In a competitive job market accounting students and faculty need to be aware of
exactly what factors influence hiring decisions for entry-level accountants. While
anecdotal evidence suggests that an accounting student's job experience while in
school would be viewed positively by CPA firm recruiters, the empirical research
addressing this issue is limited. Also, it is not known whether different types of
work experiences affect recruiters' decisions differently. This study attempts to
determine the relative importance that CPA firm recruiters place on different
student job experiences.

To address the research question, an experiment was designed to determine the
effect that different types of job experiences have on hiring decisions by CPA firm
recruiters of entry-level accountants. CPA firm recruiters were surveyed to
determine if four levels of student job experience influenced their hiring decisions
for entry-level accountants: non-accounting experience, internship experience
with a CPA firm, industry accounting experience, or no experience of any kind.
Responses were analyzed based on CPA firm size. The results suggest that
recruiters’ decisions are positively affected by internship experience and to a
lessor extent by industry accounting experience. The results were the same
regardless of CPA firm size.