<p>I'm looking for a public account internship in the freaking bay area. I am also looking at finance related summer internships to broaden my options. In such a populated area I'm really starting to get fed up with the fact that I cannot find anything! Here are my stats..</p>
<p>-Acct Major
-Junior
-3.06 GPA
-CSU Chico
-graduating may 2012</p>
<p>Is anyone else having a problem similar to mine? I thought accounting was in demand but it seems when it comes down to finding an entry level job/internship its going to be slim pickings for me seeing as how i am not a 3.3+GPA.</p>
<p>Also, should I just switch over to finance. I am equally if not slightly more interested in FP&A and it’s what I want to get into eventually. I am currently in accounting because I have heard that accounting majors with public accounting experience make good FP&A professionals. So maybe my career would be a whole lot better and have more job opportunities as a finance major?</p>
<p>Also- another thing I forgot to add. I thought there were going to be very few people majoring in accounting but now that I am pursuing the degree I see that this is very false. There are loads of accounting majors at Chico, maybe its because when we were all freshman/sophomores we had our teachers telling us that 90% of accounting majors had jobs lined up before the end of junior year, and in effect everyone options in it. This is so not the case from what I am experiencing.</p>
<p>Yep. The accounting jobs on a silver platter thing was all lies. Sorry you had to find out the hard way. Try to think outside the box. Consider job shadows, informational interviews, workshops, conferences, etc… Be proactive and talk to everyone you meet at those places and express to them what your career goals are. Remember as well that fall and spring internships are available.</p>
<p>Public accounting internships can be hard to get in summer unless you are a top student. Try finding a corporate internship or an unpaid one with a non-profit. Do google searches to see what summer internships people have got in the past. Put the basic url for Linkedin in the “Search within a site or domain” box, in order to limit your search to Linkedin only. Then in the top box put in the terms “San Francisco”, “intern,” and “accounting”. This should return sets of people that have past internships in San Francisco for accounting majors. Hopefully, you will find some companies that had summer accounting interns in the past and you can apply to them for summer 2011. I wouldn’t even bother with public accounting firms at this late date. Only the Big Four and the biggest regionals seem to want summer interns (which they probably selected months ago), as since it is not a busy season, the smaller firms will just be baby sitting you and get nothing out of the deal. The Big four and large regionals don’t mind babysitting summer interns, because they typically want to hire from that pool to resupply their pool of accountants because of expected high turnover. </p>
<p>If you don’t find an internship this summer, you might postpone your graduation to the end of 2012. That will give you a shot at a spring internship-- these are much easier to get than summer ones-- and another internship next summer. Then use fall 2012 oncampus recruiting to look for a full time job. It will be difficult to find a job in May 2012 if you don’t have an internship during undergrad.</p>
<p>Sorry to hear about that, things are not as “rosy” for the accounting industry as heavily advertised online. I am so glad I did not fall into the accounting job hype. So many of them, including CPAs, are out of work and experiencing a hard time getting jobs. If I’m going to be out of work, I’d rather have spent time & money on something I personally enjoy rather than something else that still would’ve kept me unemployed. So many people are flocking to accounting, as well as nursing, it’s only a matter of time before they start mimicking the glut that’s plaguing the legal industry right now.</p>