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You Interned At Big 4 And Didn’t Get an Offer, Now What?

Posted on by Adrienne Gonzalez

Let's face it, your mom is sick of hearing about your career troubles. Stop ruining her Sunday afternoons with your depressing phone calls and email us for advice instead.

Hi, I have a question! I interned with a Big-4 in the summer and didn't get an offer. I was wondering if I could apply to the other Big-4s in the fall, since this is when they recruit heavily. Do you know people who interned at a firm, then worked at another, because they didn't receive an offer?

Can you apply to other Big 4s in the fall? Sure. Will anyone want you? That remains to be seen.

Let's face it, as an offerless former intern, you're damaged goods. A reject. If public accounting were a widget factory, you'd be in the bucket with the rest of the deformed, unwanted widgets that didn't pass quality control.

Any chance you are obsessing over a Big 4 opportunity but are not quite Big 4 material? Now is the time to sit down and have a real talk with yourself about your future. You don't need to be top 1% in your class to fit in at Big 4 but you do need to be a very specific type of individual and maybe that's not you. It could be that the firm you interned with didn't have the room to hire you or the culture just wasn't a good fit for either party but the more likely reason is that you were either a really crappy intern or just not what they were looking for in a new hire. If it's the latter, applying to other Big 4s might be a waste of your time.

Now is the time to take the blinders off and broaden your scope a bit here. Have you considered second-tier? You don't really have the luxury of standing around waiting for the firms to come to you at this point so you'd be wise to get hustling for something, even if that something means McGladrey. It sure beats being unemployed.

Let's talk about that résumé item while we're here. Are you going to be honest about your internship or are you going to pretend like it never happened? Even without a full-time offer, you gained valuable Big 4 experience. Now, if you screwed up during your internship (you know if you did) and that's why they didn't offer you a job, perhaps there is a way for you to paint that in a slightly better light. Note: painting it in a better light and straight up lying are two different things. You want to stick with the truth, even if it's a slightly distorted version of it. Be honest – not too honest – and don't be tempted not to mention the internship at all as that's where you get into sketchy territory.

Remember that everyone knows everyone else so if you do fudge the truth, you might get found out.

So, back to the question at hand. Yes you can (and probably should) apply to the other Big 4s in fall (as in any day now…) but you should also be networking your pathetic little butt off and not simply playing Call of Duty until the firms start banging your door down. If your classmates got offers, they might get a referral bonus for hooking you up with the firm so ask around and see if anyone will help you get your foot in the door. Failing that, you can always go the recruiter route but let's try to exhaust your other options first.

In all seriousness, you're probably not a total loser and as long as you can figure out how to talk up your internship instead of focusing on the fact that you weren't extended an offer, you should do just fine. Be open to opportunities other than Big 4 and hustle, hustle, hustle.

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Accounting Student with Internship in Hand Is Having Second Thoughts

Ed. note: Desperate for advice but surrounded by idiots? Email us immediately. Oh, but read this first.

Hey GC,

I’m a junior at a well-respected New England college with a double concentration in accounting and marketing. A few weeks ago, I accepted an offer as an audit intern for next summer from a public accounting firm just outside of the Big 4. Just as a background, my GPA sucks (sub-3.0), but I enjoy doing interviews. While I was excited to get the job, I’m still not sure if auditing is a career path I want to go down.

My biggest fear is a high-paced, numbers-intensive career tra to people, forming relationships, and pretty much anything that doesn’t involve crunching numbers. Ideally, I’d like to pursue a career that highlights my writing ability and interests, like sports marketing (which I’m sure will be scoffed at in the comment section). Additionally, as my GPA suggests, I hate studying for tests, so I don’t anticipate doing the CPA thing or going to grad school. Do you have any general advice? Any chance I survive this internship?

Love the site, keep up the good work.

My first drafted response:

***Start***
Drop the accounting degree, focus on marketing, and start going to class to get your grades up before you’re unemployed.
***End***

My second:


You remind me of countless other students, studying a subject that you have little interest in. I don’t know your backstory: maybe you did well in accounting in high school; maybe one of your parents is a CPA; maybe one of your Helicopter parents told you that “you can do ANYTHING with a degree in accounting” and you earnestly believed them. Frankly, I don’t care what the story is…but you need to kick yourself in the ass and either suck it up and commit to an accounting career or get the hell out.

What you have going for your career:

• A paid internship with a mid-sized CPA firm. Ignore the fact that the Central Banks came to the rescue this morning (even Groupon is up!). The economy is in the can and because hiring trends are reactionary and delayed in a services industry like public accounting, fulltime job opportunities will be even scarcer when you’re graduating. That’s to say you want to work in the industry; but I think you don’t and you came to GC hoping we’d tell you otherwise.

What you have going against your career:
• Your grades are terrible compared to market. Firms are turning 3.8 GPA’s away at the door.
• You have little/no work ethic.
• You do not plan to do graduate school (presumably to be CPA eligible).
• You don’t plan to take the CPA exam.

If everything remains constant, you will not survive in a career in public accounting. You claim that your biggest fear is a “high-paced, number-intensive career track,” where in reality it should be more in line with “living in my parents’ basement, playing video games and ‘networking’ over Linkedin.” What would you prefer – a slow-paced environment where hypothetical interview questions are tossed around? Do you think “sports marketing” isn’t a fast-paced environment?? And what do you even KNOW about audit? Being that you’re a junior, you might not even take an auditing course before your internship. Don’t knock it just yet, man. It sounds to me like you’ve given up on accounting before you’ve even started. Which is fine if that’s the case; just accept it yourself and believe in what you actually want to do.

Not speaking for the GC commenters, but I won’t scoff at your desire to work in sports marketing. I will, however, challenge your ass to do more. What are you doing to break into the incredibly competitive sports marketing world? A piss-poor GPA, marketing degree (from a university whose program is not in the top tier for marketing…go Eagles!), and self-proclaimed writing abilities are not going to cut it. I’m not an expert on the industry, but I do know that “sports marketing” is like saying you want “a job in finance.” What do you want to do? Product development? Management? Retail marketing? Brand management? Selling Gatorade at Red Sox games?

You need to figure your shit out. That’s as much handholding as you’ll get from me. I could sit here and babble off that you need to study more, focus your efforts on your future, yada yada yada. So, here’s my advice: do some serious soul searching. If accounting is not what you want to do for the next 40 years, give up your internship. Take summer classes to get your GPA up or sweat your summer in an unpaid marketing internship making copies for the local single-A minor league baseball team. Do SOMETHING to get your career on track. At the very least, go ask your questions on a marketing-focused website. Find out how cut-throat the industry is right now. If you are hoping to ride the waves of your alma mater into some sweet gig at an agency, you are setting yourself up for a rude awakening.

Big 4 Recruiting Season: When Are a Good GPA and Internship Experience Not Enough?

Ed. note: Have a question for the career advice brain trust? Email us at advice@goingconcern.com.

Is it just me or has it been a strange, weird week? I mean, look at yesterday’s Accounting News Roundup for what’s been happening:

• Everyone’s favorite shove-chips-down-your-throat airline lost its chief financial guru.
• The curtain continues to be pulled back on the next great technology company bubble.
• Rick Perry
• Capitalism is on life support

And oh yeah, Ohio was momentarily resembled a safari. Christ. Get a re-fillturn up your iPod. Let’s push through this week. On to the questions:

My question is about recruiting. On Campus Recruiting has ended last week and unfortunately I wasn’t invited to any of the Big 4 interviews. I really thought that my high GPA and my experience at a F500 company and a large governmental organization would land me the internship.

After being rejected, I started talking to some friends to see who had Big 4 interviews coming up, and I found out that only campus leaders had interviews. By campus leaders I mean BAP, ALPHA, NABA, and etc board members. I’m currently a senior and I will be applying for full-time positions next year. Since I’m not in any leadership position, and probably won’t be by next year, am I screwed? Also, is it true that 90% of Big 4’s entry level full time positions are filled by interns?

Thanks.

Maybe you’re a sloppy dresser. Maybe you have sweaty palms. Maybe you think brushing your teeth is more of a take-it-or-leave-it option than a societal norm. Possibilities…but unlikely. This sounds more like a case of “Good College in a Small Market Where the Firms Just Don’t Need to Hire Many People.” Unfortunate, but it happens.

Here’s the sitch: the firms love to hire out of universities with a broad range of students. The USCs and U. of Texases (at Austin, yes, yes) and Penn States of the world; even smaller schools like Lehigh and NYU. Why? Because they have national appeal – good programs, brand names, and students from every state. A Longhorn from Austin could be interested in working in Boston or Chicago or New York. Lehigh grads regularly pursue options in Philadelphia, DC, Pittsburgh, and the NYC/Chicago/the west coast hotspots. Alums of these schools can share their stories of the recruiting factory lines – Beta Alpha Psi board execs, members, and club rejects alike find jobs with the Big 4. The Budgeting Gods love these schools and make a concerted effort to build robust programs around these schools and those like them.

Your current situation falls into a different category. You’re either:

a) at a good school in a smaller market and the local firms have limited hiring needs
b) at a small school that the firm is obligated to recruit from because the Office Managing Partner graduated from there in 1963.

Whatever the reason, it’s unfortunate because there are probably a number of qualified applicants like you who are out of luck. The firms have fairly tight budgets on a per-school basis; even if they had a lack of candidates at another school, it would be a one-off case.

All that said, you’re not necessarily “screwed.” The officers will most likely accept fulltime offers they receive at the end of their internships. There is a possibility that the firms will have additional needs for fulltime hires; I recommend keeping your options open (audit, tax, etc.). As far as your projection that 90% of fulltime positions are filled by interns, I don’t know if it’s that high (it was in ‘08/’09), but above 75% on a national average. The goal is “as many as $%*@ing possible.” Good luck.