Public Accounting Firm Characteristics: Their Importance To Students And Discussion By Recruiters

Abstract

This was a survey-based study of the importance that students attach to various employer qualities and the extent that public accounting recruiters discuss such qualities. Attitudinal differences among students with different academic credentials and differences in the structure of recruiting interviews by various sized public accounting firms were the focus of the study. The data were collected from 106 accounting students and 63 recruiters. Before the beginning of the fall campus interviewing period, students rated the importance of 36 employer characteristics and recruiters reported to what extent they discussed the characteristics during the recruiting process. In general, no differences were noted among students of varying academic credentials. Significant differences, however, were noted in the level of discussion by recruiters from firms of varying size. The extent that recruiters from the various sized firms discussed the characteristics was compared with the student perceived importance. The extent that the national firm recruiters discussed the characteristics most closely matched the student importance ratings, and the discussion by the local firm recruiters least matched the student ratings.