So You Want to be an Accounting Professional?

• In Event: Reception with ELS Posters
  In Poster Session: ELS Poster Session and Friday Reception

Abstract

Promotional Description:
It takes more than technical competency and a strong work ethic to become a successful accounting professional! This session features a day-long “Professionalism Workshop,” thoughtfully designed to increase student awareness of the non-technical and interpersonal skills they must also develop to achieve career success.

Detailed:
It takes more than technical competency and a strong work ethic to become a successful accounting professional. A day-long “Professionalism Workshop” for our incoming graduate students was organized, in response to conversations with our advisory council and recruiters on strategies to raise student awareness of their need to cultivate non-technical and interpersonal skills to achieve initial career success and to advance.

Each session was thoughtfully designed to add a new dimension to the non-technical side of the profession, and the atmosphere was interactive and engaging. Several advisory council members spent the day serving as panelists and presenters, sharing their insights and experiences, conducting mock interviews, and responding to student questions during the sessions and meal functions.

At day’s end students evaluated the workshop and, after spending a few days reflecting upon what they gained by attending the workshop, submitted an essay assessing their personal strengths and weaknesses, and describing strategies to enhance their areas of strength and to improve upon or overcome their weaknesses. The evaluations and self-reflective essays indicated the inaugural workshop was a success and achieved our objectives, as was the case the following year, and we expect workshop will continue as an annual event.

Author

• Christie W Johnson, Montana State University