Does Student Work Experience Affect CPA Firm Recruiting Decisions?

Abstract

In a competitive job market accounting students and faculty need to be aware of exactly what factors influence hiring decisions for entry-level accountants. While anecdotal evidence suggests that an accounting student's job experience while in school would be viewed positively by CPA firm recruiters, the empirical research addressing this issue is limited. Also, it is not known whether different types of work experiences affect recruiters' decisions differently. This study attempts to determine the relative importance that CPA firm recruiters place on different student job experiences. To address the research question, an experiment was designed to determine the effect that different types of job experiences have on hiring decisions by CPA firm recruiters of entry-level accountants. CPA firm recruiters were surveyed to determine if four levels of student job experience influenced their hiring decisions for entry-level accountants: non-accounting experience, internship experience with a CPA firm, industry accounting experience, or no experience of any kind. Responses were analyzed based on CPA firm size. The results suggest that recruiters’ decisions are positively affected by internship experience and to a lessor extent by industry accounting experience. The results were the same regardless of CPA firm size.