I recently attended the Beta Alpha Psi Regional Conference in Anaheim, CA, which opened my eyes to the difference between career opportunities in Los Angeles and career opportunities in Honolulu - at least in the accounting field.
Beta Alpha Psi is an honorary accounting organization, and most universities with established accounting programs have a chapter of Beta Alpha Psi represented on their campus. This year, the University of Southern California (USC) Beta Alpha Psi chapter hosted the regional conference, and I volunteered at the event. I met the three representatives of the University of Hawai'i at Manoa (UH) Beta Alpha Psi chapter and learned more about what recruiting is like back home in Honolulu.
The three representatives from UH's Beta Alpha Psi were all seniors, but they were still in the process of recruiting for full-time positions. I heard that some of the main public accounting firms are not even hiring for full-time this year because they do not have positions available. Others are offering around two full-time positions. Learning about the shortage of available positions made me realize how difficult it must be for graduates to find a job back home. Graduates from the UH accounting program are all competing for those few positions, and there are also graduates from mainland colleges applying to work back home.
If only a handful of graduates secure a full-time position with the larger accounting firms in Honolulu, it makes me wonder what everyone else will do after graduation... Perhaps more people back home go into private industry working in the accounting departments of companies. Or maybe proportionately more of them work at small, local accounting firms.
In any case, I am very grateful for the number of job opportunities available in LA. Almost all of my classmates at the USC Leventhal School of Accounting have secured internships for this summer, which will usually turn into full-time offers by the beginning of senior year. With each of the Big 4 (Deloitte, Ernst & Young, KPMG, and PwC) hiring 30+ interns every year, our chances of securing internships and full-time positions are so much greater.
I guess, in this sense, I am glad that I chose to stay up in LA to start my career...
