What’s your study strategy?

Photo by Rotorhead

If you’ve been reading my posts about how much time I spend on each stage of studying, you know that notecards are a big part of my process.

Making notecards while I study for the CPA exam forces me to go over each chapter in close detail. It’s like taking notes, only because it’s in notecard form, I can use them as flashcards to study from later.

If you are short on study time, instead of making your own review cards, you can get some Wiley FocusNotes from Roger CPA Review. These look pretty different from my ntoecards, but are probably a more effective way to narrow down the important information. My notecards don’t really distinguish between topics that will be a big part of the exam and topics that will maybe show up in one question.

Has anyone used these to study from that can tell us a little more about them? I only have 2 weeks before REG, but I might order some to help me study for AUD and BEC.

I had my first office visit of the season with a firm this past week. It’s exciting to be moving past the interviews to the next step. I have a couple more office visits scheduled in the coming weeks, and I have some more interviews on my plate this week.

Office visits are a chance for the student to interview the firm, essentially, but also to spend more time with the firm to prove that they can act professionally. The student gets the chance to see the offices, meet more people, and hear some presentations about the firm. However, they can’t just sit there and relax – the job seeker’s role is to ask questions. Lots of them.

At the end of an “interview” with a manager, senior manager, or partner, you want to be prepared when they ask you “so what questions can I answer for you about our firm?”

So what questions can you ask your interviewer at an accounting office visit?

A couple that I like to ask are:

1. Why did you choose to work here? or What do you like most about working here?

2. Can you tell me what the culture is like at the firm? (Although often, that’s their answer to question 1!)

3. Where do you see the firm going in the next 5 to 10 years? (They’ll ask you where you see yourself in 5 to 10 years, so here’s your chance to ask the question right back!)

Does anyone have some good suggestions for good questions to ask interviewers at office visits?

Actually, I think that the recession is technically over, but I’m not sure that the job market knows that yet!

I’ve had a few interviews and invitations to office visits, but none of that tells us students how many entry-level positions the accounting firms have open. This situation is probably good for the smaller accounting firms, which had some trouble competing for recruits with Big4 in the past. However, with some of the Big 4 offering 0 jobs, the regional firms have a chance to be selective.

However, one of the smaller firms I attended several social events with and interviewed with seems to not have invited anyone to office visits. Essentially, they decided they weren’t really going to hire any new audit staff. That’s a little terrifying for us!

We’re supposed to be picking the firm that we fit in best at, but I wonder how many students this year will just accept the first offer they get.

Well, what with interviews and exams last week, CPA studying fell to the bottom of my to-do list. I managed not to drop too much, but I have been studying for 2 months now, and I have exactly one month to go, but I am only halfway through the Roger CPA Review course material.

I think the first half of the material is technically more than half the content of the Regulation section of the CPA exam though, so I’m not doing too badly.

Also, my audit and tax classes at the moment are covering a lot of the topics I’m studying for REG. I struggled the most on corporations so far, because I haven’t covered them in any class yet. S Corps and Partnerships are fine though, because of tax class!

I thought about adjusting my study strategy and cutting out making notecards, but on the topics I’m not very familiar with, such as corporate taxes and contract law, the extra review helps, and I can use them as a review tool the week before the test.

Updated graph of how many hours I’ve studied for REG per week:

As you can see, my hours have been dropping in the last couple of weeks, rather than increasing substantially like I’d hoped for. At least it didn’t drop to one hour in a whole week like in week 3!

Last week was the first week of on-campus interviews for accounting. So far, I have not had to tackle too many of the dreaded behavioral questions. As long as we stay away from those, interviews feel more like a normal getting-to-know you conversation, rather than a psychological exam.

Many firms also have pre-interview socials as a way to get to meet you in a slightly more relaxed setting before the big day. If you’re really nervous about interviews, making a good impression on the right people at the pre-interview social might be a way to compensate  little bit. However, keep in mind that after your interview, the interviewer takes notes on you, whereas they don’t write anything down at dinner, so you’d have to make a really great impression that will be remembered.

The interviews and social events continue next week. Hopefully they will ultimately result in a job at a great firm!