Are you doing tax or audit for the smaller CPA firm 4 months internship?If it's tax, it's more likely that you'll work on more individual tax than corporate tax stuff. Tax is pretty specific after 2 to 3 years experience. You either specialize in close-held entities w/ individual and partnership tax concentration, or you go after the corporate world. You should probably ask the CPA firm's client demographics. If you want to move to big 4 later, you'll need at least 1.5-2 years at local CPA firm, and they might not even give you a senior title. What's your position offered at the industry full time job?
tictaclf ,thank you so much for your response. The position for the full time is corporate accountant.The responsibilities include A/R,A/P,Payroll, etc. I believe this is a good transition. It allows me to finish CPA at the same time gain full time experience. The CPA firm's client demographics is mainly individual and partnership.It's good that I can also learn some auditing as well as taxation during the internship. I like auditing better than taxation. What I am also not sure is how much the 4 months internship will add value to my resume. Training of Big 4 attracts me a lot, while I don't really care which position/title I start with in Big 4. Do you suggest me to apply Big 4 after working 9 months or 1 year as full time. Thanks again.
The first 4 months of the year is heavy duty tax season if the CPA firm's client demographics is mainly individual and partnership, I kind of doubt that you'll be able to work on audit projects at all during this time. They must have told you which group your internship is in already. Smaller firms tend to switch staff between tax season and audit season, so you'll work on tax projects during tax season and audit project during audit season given that you get the full time offer later. That way the firm can totally utilize your hours. To be honest, 4 months internship doesn't add much value to your resume if you want to apply for big 4 at this point. They'll only consider you as an experienced hiring candidate w/ 1+ year experience, otherwise, you have no way even getting into the door having bypassed the 1st year campus recruiting. Audit experience in public accounting is usually a fast track in career later on if you switch to industry. The routine A/R, A/P and payroll work in industry accounting is probably boring at the beginning, and the chance of being promoted is slim. It takes a really long time to climb up the career ladder from this route. But bottom line, it's secured full-time job and the hours are more reasonable w/ better work and life balance. In comparison, CPA firm might give you a better career starting point as a professional accountant. But you do have the risk if they're not extending you the full-time offer at the end of the 4th month. You just have to weigh our your priorities to determine what is it that you really want and the level of risk you are willing to take to get it.