Abstract This study examined the characteristics sought in entry-level accountants by various employers of accounting graduates. The opinions of recruiters from large national and regional CPA firms, banks, hospitals, Fortune 500 industrial firms, and federal agencies were solicited by mail as to the perceived importance of 95 employee-attribute items related to appearance, education, ethics, extracurricular activities, performance, and personality. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses indicated that 68 of the original 95 items loaded on 22 attribute factors which accounted for over 65 percent of the variance in the data. Analysis of aggregated factor scores revealed that, consistent with prior research, a number of achievement, personality, and social factors were desirable applicant characteristics. However-in contrast to previous studies where traditional indices of job performance (e.g., grade-point average) were rated as most important-herein, recruiters from every employer group rated professional conduct (i.e., an applicant's ability to follow both explicit and implicit rules of conduct) as most significant. In fact, seven of the ten highest-rated factors were personality or social attributes. Interoccupational differences and their potential importance to job aspirants were also investigated. Based on these results, implications for accounting educators were discussed.
Ahadiat et al. (Tue,) studied this question.
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