Do public accounting firms offer tax internships or full-time tax jobs in Fall

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  • #187448

    Hello everyone,

    I am currently working on my MST as well as studying for the CPA exam. I have passed everything but BEC with “plans” to pass it by October. I enrolled in the MST program partly to have access to their job fair.

    The job fair is in September, but I had an opportunity to have a conversation with Moss Adams about what they had available to tax students. They said they only had internships for students who were anticipating graduating by August 2015. It was my plan only to take two classes next semester so I could walk away from the program with less financial loss if I was unable to get a tax job and ended up in private accounting. However to be graduation ready by August 2015(for internships?) I will need to take the extra class for $3,000. Though I believe tax accounting my calling I will also be applying for all accounting jobs under the sun and would prefer just to take two classes.

    I am expecting to have all CPA exams passed by October and was hoping that would make me a strong candidate for hire before actually completing the MST program. Ideally I was hoping to get hired and finish the MST program on the side so that I can deduct my education costs and hopefully get financial assistance from my employer.

    For those who didn’t want to read my life story my questions are as follows:

    1)Are firms mainly looking for interns these days? During Fall recruiting?

    2)Will tax firms hire a person midway in a MST program if they passed all CPA exams? Or will they wait until I finish the program?

    3)Will having an expected graduation date of Dec 2015 as opposed to Aug 2015 make a difference in getting internship/job offers?

    I realize this may not be the most fun topic, so thanks in advance to all that take the time to help!

    Passed all 4 exams in 2014!

Viewing 9 replies - 1 through 9 (of 9 total)
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  • #584908
    Lindrobe
    Member

    The Crowe office in my area just posted entry level positions-both auditing and tax-with a fall start date. September start for audit, October for tax. These positions are not internships.

    FAR 12/3/14, 87
    AUD 2/3/14, 90
    BEC 4/1/14, 88
    REG 5/27/14, 94

    Licensed CPA, Indiana

    "Successful people do things that unsuccessful people don't want to do"

    #584909
    fuzyfro89
    Participant

    1) I'm not sure what you mean by “mainly recuiting for interns”. No, they don't want too many interns. They want to hire most of their interns full time, otherwise the internship program doesn't make any sense.

    Also, fall internships are rare in public, but I have heard of a few who did that (or “part time”) if they studied close to a Big 4 office. There is no standard internship program in the fall for most public firms.

    2) They usually will wait to hire you full time until when you are fully CPA eligible (i.e. you have completed your education requirement for the CPA license), but some smaller firms may allow it.

    3) No, they generally prefer January hires to fall hires because they get you at the best time… right before busy season.

    #584910

    fuzyfro89,

    The recruiting is being done in the Fall(Sep/Oct/Nov), but they are offering winter internships for(Jan-April). I guess my question is what % of spots for people starting in January will be full-time positions? I do have the educational and work requirements to qualify for my CPA license, so the MST is mainly to prepare for a new career and networking purposes. I am worried that a lot of firms will want me to finsih the MST program before they offer me a full-time position, but another year of unemployment is out of the question(not ot mention the extra 20k in debt).

    Passed all 4 exams in 2014!

    #584911
    dpad124
    Participant

    @SSA

    Nobody but the office knows. Before recruiting starts, they take a look at who has left, clients lost/won, and then evaluate their need.

    BEC Oct2014 - 85
    AUD Jan2015 - ??
    REG Feb2015 - ??
    FAR May2015 - ??

    #584912

    Bump.

    Passed all 4 exams in 2014!

    #584913
    floacct
    Member

    Just curious. What mst program r u in?

    #584914
    Anonymous
    Inactive

    I work for a small CPA firm, and we hire interns for busy, summer, and fall season (less than 50 person firm). We typically offer 1/2 of the interns a job offer. Sometimes none, sometimes all of the interns are offered a job. It's a commitment-free look at the person. I would say that you just need to look around, I'm sure there are some. It makes you more desirable to say “yes, I'm finishing up at the end of summer/year and only have 2-3 classes left, so that if offered a position, it would minimally impact my working capabilities.”

    #584915
    005
    Participant

    So would you guys say they mainly hire in the fall in order to start in January?

    I wanted to leave my current firm before busy season starts; not sure when I should start applying.

    (graduated in 2012)

    BEC - ✔
    REG - ✔
    AUD - ✔
    FAR - 11/29/14

    CPAExcel, Ninja MCQs, and a sh*t ton of coffee

    #584916

    floacct, I go to GGU

    Passed all 4 exams in 2014!

Viewing 9 replies - 1 through 9 (of 9 total)
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