AAFCPAs Hosts Successful Intern Development Program

The COVID-19 pandemic has offered unique constraints this year, but AAFCPAs remained committed to offer our meaningful internship experience for aspiring accountants. Internships are an important tool for students who use this time to explore interests and help inform their decisions about the future. Additionally, AAFCPAs leverages our internship program to identify and offer full-time positions to the best and the brightest.

This summer, we offered a 1-week Intern Development Program (IDP), which included learning and assessment presentations, case studies, team challenges, a hands-on audit, a full-day job shadow, and more.

AAFCPAs’ Managing Partner Carla McCall opened up the IDP with a presentation about our amazing profession and about the CPA evolution. “What a great day to be a CPA,” said Carla. “Leading firms like AAFCPAs are evolving to be like large consultancy firms, offering solutions for our clients beyond the core audit and tax, such as IT and process efficiency, risk reduction, and leveraging data. The opportunities for these interns just starting their professional careers are limitless!”

The Feedback was Overwhelmingly Positive.

Participants reported that they learned a lot about AAFCPAs, public accounting, and themselves and appreciated the mix of experiences.

“This was by far the highlight of my summer. Even though the program was only one week-long, it gave me more insight to the accounting profession than I have gotten from all three of my past accounting internships.”

“Hearing your journey was reassuring to me that I can eventually find my path as well. It’s okay to not know what I specifically want to do after graduating. It’s more important to try new things and find what is enjoyable and fulfilling to me.”

AAFCPAs was able to get to know and assess the Interns across a wide variety of situations and metrics. On our Shadow Day, interns had a rare opportunity to experience “A day in the life” and build a professional network with experts in the field, and AAFCPAs Partners had an opportunity to mentor our future workforce.

We Gave Back to Charity

AAFCPAs stayed true to our culture of giving back by concluding the IDP with a meaningful Bicycle Build for Charity. Interns used teamwork skills to earn the materials necessary to assemble, test and decorate new bikes, that were then donated to deserving children. The four bikes built by AAFCPAs’ 2020 Summer Interns were donated to our client Communities for People, an organization whose mission is to foster hope in the lives of at-risk children and families and to enrich their capabilities, enabling them to flourish as contributing members of the community.

“We are proud of these 15 interns for showing their resilience, adaptability, and agility when faced with adversity,” added Carla McCall. “And I’m proud of our team at AAFCPAs, including the 45+ people from all practice areas who helped with the coordination and execution of this very special program. AAFCPAs’ mantra great minds | great hearts continues to make a positive impact on our employees, clients, communities, and future CPAs!”