Advice for Current Accounting Students: This Two Step
Process will be the Most Valuable Thing You Can Learn Before Going Out Into the
Accounting Profession
Step One: CPA Exam first, Job second
The CPA exam is probably the hardest exam you’ll ever take. Many students spend
thousands of dollars on different CPA review course because their initial CPA
review course failed them. It’s recommended that you focus on passing this exam
right after graduation because the some of the class material will still be
fresh in your head. Plus, passing CPA exams helps land you a job. It’s harder
to studying for the CPA exam while maintaining a full time job.
Tackling
this beast is nothing like classroom exams. Studying for one part of the CPA
Exam is like studying three condensed version of your accounting courses. Here
are the different choices of CPA Review Course you can buy: Becker, Yaeger,
Bisk, Roger, Wiley, Gleim, and Kaplan.
Before
going out to buy anything, I recommend you join the Washington State Society of CPAs. Why? Because student members gets
DISCOUNTS! Yes, you heard me. Check out this link for the discounts: https://www.discovercpa.org/discovercpa/exams/index.cfm#discount
Kaplan is the most expensive. Then Becker is the second most expensive. The
only reason why Becker is so expensive and so popular is that the Big Four
advertises them. Don’t believe in the hype. Students who pass the CPA exam will
recommend their CPA Review course. Students who fail one part of the CPA exam
will downplay their CPA review course. Just buy the CPA review course that
you’re able to afford; however, Becker really does take the largest share of
the market and has a really good pass rate (90%?). It’s not the CPA review
course that will help you pass. It’s the amount of time, effort, and commitment
you put into the studying that will help you pass. Remember from earlier when I
said many students spend thousands of dollars on CPA review course? I think
those people didn’t put in enough time, effort, and commitment, or any of these
combinations.
IMPORTANT for Becker students: unless you intend to pass all four parts within
a year (i.e. between January 2009 – December 2009), do not buy all four parts.
I made the mistake of buying all four parts because there was a discount. Once
I started the Becker Review Course, then the Becker will expire within a year.
This means you have to pass all four parts within a year. So please do research
before committing and choose a review course that suits you.
Here is the recommended order when you take the CPA Exam:
1. FAR – Financial accounting.
Everyone over-prepares for their initial exam. You want to over-prepare for FAR
because it has the most amount of material that you will have to learn. Thus,
FAR is most commonly known as the hardest exam.
2. AUD – Auditing. How can you
really know auditing when you don’t know the mechanics of financial accounting?
Many students say there are FAR questions in the AUD, so you better be prepared
for FAR when taking AUD. FAR after AUD makes sense because the FAR material
will be fresh in your head from over studying. Then you don’t have to worry
about studying FAR when you study AUD. AUD is most commonly known as the
easiest. And you probably want to take it easy after testing for AUD (I’m not
saying that AUD will not be hard).
3. REG – Business law and Tax. This
is probably the second hard exam. You’re going to feel you don’t have enough
time when you sit for the exam.
4. BEC – Business environment. No
simulation on this section. By the time you get here, you will be glad to not
worry about the simulation.
Everyone has different opinions when they tell me their recommended order for
taking the CPA exam. For me, I would say you should take the hardest section,
which is tax for me. When you sign up for these exams, you better think twice
before making anything picking an official date.
When you sign up for the CPA exam, they will allow you a 6 months period to
take your exam (including any non-testing month). So if you don’t intend to
pass all four parts in the 6 months, then do don’t sign up for all four. They
will not give you a refund if your schedule doesn’t work out and you can’t take
the exam that you paid for.
STEP TWO: Looking for a Job
It’s really tough to get an accounting position. Trust me. I've talked to some
other students who has graduated and passed all four parts of the CPA exam (UW,
CWU Ellensburg, WSU) and still haven't found a job yet. As a matter of fact,
there is an over population of CPAs out there (due to the fact that the exam
got easier ever since it got split into 4 parts). Public accounting is
extremely difficult to get right now because there are a lot of accountants who
got laid off in this slump economy. I’ve asked a representative of a medium
sized accounting firm about their application rate for 2008. She told me that
out of 600 applied, 200 got interviewed and 20 got the job. This should pretty
much give you a basic idea of the competitive nature of each accounting job.
Firms are less willing to take on the liability of an entry level accountant.
Even though you see less jobs being advertised, that doesn’t mean there isn’t a
job. I heard somewhere that over 50% of
jobs aren’t advertised. And I’ve talked to many employers who’ve said that
many companies (accounting and non-accounting) who are looking to fill a
position, but they do it secretly because they don’t want to sort through 1,000+
resumes/applications.
Here are some of the things that will
help you get an accounting job:
1.
Network, network, network. It’s self explanatory and this is what I’ve been
told since day 1 in college. Attend all
major social and recruiting event your school offers (Rock Salt in the fall),
WSCPA events, and even open events from other schools.
2. Pass all four parts of the CPA exam. It helps a lot because employers will
know that you’re detail oriented, able to analyze problems, and pick out
pertinent facts when faced with multiple facts (CPA exam will try to confuse
you and trick you).
3. Participate in extracurricular activity on-campus and in your community.
This will tell a lot of an employer. They would rather take a candidate with a
lot of extracurricular activities and 3.0 GPA than a candidate with no
extracurricular activities and 4.0 GPA. By the way, ANY job that can help you
in an accounting position helps too!
MEMORIZE THIS: accounting employers will
ask you about your involvement with your college accounting club. You don’t
even need a play a major role in the accounting club. Just as long as you’re
being involved, then employers think that you like accounting. Accounting
employers also wants to hear that you’ve been staying up with the current
accounting news, so read about that kind of stuff or try to hear them in
meetings. Besides class, the things you do that involved learning accounting
will tell an employer that you love accounting. It’s hard to be an accountant
if you don’t even care about the news in the accounting profession. Join the
Washington State Society of CPAs or become heavily involved with the Society of
Student Accountants at CWU.
4. Keep your GPA above 3.0. If you can’t keep/meet this minimum, then you
better have a lot of work experience and are involved in a lot of
extracurricular activities.
5. Nail the interview. PRACTICE! Practice interview as much as you study for
the CPA exam. The interview will land you a job and helps you negotiate your
salary.
Terrance Duong
CWU Alumni and SSA
member
Related links:
Kaplan CPA Review: http://www.schweser.com/cpa/index.php
Call 1-800-CPA-2DAY to speak to a representative
Becker CPA Review: http://www.becker.com
Please contact Robbie Dahl for more information
Email: robbiecpa@aol.com
Phone: 425-803-0181
Roger CPA Review: http://www.rogercpareview.com/
Please contact Katie Criddle for more information
Email: katie@rogercpareview.com
Phone: (206) 321-3654
CPA Job Finder: http://niche.workopolis.com/aicpa/home.html
Washington State CPAs: https://www.wscpa.org
Please contact Mark Peterson for more information or to become a student member
Email: mpeterson@wscpa.org
Phone: (425) 586-1118