<p>Do the big 4 accounting firms recruit heavily from UCR?</p>
<p>The answer is probably yes. But a better questions is do they hire from UCR? The school placement office should be able to give you the stats.</p>
<p>As a pretty recent former UCR accounting graduate, I can tell you from experience that the Big 4 recruit very little, if at all from the school. There are former alumni who’ll come by to the accounting club meetings on a handful of occasions, so there are some networking opportunities available, but they’re few and far between. I don’t believe any of the Big 4 actually formally recruit on campus so it’s up to an individual to make connections when opportunities arise. The school literally only sends 5-10 people a year to the Big 4, if that, so if you’re looking for job opportunities post grad, there aren’t huge connections and networks to get your foot in the door. I found in my experience that the school doesn’t really help you out too much to position grads to get into a Big 4, or even a mid-tier accounting firm (not the most reputable school amongst employers despite the growing nature of the program, with resources generally more invested towards USC, UCLA, and SLO). All that being said, if you’re a go-getter, it doesn’t matter what school you go to because those opportunities are available. It’s just that you’ll probably end up doing all the work with very little school resources helping you out at UCR.</p>
<p><a href=“https://ucr-csm.symplicity.com/events/students.php?cf=mtf2012[/url]”>https://ucr-csm.symplicity.com/events/students.php?cf=mtf2012</a></p>
<p>That basically gives you the list of employers who came to the Meet the Firms event this past year, which most schools with accounting programs will run annually. If accounting firms don’t attend the Meet the Firms, they’re not coming to recruit at all. Needless to say, not a very impressive list of employer attendees.</p>
<p>That’s very discouraging to hear, I thought UCR recruited fairly well. If I were to be a part of the Accounting Society or ALPFA would that increase my chances of getting a job? If you don’t mind me asking, were you able to land a job after graduation?</p>
<p>Being active on campus will definitely help. Go after those officer positions at those organizations and it’ll offer you much better networking opportunities. </p>
<p>I’m in audit with one of the Big 4s so I’ve got a little insight now into the challenges UCR faces in getting opportunities. The Big 4 has specific target schools they hit hard (USC, UCLA, SLO in Socal; Berkeley, Santa Clara, San Jose State in Norcal; and then schools like UW and BYU all throughout the West region offices). Those target schools, they’ll send representatives throughout the year because there’s stiff competition between the Big 4 to grab the best those schools offer. The firms hit those schools hard because of their reputation and the success the firms have had with people from those schools. I’m not saying the Big 4, or even the next tier of accounting firms (ie. McGladrey) stay away from UCR because they’ve been burned by students from the school in the past. It’s just that there’s literally only a handful of people who go out to these accounting firms every year so no one knows anything about UCR. The partners and management I’ve talked with don’t even know UCR has a business school so that in itself is a challenge to overcome.</p>
<p>Get started on the networking early. The hardest part as a result of going to a non target school like a UCR is getting your foot in the door but once you do, it just comes down to interviewing well and making a positive impression on the interviewer.</p>