A Suggested Program for Cooperation Between Educational Institutions and Small Practitioners.

Abstract Recruiting of trained personnel is a problem in all professions. But, in a growing profession, such as public accounting, even greater demands are being made for new recruits in order to provide a sound basis for expansion. This article is limited to a discussion of some educational aspects of the small firm's personnel problem. There are at present many sources of future public accountants, but this article is concerned only with those potential recruits provided by the graduates of our colleges and universities. This discussion will be concerned with the attitudes of these students and the relationships of the institutions from which they graduate to the accounting profession in general, but particularly with the small-firm share of the practice of public accounting. This does not deny that there are accounting recruits besides college graduates. However, these other trained accounting personnel are not easily attracted to small accounting firms at the present time, they are not changing jobs in large numbers, and junior pay scales are not such as to induce these persons to take up public accounting as a career in preference to private accounting opportunities.