Internship Programs Work for PKF Texas

By Melissa Bland

While the summer season for some college students might turn to thoughts of the beach, lazy days and catching up on sleep, more students are taking the initiative to seek and secure quality summer internships that will no doubt help them with their future careers.

            A recently published survey from Iowa State University reported that students who participate as summer interns in accounting, finance, business and related fields, are able to obtain more job offers, before and after graduating college, than students who do not have internships under their belts. While statistics like this speak volumes for the student – what about the employer? What does an internship program do for firms like PKF Texas?

·         Internships enable our firm to project future hiring goals and fill them in advance. For example, we anticipate that our spring 2004 interns will be full-time staff accountants in spring/summer of 2005.

·         Our program gives us the opportunity to bring enthusiastic, hard-working students in for on-the-job training in the accounting profession, and, ideally, groom them for full-time employment down the road. It also gives the students “real world” accounting experience and helps them determine whether they’ll be a good fit for the profession (and for PKF Texas, specifically!).

·         We are involved with participating universities to help determine accounting curriculum, and have developed relationships with professors who can later recommend top students for recruitment.

·         Alumni who work with PKF Texas are able to support the firm and their alma maters through participation in recruiting and advisory councils.

Because of our location in Houston, PKF Texas actively recruits primarily on two campuses, the University of Houston (UH) and Texas A&M University (A&M) in College Station. Although we receive intern applications from students throughout the state (and even throughout the United States), we focus on these two colleges based on the relationships we have built with them and the successes we have had with students from these schools.

The recruiting program has many facets. For example, at UH, we attend campus career fairs, student organization events and campus interviews, and speak to accounting classes on campus about our firm and the profession in general. On the A&M campus, our firm participates in Middle Market Alliance events (including panel discussions with interns from PKF Texas and other middle market firms) for the Professional Program to help students learn about alternatives to Big Four public accounting firms.

 We also have an executive presence on campus. For example, Kenneth Guidry, our chief operating officer and president-elect, and an UH alum, serves on the Dean’s Advisory Board at UH, and I am a member of UH’s Recruiting Advisory Board. These commitments allow us to advise and guide the university in determining the curriculum and shaping its programs. UH introduced its new Professional Program in Accounting this past year. They needed assistance from the Houston business community, as well as from recruiters experienced in working with similar programs. Our experience and knowledge of working with interns and as a business sector “consumer” of the school’s finished product – the students – provided much-needed support for this new venture.

In addition to the contributions of our time and expertise, we also give financially to the University of Houston’s Bauer College of Business. Our donations include a general contribution to the Dean’s Excellence Fund, as well as contributions to the Hispanic Business Student Association and the Beta Alpha Psi (accounting honorary fraternity) chapter. The combination of our time and financial assistance help show how fully invested and supportive we are in the campus’s success as well as our own. The stronger we help build these programs, the more likely we’ll be able to find outstanding future candidates for our firm.

For those seeking to establish internship programs, my advice is to get to know professors, heads of various programs and career center personnel on selected campuses. Become involved and get others from your firm involved, but don’t overextend yourself; it’s better to be heavily involved in an organized, sustainable fashion with a few colleges on an ongoing basis than to sporadically attend random events.

A summer internship can be a win-win situation for both the student and employer; not only will you reap valuable assistance, but you will help a student prepare for long-term success as well.

Melissa Bland (formerly Meriwether) is the Recruiting and Retention manager for PKF Texas. Contact her at mbland@pkftexas.com or 713/860-1400.