Jenkins Master of Accounting Program Director Scott Showalter was a guest on The Unique CPA podcast. During his half-hour interview with Terrell Turner, Showalter discussed his dual careers in public accounting and academia, explained what makes Poole College’s Jenkins MAC program so successful and gives his view of the accounting talent pipeline.

Below are some excerpts from the interview:

On the rise in popularity of accounting programs: “Nationally, last year the applications for [accounting] graduate schools… was up 72%. Now I won’t attribute all that to starting salaries. The great thing about the accounting profession is there’s always jobs, and historically they’ve always paid well… The accounting profession isn’t recession proof, but it is recession resilient because even when the businesses are down, someone still needs to analyze the information to help make informed decisions.”

Advice for firms recruiting MAC students: “When the firms come on campus and start recruiting, they all look the same. So when they come in, I sit through these recruiting speeches and I’m going, ‘Yeah, that sounds like that firm, that sounds like that firm, that sounds like that firm.’ And they’ve all got the same pitch. So what I often tell the firm is that you’ve got to change your pitch. You need to make sure your uniqueness – why students want to choose you – comes out. And it can’t be by tearing down another firm. Students don’t like that. Students don’t like when you come in and say, ‘Don’t go to that firm or don’t go to that size firm.’ You need to take what your unique experience is. You need to solve it. Okay? And you have a very, very good value proposition.”

On the variety of students in the Jenkins MAC program: “We had an individual that owned a bridal boutique in Charlotte. One of our top graduates last year actually spent 14 years in New York. He was a makeup artist on Broadway. When I asked him, ‘okay, I don’t get it. Broadway to accounting, what?’ His answer was, ‘I needed stability. I’ve got a family. Broadway makeup artist – not stable.’”

Check out the podcast on Spotify, Apple, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts.

This post was originally published in Poole Thought Leadership.