Throw some money at them too while you’re at it. I mean give people real time to study and sit for the exam. Nor do I mean the slight underutilization you might get at a firm that can afford to keep you half-sidelined every now and then so you can fill your time with studying. And no, I don’t mean the couple months between offer and start date. Perhaps - and bear with me here, I’ve been accused of throwing out batshit insane ideas before - more early career accountants would be interested in sitting for the CPA exam if they were given the TIME to study. Then you’re tossed head-first into work while your review course materials sit gathering dust in a dark corner of the apartment you’re rarely at until a year has gone by and you realize you haven’t studied for a single section. Maybe if you’re lucky you have a few months from offer to start date during which you study, but more likely you spend that time frantically reading Reddit posts about how much it sucks to work at and trying to figure out how you’re going to fit all the alcohol you’ll need to get through your first busy season into your already tight budget. You then take your offer to a CPA review course that offers a discount to employees of your soon-to-be-firm, get all your materials, and then you start work.
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You’re an accounting student, and after going through recruiting, you (hopefully) get at least one offer from a Big 4 firm (they’re pretty much all the same, but we won’t get into that).
![wiley cpa exam review 2013 set wiley cpa exam review 2013 set](https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51JDDMiZ3vL._SX384_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg)
Why? Well, the Boomers might say because they’re lazy pieces of shit, but it’s pretty obvious to anyone born after 1964 that the whole system sets them up for failure.įor any outside observers who may be reading this, allow me to explain how it goes.
![wiley cpa exam review 2013 set wiley cpa exam review 2013 set](https://s.ecrater.com/stores/289858/515b1b0ba58fa_289858b.jpg)
And by “life” I mean “work.” Many students hadn’t even opened a single book or watched a single lecture in a year. In my CPA review days I can’t tell you how many times I got panicked phone calls from candidates who, despite their best efforts, had run out of time on their review course (mind you this was back in the day when “unlimited” access hadn’t been invented yet) because life got in the way. While the leaders of the profession stand around in their summer homes scratching their balding heads wondering why on Earth no one wants to be a CPA anymore, an obvious solution is staring them right in the face: make it easier to take the CPA exam. The AICPA puts out its Trends in the Supply of Accounting Graduates and the Demand for Public Accounting Recruits report every two years which means we’re due for a fresh one any day now, so it will be interesting to see how the numbers shake out. In 2019 we found out that CPA exam candidate numbers were the lowest they’ve been in more than a decade. It’s almost as if, I dunno, technology has enabled us to share information like never before, making the shiny brochures about exciting opportunities in public accounting and Black Hole Sun-esque grinning recruiters useless against the thousands upon thousands of first-hand accounts on Reddit, blogs, and obscure forums detailing the bullshit public accounting throws at its beleaguered staff. The entire thing relies on a healthy supply of people to churn through, and they’re now finding themselves wondering why they seem to be churning more than usual and light on the fresh new bodies to replace the ones leaving.
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This is how it’s been since the dawn of time, or at least since the time George Touche was still in (cloth) diapers. I mean, it’s a joke at this point, getting your “two and done” solely for a foot in the door and a resume item that will earn you a spot at a company you actually want to work for. And I have to say I haven’t ever seen the profession panic about anything quite like they’ve been panicking over the pipeline problem.Īnd why shouldn’t they? The Big 4 business model demands a steady flow of fresh warm bodies to restock the slots left open by previous warm bodies getting the hell out of there for greener pastures. This website has been around since 2009 and I’ve been loitering out here on the periphery of the accounting profession like a stalker in the bushes since I started in CPA review way back in 2007, so suffice to say we’ve seen some shit over the years. Soooo not sure if you heard but there’s a pipeline problem.