On Wednesday September 23, the Office of Career Services and Cooperative Education and the Accounting Department hosted the sixth annual Meet the Firms Night. This yearly event connects accounting, tax, and finance students with future employers from the major accounting firms in and around the Boston area.

The turnout for this year’s event was impressive. Over 200 students met with more than 20 Public Accounting Firms and Associations. These events serve not only the students, but the employers as well. Kerri O’Laughlin, Human Resource Coordinator for DiCicco, Gulman & Company, one of the firms in attendance, said in regards to the event, “it was a great success and we met a lot of students who we are eager to learn more about. I received multiple “thank you” emails from students shortly after the event, it was wonderful to see how interested they are in DGC.”

In addition to providing students with leads for future employment, these events give students the practical experience of meeting and speaking with professionals is their chosen field. “I thought the event was very successful this year, with a great representation of accounting firms and other financial institutions,” said Katie Scharr, a Beta Alpha Psi student, “I was so glad I went, because you can learn much more by speaking with recruiters than you can from just reading about their companies.”

One of the critical goals of the CS/CE office is to assist students in finding their way through the sometimes daunting job market. An event such as this, where students looking for employment meet with firms looking for new employees, is one way the office aides students. Laura Marchant, Assistant Director for Employer Relations for Suffolk University, believed that the Meet the Firms event was a “successful kick-off for the upcoming fall recruiting season. It was wonderful to see such a networking buzz among Suffolk students and accounting firms.”

“Meet the Firms Night was a huge success and it was everything that I expected," stated Charlie Ciccone, another Beta Alpha Psi member who attended the event. He believed it was "perfectly geared towards business school students with employers from all facets of the accounting industry." The success of the Meet the Firms night was a great start to the upcoming networking season. Other events taking place this fall include the Communications/Marketing Networking Event on October 21 and the Graduate Student Career Expo on November 4. Check out the Career Services and Cooperative Education website as new events are being added every day.