What Local and Regional Accounting Firms Look for in New Hires

Accounting firms are displaying impressive revenue growth, creat- ing increasing demand for entry- level staff. The CCH Young Accounting Professionals Survey published in March 2007 showed that growth in 2006 was the highest since 2000. At the same time, the report notes that baby-boomer accounting

profession- als are retiring in numbers likely to overwhelm the relatively smaller pool of new graduates entering the pro- fession. A recent article in The CPA Journal noted that this trend has cre- ated intense competition among accounting firms vying for the most highly qualified students graduating from accounting programs [Bruce (Harv) Busta, D'Arcy Becker, P. Jane SaIy, Richard S. Sathe, and Kate Mooney, "Effective Campus Recuiting: The Faculty Perspective," July 2007]. The most recent AICPA survey on the demand for public accounting recruits suggests that the competition continues to be intense, even in the current economy. A vast majority of smaller firms reported that they planned to hire the same number of or more graduates in 2008-2009 (Dennis R. Reigle, et al, "2008 Trends in the Supply of Accounting Graduates and the Demand for Public Accounting Recruits," AICPA, 2008).