Article Title: The Big 4 Accounting Firms - How to get that perfect job with one of the big ones
Author Byline: The Big 4 Guru wants to help you land the perfect job! Get all the insider information that recruiters don’t want you to know! http://www.big4guru.com
Author Website: http://www.big4guru.com

Industry professionals, recruiters and college professors are unanimous in their belief in one thing: there is no better way to start a career in accounting than experience with a Big 4 public accounting firm. If you are reading this you no doubt are well aware of who these guys are:

PricewaterhouseCoopers, Deloitte and Touché, KPMG and Ernst & Young.

While each of these companies has various strengths and weaknesses, they are all alike in the fact that they provide the recent accounting grad with a world class experience. First year associates at these firms are given a level of responsibility that is truly remarkable. When I was a first year I remember thinking on an almost daily basis “I can’t believe they’re letting me do this.” As I strolled into the CEO’s office of the firm we were auditing, as I tallied up a multi-million dollar mistake I’d found in another company’s books and as I traveled the country with my very own American Express Corporate Card, I kept repeating this thought:

“I can’t believe they’re letting me do this”

Truly the world of accounting is at your fingertips when you are employed with one of the Big 4. There is an air of respect in those names: PwC, E&Y, KPMG and D&T. There is camaraderie and there is pride. These are the truly elite in the accounting field, and the top of the business world.

Starting your professional career at one of these companies is a ticket to a career in the fast lane. The experience you receive at a Big 4 is, literally, priceless. Many beginners at these firms admit that they would be willing to work for nothing: the experience is that valuable. Land a job and you will guarantee yourself the following:

- For the rest of your career your resume will automatically move to the top of the pile - For the rest of your career you will have access to a network of professionals that is staggering in its depth - You will earn an industry busting salary, putting your friends at regional and local firms to shame - Your resume will contain experience that is recognized and respected globally - An opportunity to travel the world

At a speaking engagement in 2004, Martin J. Whitman, billionaire and namesake of the Syracuse University Whitman School of Management, was asked the single best piece of advice he could offer college graduates. His reply? “Begin your career with a Big 4 Public Accounting Firm. Period.”

Of course.

Think this all sounds good? Of course you do. You’re probably thinking to yourself - there must be a catch? Unfortunately, there is. The benefits of working for a Big 4 are widely known and the demand for these positions is higher than ever. These positions are EXTREMELY competitive and often IMPOSSIBLE to obtain without an edge. A great GPA and resume are no longer enough.

If you are serious about your career and want to maximize your earnings potential, you need an edge. How do you land an interview with a Big 4 when there are thousands of others just like you? Once you get the interview, how will you be prepared for the barrage of questioning you will face?

When I graduated from college I had one interview and one interview only: I landed a job with PricewaterhouseCoopers on the first shot. How did I do it? Good grades? Charming personality? Incredible experience? No! I had an insider at PwC who knew the ropes and coached me through the process, from the application to the signing bonus! When I learned these secrets I just watched as my peers struggled and I jumped easily through all the hoops. Unfair? Sure, but life in a world class industry is not fair. While working at PwC I also experienced the recruiting process from the side of the recruiter. For more information please visit http://www.big4guru.com

Article courtesy of the Recruiting Blogswap, a content exchange service sponsored by CollegeRecruiter.com, a leading site for college students looking for internships and recent graduates searching for entry level jobs and other career opportunities.

INTERVIEW on DEMAND - removing the barriers between TOP CANDIDATES and the COMPANIES that seek them.
Hiring managers - make faster, better hires while reducing costs.
Recruiters - make more placements with more companies, faster.

Yesterday, Dan Schawbel released the free sample pre-edition of his magazine, Personal Branding Magazine. The full issue, which is a paid subscription, is scheduled for publication on May 1.

You can get the free sample or sign up for the paid edition of the magazine by visiting his website www.PersonalBrandingMag.com. We are happy to be of sponsor of Dan’s and highly recommend that our readers take an opportunity to at least check out the sample.

Dan is a subject matter expert on personal branding and writes an engaging blog [called Personal Branding Blog, what else ] and is the first ever Social Media Specialist at EMC Corporation. This latest issue brings together 25 articles from leaders in the recruiting world. Get the sample here.

INTERVIEW on DEMAND - removing the barriers between TOP CANDIDATES and the COMPANIES that seek them.
Hiring managers - make faster, better hires while reducing costs.
Recruiters - make more placements with more companies, faster.

by Dan Schawbel, Personal Branding Expert

The concept of personal branding is revolutionary and has changed our perception of those around us.  People, instead of products or corporations are now being regarded as brands, sharing similar characteristics.  Both personal and corporate brands have values, identities, personalities, an image and equity.  Today, this concept has been adopted by both recruiters and applicants alike, all for the common goal of capturing the best-fit match.  The competition in both the job and college marketplace has never been more severe.  In order to alleviate this fear and threat, students and professionals have turned to Personal branding.  According to a recent survey from Korn Ferry, personal branding accounted for over 11% of getting an executive recruiters attention.  

Personal branding describes the process by which individuals and entrepreneurs differentiate themselves and stand out from a crowd by identifying and articulating their unique value proposition, whether professional or personal, and then leveraging it across platforms with a consistent message and image to achieve a specific goal. In this way, individuals can enhance their recognition as experts in their field, establish reputation and credibility, advance their careers, and build self-confidence.

The audience in this equation is recruiters, other professionals or members of your network.  In order to brand yourself, you must have some form of differentiation, so that your audience can separate you from other applicants vying for the same position.

Your personal brand consists of three elements:

• Value Proposition: What do you stand for?
• Differentiation: What makes you stand out?
• Marketability: What makes you compelling?

Online personal branding (eBranding) focus areas:

YourName.com:  Your own domain should be your first focus area because it is a collection or central location of all your work and your branding materials.  After purchasing your domain and adding pages, such as your resume and portfolio, you need to communicate the site with your audience by using marketing tactics such as word-of-mouth.  Other tactics you may use is viral marketing through direct contact with others through email and phone mediums and by submitting your domain to search engines like Google.  If you already have a blog or another website, be sure to advertise your brand domain name on it.  Connecting with people in your network is also a smart strategy to drive traffic to a newly created brand domain.

Avatars:  These small graphical elements should be a professional picture of you.  Avatars are used in a variety of different ways on the internet, but are especially concentrated in social networks, such as Facebook, Twitter, Second Life and many blog networks. Your Avatar should display your professional photo.  Corporations use Avatars to illustrate their logo’s as a form of advertising. Whether you are posting in a blog or sending an email, you want your Personal Brand to represent your true appearance. Avatars have recently been deemed the standard in portrait displays for all of web 2.0 on the internet.  After developing one, it can be leverage in almost all social media websites, which is why it’s important that you make one immediately before investing in other parts of your brand.

Social Networks:  Today, most of the population is registered in at least one social networking website, whether it is MySpace, Facebook or others.  Issues do arise from messages that are posted that have a negative impact on Personal Brands.  If you join one of these networks, be sure that you set your privacy controls, use professional pictures and moderate comments and messages.  Recruiters view these websites and may turn you away after finding out certain information. 

Blogs:  A content distribution system, that not only creates a community of people that share similar interests, but acts as its own subscription service, where your words are syndicated through emails or other websites through RSS.  Blogging is one of the most remarkable Personal branding channels because the content is personable and direct.  When starting a blog, you may register with a host such as Google Blogger or Wordpress.  The idea with blogs and your brand is to stand out through taking a niche topic and blogging about it on an ongoing basis.  Blogs consist of posts that are either written or in a video format, where you can express your interest and expertise in a given topic.  Typically, you should avoid any ideas or visuals that would give your brand a bad reputation.  Photos and video’s should be used to re-emphasize your points, as well as links to other blogs that directly connect with your topic.  Be sure to comment on other blogs, as that creates a network, where you will get more visitors and more people writing on your topic.

Podcasts:  Video content is especially useful for your brand if you have a vivacious personality in front of the camera.  In the future, resumes may be formatted into multimedia, where individuals will have to pitch their core message in 30 seconds and forward it to a recruiter.  Podcasting is useful because it highlights your overall brand, in the form of dynamic content.

Forums:  Discussion forums give you the ability to learn from others, display your brand through an avatar and for self-promotion purposes.  By participating in forums, especially ones involving recruitment, you are able to connect with others who share your interests or recruiters that may have open positions.

LinkedIn:  A networking website that allows you to connect with previous coworkers, schoolmates or new acquaintances.  Your resume should be visible, including recommendations and a core message summary.  Your network is your most powerful tool to excel in your career, so make sure that as you meet new people you connect with them through this site. [Editor’s note: Dave Mendoza of Six Degrees from Dave and Paul DeBettignies at RecruitingBlogs.com are very active LinkedIn linkers and experts.  Check them out.]

INTERVIEW on DEMAND - removing the barriers between TOP CANDIDATES and the COMPANIES that seek them.
Hiring managers - make faster, better hires while reducing costs.
Recruiters - make more placements with more companies, faster.

I hope you all read our recent post Interview On Demand is TiVo for hiring.  (We love TiVo.)  In an interesting coincidence, I ran across some news recently:  As cool as TiVo is, it has trouble attracting, identifying and hiring top candidates.  I can’t believe it, but OK.  In an effort to improve their stats, TiVo has signed up to be a tester for the beta version of LinkedIn Recruiter–in a nutshell, this setup has upgraded search features, allows recruiters to group candidates in folders and tag them with comments and offers teams the ability to collectively keep track of candidates to avoid repeating contacts (and annoying the daylights out of passive candidates).  Every little bit helps, right?  The whole concept’s getting some nice attention…(see what TechCrunch and Cheezhead have to say.)

Of course, at Interview On Demand we know the value of keeping track of candidates online and allowing teams to work together in the interest of acquiring the best talent.  We’d also like to put our two cents in: going after passive candidates becomes a little easier and more acceptable to them if their first interview can be done online at their convenience and at their own location.  It’s much less intrusive to them, and having a first interview recorded for teams at the hiring company to see makes multiple contacts much less necessary until there’s something serious going on.  Hiring top candidates can be a tricky business, but Interview On Demand is here to help!

Are you listening, TiVo?

INTERVIEW on DEMAND - removing the barriers between TOP CANDIDATES and the COMPANIES that seek them.
Hiring managers - make faster, better hires while reducing costs.
Recruiters - make more placements with more companies, faster.

Many thanks to Miriam Salpeter for her guest blog….

Would you set your own broken bone?  Wire your own home for electricity?  Do you cut your own hair?  Most would say “no.”  If it is important (involving our health, safety or appearance), we hire an expert.

The same standard should apply when job seeking. Your career is one of your most crucial financial investments. Whether you are actively engaged in a search, underemployed or unhappily employed, it makes sense to consult an expert as you embark on your search for a new job.

Most people don’t welcome the idea of a job hunt.  It is hard work and may seem scary.  Wouldn’t it be nice to have an experienced ally who will help you every step of the way?  Keppie Careers’ mission is to advise, encourage and enlighten job seekers and provide a toolbox of practical tips and support. When we work together, you will overcome obstacles keeping you from making positive changes in your life. We offer confidence, clarity and know-how!

Career coaches add value on a number of fronts. Keppie Careers can help you with any of the following:

Goals assessment.   Are you at a transitional point in your career?  You aren’t sure what your next step should be?  A coach will help you identify what you want next and get you on the right path to achieving your goals.

Critique and rewrite your resume and letters.  Do you really want to face the job market with documents that are not optimized?  Often, job seekers don’t view their resumes objectively.  Misplaced modesty prevents them from incorporating their very best accomplishments.  Ignorance of a resume’s purpose (it’s a sales document, not a laundry list of things you did) precludes them from producing a top-notch result. 

Many job seekers don’t stop to consider how much money a less-than-optimal resume costs them.  If you are unemployed, how much money do you lose for every day that you are out of work?  If your resume isn’t top-notch, you may not appear qualified for the salary that you seek or deserve.  A professionally written resume will help shorten your job search and may qualify you for a higher salary.  Your return on investment in yourself can pay off substantially!

Learn how to sell yourself.  You must identify and be able to effectively describe your skills and accomplishments.  Specialized coaches not only write your resume, but help you recognize your marketable skills.  Once you know what you have to offer, your ability to sell yourself via networking and in interviews increases exponentially!

General job search skills.  Do you know how to look for a job?  How savvy is your networking plan?  Do you know where hiring managers are sourcing candidates?  Do you know how to avoid common pitfalls?  Keppie Careers does!

Interview preparation. Tell us about yourself?  What’s your weakness?  What do you have to offer?  Why should we hire you?  Do you know the answers to these and other important interview questions?  More importantly, do you know how to structure and deliver your answers to ensure optimal results?  If not, you may be wasting your time.  We all know that “time is money.”

Negotiating.  Entering an interview or negotiation unprepared will cost you.  A coach can help you prepare so you don’t lose money.

Career market knowledge.  We spend our time keeping up with the market.  We learn about new technology and approaches and stay plugged in because you don’t have the time, expertise or desire to do it.  Helping people along their career path is our passion. 

Do you want to achieve your career goals and save money?  Hire an ally for your job hunt.  An ally tells it like it is and helps you get where you need to be.  Are you committed to discovering what you have to offer an employer? If you are motivated to make a change, Keppie Careers is here for you!

Visit us online for free advice and information about our services:
 www.keppiecareers.com.  Our blog is updated almost daily: www.keppiecareers.wordpress.com.  Feel free to email us:  results@keppiecareers.com.

INTERVIEW on DEMAND - removing the barriers between TOP CANDIDATES and the COMPANIES that seek them.
Hiring managers - make faster, better hires while reducing costs.
Recruiters - make more placements with more companies, faster.

While I was wandering around the web looking for material that would benefit our readers, I came across a few articles discussing virtual interviews through something called Second Life.  Assuming it would be something very similar to video interviewing, I started through this stuff and discovered that Second Life is a 3-D virtual world where you can create an avatar (a virtual self) and have a “second life.”  So then, this virtual self can participate in a real-life job interview.  There are articles on tips for how to conduct yourself during a virtual interview and some comments on how this is a huge technological leap for businesses. 

My question is this:  Are you telling me that a serious, grown-up business is going to conduct interviews and hire its people through a video game????  You can’t be serious. 

The best argument I’ve seen so far for virtual interviews is that they enable employers to reach more potential employees and save on travel costs that typically come with regular interviews.  That’s an argument that also applies to the much better option of video interviews.  Using Interview On Demand, employers can see the actual candidate answer questions instead of a virtual being that could conceal a candidate’s true qualities.  And if you’re a great candidate, why wouldn’t you want to put your best self forward in the first place?

There’s one article on virtual interviews called “No Need to Show Up for this Job Interview.”  No kidding.  I think that about says it all.

INTERVIEW on DEMAND - removing the barriers between TOP CANDIDATES and the COMPANIES that seek them.
Hiring managers - make faster, better hires while reducing costs.
Recruiters - make more placements with more companies, faster.

A customer hires quite a lot of employees every month (~ 20 per month). The in-house recruiter sorts through the resumes —-narrows down to 100 candidates that seem relevant to the positions. Then calls all 100 candidates on the phone. Not all answer the call or even return the call. But he spends approximately 50 hours per month talking with candidates on the phone (screening down to a final number that he sees in person). Because he hires for a facility, he is setting up a interview room off of the front entrance.

Now instead of calling those 100 candidates (and spending an average of 30 minutes on the phone with those that he actually engages), he is going to invite them to take a video job interview at his site. All he needs is a computer, with a webcam and high speed internet. Done! So now instead of spending time on the phone he can actually “see and hear” his candidates answer his interview questions! This means that the candidates that he is able to screen down to invite for an actual face to face are even more qualified than before and he saved countless hours talking with candidates that weren’t qualified. Oh - and because they have to come to the facility to take the video interview, they are much more interested in his position (or they would not have made the trip,)

He can, also, have an intro video that brands his company and the position for them to view! Key attributes of the Video Job Interview that will really provide value to his organization:

1. Completely standardized questions.
2. He can share the interviews with the hiring managers - they can help decide what candidates make the cut. This means that the hiring manager has greater buy in on the final candidates (and we all know that this is important).
3. The time and energy that he saves can be utilized to find new ways to recruit….(maybe he can start recruiting in another geography (using the Video Job Interview). He can see candidates that are interested in his position (will relocate themselves to his city) using TiVo for hiring!
4. Like he said, now he can pursue on-campus recruiting without being on campus!

If you are interested is finding out how Interview on Demand can help you save time, money, and make better quality hires, please give me a call at (800) 881-4557.

-Author Peggy McKee, VP Sales & Marketing at Interview on Demand, LLC. Interview on Demand is a leading provider of video job interviews and career video products that serve recruiters, employers, and jobseekers in the hiring process.

INTERVIEW on DEMAND - removing the barriers between TOP CANDIDATES and the COMPANIES that seek them.
Hiring managers - make faster, better hires while reducing costs.
Recruiters - make more placements with more companies, faster.

Many companies have a problem attracting top candidates–they have the perception that “all the good ones are taken.”   It is true that the people who are REALLY good in their field generally won’t be actively searching for a job.  They have one, thank you, and since their companies are very interested in keeping them, candidates are generally happy and not looking.  That’s not to say that they wouldn’t be interested if something great were presented to them, though.  But, how do you get their attention, and how do you get them to agree to an interview?  Traditional interview processes are time-consuming, can be difficult to arrange, and normally eat into regular work day time. 

There’s one article by Dr. John Sullivan that advocates paying candidates for interviews as a solution.  We have our reservations about that, but Dr. Sullivan does have some advice we love for companies looking to expand the number and quality of candidates they have to choose from: 

1.  Conduct online interviews.  Online interviews are much easier for candidates to complete, and it reduces travel costs for the hiring company.  Wipro, and other companies in India, have been using video interviews and saving millions of dollars in travel costs.

2.  Hold the interview close to where they live and work.  Can’t get much closer than their personal computer equipped with a webcam. 

3.  Interview at night or on weekends.  Video interviews can be completed at any time that fits into the candidate’s schedule, without having to fit into a hiring manager’s schedule.

Companies can make the whole hiring process more candidate-friendly by using Interview On Demand to conduct intial interviews that work with any candidate’s schedule, no matter where the candidate lives.  Even if the candidate isn’t actively looking, a video interview can cost them less than 15 minutes of their time.  Not many people would pass on something that effortless for the possibility of a great opportunity.

INTERVIEW on DEMAND - removing the barriers between TOP CANDIDATES and the COMPANIES that seek them.
Hiring managers - make faster, better hires while reducing costs.
Recruiters - make more placements with more companies, faster.

Well guys I posted a couple of days ago on RDC about a drawing we were holding at Interview on Demand, where the first 50 recruiters that signed up and purchased a video interview would be entered automatically for a free iPod Touch.

Good News! You still have time! There are a limited number of spots remaining (it has been only 2 business days after all) for recruiters to be among the first fifty to register. Click the button to register

The drawing is only part of the story. The reason we are having the drawing in the first place is to announce the launch of our second major program revision and the … tada …

ADDITION of a fantastic new tool for recruiters -Video Career Profiles.

Take a look at Interview on Demand website and check out the demo of the video career profile. It is a great tool that you can use to proactively market your candidates - providing your hiring managers with a one page view that includes:

• Candidate resume
• Downloadable supporting career documents
• Career Summary [where you can list your feature benefit statements for the candidate]
• Video interview, that we call the video ‘Intro-View’

Corporate recruiters are welcome to register as well, we have a great tool for you - video interviews. Corporate recruiters can create as many job-specific interviews as they like which are store them online. Then invite candidates to take these online video interviews which are recorded via webcam and stored on our system. The answered interviews are available for playback the hiring team anytime over a secure connection on the Internet, using a simple browser. Video interviews can help tremendously in a multitude of areas - shortening the hiring process, reducing costs, and increasing the quality of hires.  One way to make sure that you increase the quality of your recruitment program is to make sure you don’t hire the WRONG person.

Interview on Demand is like TiVo for Hiring only better… with TiVo you can time shift your watching but you have to be in front of your own TV to see your program, with Interview on Demand video interviews you can watch them when you want, but also WHERE you want - Starbucks before work, at home before dinner, on the train during the commute home, even on a cross country flight. All you need is an Internet connection.

Check out Interview on Demand and sign up for a free trial, today!

 

INTERVIEW on DEMAND - removing the barriers between TOP CANDIDATES and the COMPANIES that seek them.
Hiring managers - make faster, better hires while reducing costs.
Recruiters - make more placements with more companies, faster.

Hiring mistakes can cost your company a lot of money.  And let’s face it, they don’t make you look so great, either.  Great Leadership’s article, The 10 Most Serious Hiring Mistakes and How to Fix Them, by Brad Smart,  offers some great suggestions for avoiding them, but we’d like to add to his advice.  The good news is that some of the most serious hiring mistakes can be avoided by utilizing video interviews!

For instance:

Hiring Mistake:  Wasting Time on Unnecessary Phone Screens.  Phone screens are difficult to arrange and can waste a lot of time playing telephone tag.  Smart suggests e-mailing candidates to ask them to fill out a standardized form to give the hiring manager more information.  But, employers can still miss a lot by not speaking with the candidate.  Why not e-mail candidates to invite them to take a video interview?  Even though candidates can answer the interview questions at the best time for them, they still have a deadline to meet, so there’s no tag-playing.  Employers can set up the interview to ask only the questions they’re most interested in, and answers are timed.  Hiring managers can review the answers at their convenience, knowing how long it will take. 

Hiring Mistake:  Solo Interviews.  This seems to be a case of “two heads are better than one.”  Video interviews are stored online, which provides the opportunity for a whole hiring team to review them, if necessary–whenever is convenient for each person.  Everyone can get their two cents in, hopefully saving the company thousands of dollars. 

Video interviewing as part of a comprehensive interview process can help your company avoid costly hiring mistakes.  Interview On Demand knows what it takes for businesses to hire great people and be successful.  We can save you time and money.  Let us help you. 

INTERVIEW on DEMAND - removing the barriers between TOP CANDIDATES and the COMPANIES that seek them.
Hiring managers - make faster, better hires while reducing costs.
Recruiters - make more placements with more companies, faster.