EXECUTIVE
SUMMARY |
INTERNSHIPS FOSTER
SUCCESSFUL PROFESSIONAL
development for students and
firms. To get started, a firm’s project
manager should check the local university
or college’s Web site for its requirements
and the name of the faculty coordinator to
contact.
THE EDUCATIONAL
OPPORTUNITIES FIRMS PROVIDE
vary with their capacity.
Large-firm internship assignments may
last about the length of a college
semester and offer varied work
experience. Smaller firms may limit the
project and time period to a tax season.
CANDIDATES OFFER A RANGE
OF SKILLS and experiences.
The more complex the internship tasks
are, the greater the oversight
responsibilities a firm will have.
FIRMS SHOULD GIVE INTERNS
CHALLENGING projects that
develop new skills. Clear instructions
about the firm’s procedures and its
mission help interns become autonomous.
Word of a great experience (or a poor
one) gets around campus pretty quickly.
INTERNS NEED A PRIMARY
MENTOR who is fully committed
to the assignment. Most partners don’t
see their role as educator, but
mentoring is a proven way to transfer
experience. Interns who get a lot of
guidance are more successful than those
who fend for themselves.
PARTICIPATING IN AN
INTERNSHIP GIVES a firm an
edge in hiring the best and brightest at
the same time that it provides an extra
“employee” at a modest salary.
| CHRISTINE
A. LAUBER, CPA, sole owner of a 13-person
South Bend, Indiana, firm, chaired the
AICPA task force on internship issues. Her
e-mail address is
cal@laubercpa.com . LORRAINE RUH is
on the accounting faculty at Northern
Kentucky University, Highland Heights. Her
e-mail address is ruh@nku.edu
. PETER M. THEURI, CPA, is a
department of accountancy assistant
professor at Northern Kentucky University.
His e-mail address is theuri@nku.edu
. PETER WOODLOCK, CPA, PhD, is
associate professor and chairman of the
department of accounting/finance,
Youngstown State University, Youngstown,
Ohio. His e-mail address is p_woodlock@ysu.com
. |
he accounting profession has a great
deal going for it—good pay, challenging work and
unlimited opportunities for advancement. So why
does it have a hard time selling students on the
field and keeping them? Recognizing that new CPAs
are vital to the future, many firms commit a large
part of their human resources budgets to
internships to try to close the gap between
students’ understanding of public accounting and
workplace realities. Even so, once employed, many
new hires last less than two years, sources say.
Can we do more to attract and retain quality
professionals? We’ll have to. One way to
strengthen students’ commitment is to show them
how to succeed. Here are guidelines CPAs can use
for managing internships to help foster successful
professional development for students and firms.
Degree
+
Experience
=
Good Jobs
The “accountants and auditors”
employment category has the
fourth-highest growth prospects among
the top 20 highly paid occupations
requiring a bachelor’s or graduate
degree. Labor statistics analysts say
it will add about 205,000 jobs by
2012. Source:
Occupational Outlook Quarterly, Winter
2003-04,
www.bls.gov/opub/ooq/2003/winter/art02.pdf
.
|
BEGIN AT THE BEGINNING
Liaison with academia is easier
now that some colleges require accounting students
to complete internships prior to graduation. Check
your local college’s Web site for its
requirements. If the Web site doesn’t answer your
questions, it likely will name the faculty
coordinator or chairperson you can contact. Then
you should
Inventory your resources.
Although it would be great if
internships could offer a uniform educational
experience, training will vary with firms’
capacity to provide it. Determine what yours has
to offer. Does it have the staff and time to
mentor an intern as well as the money and space to
put one to work? Each intern will require
sufficient workspace and resources to perform his
or her assigned tasks. At large firms
internship assignments may last about 16 weeks,
the length of a college semester. Smaller firms
may limit the program period to the length of a
particular project. Larger firms generally pay
interns about $15 to $18 per hour. That range is
“the national average,” says Douglas Michel, CPA,
principal of Clark, Schaefer, Hackett & Co., a
29-partner Ohio firm with offices in five cities.
Smaller firms may pay between $10 and $12 per
hour, sources say. Depth of training also may
differ according to a firm’s size. Large ones can
offer varied assignments (preparation of
depreciation schedules and tax returns, bank and
accounts receivable reconciliation and even
audit-test experience, for example). Small ones
may focus on only one area of responsibility, such
as tax preparation. Michel’s firm is able to train
interns on all firm software to build their
confidence. In contrast, small firms may provide
computer-skills training on only an “as needed”
basis. The smaller a firm is, the more an intern
will cost it proportionately.
Decide what you want. Your
firm must clearly identify its needs and prepare a
description of the types of projects the student
will handle. Potential candidates offer a range of
skills and experiences. To qualify for an
internship program, they will have met general
university requirements and usually will have
completed several accounting courses covering
principles of financial and managerial accounting
and perhaps intermediate or tax accounting. Assess
how independently you will require your intern to
work. The more complex the internship tasks are,
the greater the oversight responsibilities your
firm will have. Your firm should review
student rsums for qualities such as academic
excellence and leadership experience. Candidates’
personal values are key considerations. You want
someone with a strong work ethic, dependability,
comfort with asking questions and the ability to
get along well with others. Scott E. Grosser, CPA,
a sole owner, Fort Thomas, Kentucky, looks
particularly for the last attribute and says,
“Accounting is a relationship business, not a
numbers business.” Your firm’s focus in
turn helps students clarify what they want from
the internship experience. For example, a freshman
or sophomore may wish to explore career options
while a graduate student may be looking for a
relationship with a potential employer. Billie Jo
Wawrzynski, CPA, came to work for a South Bend,
Indiana, sole owner when she was still in school.
“I wanted to make sure I actually liked working in
accounting before I finished my degree. I found it
was exactly what I wanted,” she says.
TO ADMINISTER THE PROGRAM
Once you’ve considered what your
firm can offer an intern as well as how to benefit
from hiring one, to successfully manage the
internship program, you must
Allow lead time. Don’t
decide on a frantic March afternoon that you need
an intern for tax season. Be aware of the
university’s start and end dates. Firms looking
for future long-term relationships begin early to
match student scheduling with firm needs. “We
start at least nine months before we need an
intern,” says Michel. Small firms that recruit for
a targeted project only, such as a single tax
season, may need less time. Grosser begins his
search in October for an internship that will
start in late January.
Market your firm. Most
students come to your firm for a “meaty”
experience, and savvy ones view the internship as
a career stepping stone. Accordingly, the firm
should put as much effort into recruiting interns
as it would into finding regular employees. “Be
selective,” says David J. Clarkson, CPA,
vice-president of human resources at 35-partner
Boston-based Vitale, Caturano & Co., PC. “The
goal should be to make full-time offers during the
last week of the internship to all your interns.”
Show your firm’s wares by establishing a
relationship with a university. You might offer
classroom guest-speaker engagements, sponsor
accounting-related social events, donate to a
scholarship fund or set up a table at a career
fair. (For more information on how to help
educators, see “
Professional Practice Accounting ”) Of
course you want your interns to brag about the
firm to other students and faculty when they
return to school. Your current intern likely knows
other good accounting students, and word of a
great experience (or a poor one) gets around
campus pretty quickly and will influence others’
interest in working for your firm.
Have realistic expectations.
Interns’ skill levels vary, but
don’t expect even the most talented accounting
student to fill a key position in the firm.
Interns are at your firm to learn new things
rather than to perform tasks they already know.
Give them interesting projects that develop
skills. Resist the temptation to give an intern
more of whatever work he or she is good at. (Take
a lesson from professions such as medicine, for
example, where the internship usually is designed
to put the student through all aspects of the
work.) Keep menial and clerical tasks to a
minimum, too. “I would not ask an intern to change
a light bulb, even though I’d do it myself,” says
Michel. To learn more about the
competencies all students entering the profession
need, see the AICPA Core Competency Framework for
Entry Into the Accounting Profession at
www.aicpa.org/edu/corecomp.htm .
Set ground rules. Clear
instructions about the firm’s procedures and its
mission help interns become independent workers
more quickly. Students are accustomed to
professors setting standards about what is
acceptable and unacceptable at the beginning of
each semester, so establish ground rules early for
requesting time off due to illness or pending
tests and papers. Be sure interns understand that
skipping work is not like cutting class, dress
codes are important and deadlines are those of the
firm (not the student), where missing one can lose
a client.
Be flexible about work schedules.
If interns enroll in courses that
take place during some of your operating hours,
allow them to create a manageable schedule that
balances their needs with your firm’s. Some firms
insist on 30-hour workweeks during the tax season,
but “we try to accommodate students’ initial
scheduling needs,” says Michel. “Once the schedule
is set, we expect them to comply with it.”
Sometimes absences are unavoidable. Encourage
students to prearrange any anticipated absences;
it helps them learn to plan.
Provide a mentor. Interns
need to have a primary mentor, a person fully
committed to the assignment. Most partners don’t
see themselves in the role of educator, but
mentoring is a proven way to transfer experience.
Interns who get mentoring are more successful than
those who are left to fend for themselves, sources
say. Mentors must be nonthreatening and accessible
so students feel free to talk with them. The
connection gives the intern an immediate sense of
making a contribution to the firm.
Students may need impartial help addressing
problems with their managers, so mentors should
not be interns’ immediate supervisors. Mentors’
responsibilities include discussing general
workplace issues such as appropriate dress and
grooming. A good starting point for mentors is to
tell the beginning intern about their own
experience and the things they wish they had known
when they were starting out on the job. (For more
information see “
Practitioners as Mentors, ” JofA ,
Jun.03, page 39.)
Provide performance-based feedback.
Even though interns receive academic
credit for the work they do at your firm, the
“real-world” experience you offer them should
include a fair stipend, performance feedback and
inclusion in the office culture. Students are used
to getting regular evaluations from professors and
will expect it on the job. Give interns oral or
written comments after each major task and after
they prepare tax returns. Let them know what they
do well in addition to what they can do better. If
you can’t provide feedback on a regular weekly or
biweekly basis, give a date when you will. When
providing periodic, substantive feedback, schedule
it to include both the student and the faculty
liaison if possible. Let interns know that
outstanding work might result in a salary
adjustment or higher-level assignments. Some firms
adjust salary halfway through the internship based
on student performance. What you pay
influences—but doesn’t guarantee—the quality of
the students you land.
RESOURCES
To assist colleges and
universities in designing, implementing
and administering meaningful internship
programs and other forms of experiential
learning, the AICPA offers Web-based
guidelines at
www.aicpa.org/members/div/career/edu/internships.htm
. The purpose of the programs is to
help students
Make more informed career
choices.
Apply knowledge they have
been exposed to in the classroom.
Develop skills that are
difficult to introduce in a classroom
setting.
Secure permanent
employment.
Contribute effectively to
the organizations they join after they
graduate. The guidelines provide
examples of programs—including class
projects, consulting projects, job
shadowing/externships and service
learning (see “
Glossary ”)—syllabi and
information and documents for
institutions of varying sizes and
geographical location. They link to the
AICPA Core Competency Framework of
skills, a range of personal and
functional competencies that firms
likely will want the internship
experience to impart, and to a Web-based
evaluation tool—the Educational
Competency Assessment (ECA)
Site—designed to help educators.
Publication
Management of an Accounting Practice
Handbook, loose-leaf version (#
090407JA); e-MAP, online version (#
MAP-XXJA). For more information
about this resource or to make a
purchase, go to
www.cpa2biz.com or call the
Institute at 888-777-7077.
Web site For more
information on how to help aspiring CPAs
learn more about the accounting
profession and the career opportunities
available, go to the AICPA Web site
www.startheregoplaces.com .
|
Don’t leave out the basics.
What’s standard to you may be quite
educational to the internship student. Expose
interns to varied work contexts, from
administration to boardroom meetings. Invite them
to seminars within the firm, networking functions
and away-from-the-office activities. “Assign
interns directly to client projects as often as
possible, preferably out of the office so they see
what client service is really like. This is what
you want to market back on campus, rather than
indoor, administrative roles,” says Clarkson.
Varied environments promote a wide range of
learning, including people skills, networking,
presentation styles and acceptable professional
behavior. If possible, include students in
management meetings for work planning and other
types of decision making.
Keep them busy. Many firms
believe tax season is the only time they can keep
interns employed. Since many top students are
available only during the summer, keep an
inventory of client special projects for them to
work on. “Summer interns can become your best
recruiting allies,” says Clarkson.
Let them mix. Offer
interns a chance to mingle with other accounting
professionals as often as practical. One large
firm periodically invites interns to participate
in boardroom discussions, and a partner at another
firm says interns who mix in the field are able to
question audit clients without being perceived as
threatening. Small firms can invite interns to
staff luncheons and networking opportunities in
the area to improve their self-confidence. Plan a
social event, such as taking the interns out to
dinner, every four weeks to give them a chance to
meet and exchange stories.
Glossary
When you approach a college to
discuss an internship or to offer to
guest lecture, these are useful terms to
know.
Class project: A
required course assignment in which
students work with an outside
organization to solve a particular
problem or attain a certain goal.
Consulting project:
An assignment typically
equivalent in credit to a regularly
scheduled class, in which students work
with an outside entity to solve a
particular problem or attain a certain
goal. It is longer in duration than a
class project, requires more
deliverables, may be completed in any
geographic location and is done in lieu
of a class or in conjunction with a
limited number of class meetings.
Internship:
Experience in actual work
situations that allows students the
opportunity to translate academic
theories and principles into action, to
test out career interests and to develop
skills and abilities.
Job shadowing/externship:
An informal process,
usually of short duration, in which
students observe the daily routines and
activities of employed professionals in
students’ field of study. It allows
students to see, on a limited basis, how
skills and knowledge acquired in the
classroom are applied in the real world.
Service learning:
With this, students work
with institutions that serve actual
community needs. Service learning can be
part of course requirements or separate
from them. The primary goal of service
learning is the educational value of the
project. Source:
www.aicpa.org/members/div/career/edu/internships.htm
.
|
Say a proper good-bye.
Never forgo an exit interview.
Whether or not you intend to make a permanent
offer to the student at the end of his or her
internship, use the exit interview to provide
overall performance feedback. Some firms conduct
an exit interview with the faculty coordinator as
well, which apprises the school about academic
areas the student may need to work on.
Exit interview styles differ. Large firms may
conduct a relatively formal interview centered on
written performance appraisals. Small firms may
emphasize the intern’s positive attributes in the
written evaluation but discuss more sensitive
areas orally. Take this time to obtain students’
insights about your internship program—sometimes
their observations about your firm’s operations
may be useful to you. There should be no real
performance surprises at the good-bye point, since
interns learned where they stood from regular
feedback as they went along. If the intern is a
“keeper,” now is the time to make an offer. If
not, you may want to offer a letter of reference.
Take interns full-time only once.
Offer local interns part-time work
when they return to school, but the following
season take a brand-new group for the full-time
slots. It is very difficult to give someone a
great experience twice. It’s much better to
recruit new interns who don’t know your firm at
all.
Back on campus, make interns your
emissaries. Ask interns to speak
to groups of students when you visit campus for
recruiting activities. Include them in
presentations, as greeters on interview days and
assistants to the recruiters, for example. Send
them e-mail updates when they return to campus.
“That way they stay in touch informally,” says
Clarkson. If you have the resources, consider
allowing them to return to school with a
firm-furnished laptop, PDA or other piece of
technology with the firm logo on it. It can be a
great “billboard” for the firm. |
PRACTICAL TIPS TO
REMEMBER
| |
Ascertain your
firm’s resources for offering
an internship. It will require
time and staff to train and
mentor, sufficient workspace
and a budget.
Know your needs:
What projects does the firm
intend to assign the intern?
What skills do the tasks
require?
Establish a
relationship with a
university. Offer classroom
guest-speaker engagements so
students can learn about your
firm.
Start the hiring
process early, keeping in mind
university semester start and
end dates.
Make appropriate
pay and performance feedback
part of how your firm offers
“real-world” experience.
Have realistic
expectations: The intern is
participating in the program
to learn new things rather
than perform tasks he or she
already knows. |
Students may need
help addressing problems with
their managers. Therefore an
intern’s mentor should not be
his or her supervisor.
Include interns
in meetings to broaden their
work experience.
Accommodate time
off for classes and exams but
make the intern accountable
for conforming to a schedule.
Provide
systematic feedback. The most
successful interns need to
hear about what they do
correctly as well as what they
need to improve.
Perform an exit
interview to discuss the
internship experience. It’s
also a good time to make a job
offer if you have continued
interest.
| |
ANY WAY YOU SLICE IT
Participating in an internship program not
only will yield financial and resource allocation
benefits for your accounting firm, but it also
will strengthen your alliances in the community
and with the local university. For the college, it
provides feedback for making the curriculum
relevant to workplace demands, and the skills and
experiences internship students bring back to the
classroom are an exciting bridge between theory
and practice. For students, a well-managed
CPA internship program can help close the learning
gap between school and work and educate them about
what it takes to succeed in the profession, which
is a powerful inducement for continuing on a CPA
career path. The skills, knowledge and motivation
that internship students glean from their
experience will influence their performance in
subsequent business courses—and in life. For the
firm, participating in an internship partnership
gives it an edge in hiring the best and brightest
while it brings in an extra employee at a modest
salary. Schools provide concepts, tools
and methodologies for solving problems and
developing thinking skills, but actual work
provides context. Often the first part of an
engagement is to figure out what the job really is
about—and only experience gives professionals the
tools to do that. Any way you slice it, helping
young people learn how to function in the business
world and become independent CPAs is an investment
worth your time and effort. |
Professional
Practice Accounting
O n-campus recruiting is one good way
to meet interested candidates, but it may take place
too late to influence a student’s ultimate career
choice—and it’s impossible to give an in-depth view
of public accounting in a one-hour talk. That’s why
ongoing participation in the classroom can be so
helpful to both CPAs and students. At Youngstown
State University in Ohio, our accounting department
asked several large public accounting firms in the
area to provide students with a chance to learn
directly from practitioners and to clear up any
misconceptions they had had about the profession.
Accordingly, faculty and participating firms
devote a certain number of hours to topics not
covered in the business curriculum. Practitioners
present the nontechnical aspects of practice, such
as relationship building and servicing client
needs, and describe ancillary niche services, such
as IT and financial planning, to show the field’s
range and give students a closer look at actual
practice. CPAs willing to share their experiences,
both positive and negative, visit classrooms
during our 15-week semester and talk openly and
honestly about the profession and its varied
opportunities. Normally three CPAs (a partner, a
manager and a staff person) come to the classroom
each week to talk to students. We started with one
firm, but three firms now take part and at least
one more is interested. The program is entering
its fifth year. The professional practice
course is not part of the internship program, but
many students who take the course secure an
internship with one of the participating firms.
The firms say being able to observe the students’
performance over the duration of the class makes
it easier for them to make informed personnel
decisions. They have hired a number of the
students into full-time positions. Participant
James Dascenzo, CPA, principal at Hill Barth and
King LLC, says the experience helps “students
learn what will be expected of them to progress
from intern to partner.” A practitioner
willing to help in a university classroom in your
area will need to
Get firm buy-in. To be able
to make the necessary commitment, CPAs will need
partner support. Your firm’s principals should
understand the benefits of offering classroom
instruction, which include
Learning more about both students and
faculty, which can prove very beneficial when the
firm makes full-time hiring or internship
decisions.
Demonstrating support for your local
college or university. Communities take pride in
their universities and value professionals willing
to share their time and effort.
Get buy-in from the department
chairperson at your local college or university.
Chairpeople want to forge better links
between their students and the profession so they
welcome calls from practitioners. Make sure the
school knows your firm is willing to commit
resources to making the relationship successful
and long-standing. Ask the school to commit to the
project so funding or space doesn’t evaporate
mid-semester.
Have a game plan in mind. To
be effective in the classroom, you need to know
what message you want to convey to students and
how to get it across effectively. Line up other
practitioners to complement your presentation if
you think someone else can better present one
facet.
Ask for help if you’re not sure
how to structure your classroom presentations.
Faculty deal with students on a day-to-day
basis and can help you tailor your message for
maximum impact. They will let you know how much
class time you will need to cover your material
and can help you design case projects to enhance
it.
Answer student questions openly
and honestly. Students cannot make informed
career decisions without knowing both the good and
bad points of the profession. Let students know
what tax season means in terms of the workload as
well as why clients view their accountants as
their number-one trusted adviser.
Look for feedback from students.
Student feedback is important. Alter your
message or approach in future classes if they give
you suggestions.
Have fun with the students.
You are volunteering your time to the
classroom because you want to share your
enthusiasm for the profession. Let that side of
you come across. Talk about what you find
meaningful in your work. Express yourself
naturally.
—Peter Woodlock, Department of
Accounting/Finance Youngstown State
University Youngstown, Ohio |