Expectations-reality gap among accounting students

Students consistently misjudge key features of the junior auditor role, highlighting the need to level-set student expectations to help address the accounting talent shortage.

A study by researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Tilburg University in the Netherlands found that students underestimate the profession’s attractive aspects, like intellectual challenge, client interaction and autonomy, and overestimate its less appealing aspects, like repetitiveness and overtime. The misconceptions are particularly pronounced for Big Four firms, and decrease the likelihood of students pursuing an auditing career. 

The study surveyed 344 undergraduate and graduate students at universities in the Netherlands, as well as 161 junior auditors, to measure the gap between expectations and reality on topics such as the nature of auditing work, required skills, organizational culture, development opportunities, work-life balance, career prospects, job security and salary.

“The data tell a clear story: Students are not rejecting the auditing profession, they’re rejecting a misconception of it,” said Christian Peters, a co-author of the study and assistant professor of accounting and information systems at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

The data showed no evidence of a gap concerning the necessary skills for the role, but students tended to be more pessimistic about the organizational culture compared to junior auditors at Big Four firms. Meanwhile, auditors actually experience steeper learning curves than students expect and are formally evaluated less frequently than students expect. In the same vein, students expect more formal training than auditors receive, and auditors report more on-the-job learning than students expect. 

Regarding salary and job security, students are less pessimistic compared to auditors about earning lower salaries than their peers with similar educations, but different career paths. However, students perceive less job security than what junior auditors perceive. 

Students are more pessimistic about career advancement within auditing. They overestimate the number of strict deadlines but also overestimate the amount of time available to focus on their studies (specifically the education required to obtain the Dutch equivalent of the CPA license).

The study also found that — with the exception of in-house days — conventional outreach activities, like career-related events and guest lectures, have limited success in narrowing the gap.

“Junior auditors consistently report more challenging, more client-facing, and less repetitive work than students imagine. Closing that misalignment could have a measurable effect on recruiting, particularly for the Big Four,” Peters said. “Students want transparency, not slogans. When firms communicate honestly about culture, development and autonomy, interest increases.”