corporation - including filing GST (VAT) refunds, and training a new generation to take over the job upon graduation? But you should definitely be careful with this approach because not all employers will necessarily recognize all that hard work, instead filtering you out of the applicant pool solely because of your marks.
Marks aren't that important at all firms - you need at least a B- average in your CA courses to be eligible to write the UFE - and people with better marks tend to do better on the UFE than those with B averages, but you can easily show you're the exception that beats the rule if you're smart about it - by just showing you're naturally clever through your conversations and interviews.
Obviously you need to plan far in advance to set up a study schedule that allows you to succeed in your courses. If you see you're failing in a course, don't soldier through it, DROP IT and take it again next semester!
And having a resume jam-packed with extra-curriculars in 4th year university and a big blank spot from 1st through 3rd year does scream "padding" or "fluff" - do try and start getting involved in 2nd year or sooner. In addition to making the resume look stronger by virtue of your longer involvement time, you'll be more likely to reach a senior 'leadership' position in the group you're involved in. And "participant" never looks as good as "captain" or "organizer", obviously.
So put those thoughts of "resume padding" or "fluff" aside - find
something you're actually interested in - it can be a sport or activity
like being in the film study club to support your minor - perhaps as
its treasurer, or something fun like an intramural sport - and you'll
have a decent mix of marks and experiences to get you in the door.
What about partnership?
I've written enough today, and probably could have just saved this blurb for another today - but I really wanted to point you in the direction of an post before I forget which points out - among other things - that you're going to have to find a half million dollars when you're "invited" to become a partner in a big firm. That article, another gem from Francine, points out the difficulties associated with making it in the Big Four world, and the risks you take on by becoming a partner - which some will argue aren't sufficiently rewarded by the pay you get in return.
Definitely some interesting thoughts to consider - and reading that will make it easier - or maybe harder - to answer the question, "do you want to stick around and make partner?" - that people will occasionally pester you with once you're hired and have stuck around for long enough for people to engage you in small talk about big things.