Questions to Ask an Accountant as a Student
Questions for a student interviewing a working accountant, whether for a class assignment or to decide whether to commit to the major: busy season, exams, what first-year staff actually do, pay progression, and why people leave.
The questions
Open any question for the note
What kind of accounting do you do, and who are your clients?
Why ask it
Audit, tax, advisory and industry accounting are close to different jobs. Pinning down which one you are hearing about keeps the rest of the answers from blurring together.
How did you end up in this branch rather than one of the others?
Why ask it
Most people fall into a specialism through a first placement rather than choosing it. Hearing that early lowers the stakes on decisions you are agonizing over now.
What does a week in January look like compared with a week in July?
Why ask it
Accounting workloads are seasonal in a way few students expect. Comparing two months forces a concrete answer instead of an average that hides both extremes.
How long does busy season actually last, and what does it cost you?
Why ask it
Ask about the cost, not the hours. Answers about missed weekends, canceled plans or sleep are more informative than a number you cannot yet imagine.
What did you have to pass to do this job, and how long did it take you?
Why ask it
Licensing paths and timelines vary by country and by employer. Getting the real timeline from someone who did it beats the version on a course brochure.
How did you study for the exams while working full time?
Why ask it
Look for practical detail: study leave, employer-funded courses, which sitting they took first. This is the logistics most students never plan for.
What was your first job out of school, and what did they actually have you doing?
Why ask it
First-year work is often narrower than the job description suggested. Knowing what the daily tasks really were helps you judge whether you would tolerate the entry rung.
What do people in their first two years get wrong most often?
Why ask it
The answer is usually not technical: not asking questions early, not documenting work, not managing a review deadline. Those are habits you can start building now.
Which parts of my degree will I use, and which will I never look at again?
Why ask it
Practitioners will tell you plainly which courses map onto the work. It also tells you where to focus effort in a program that is heavy on requirements.
What software do you spend the most hours in?
Why ask it
The honest answer is often a spreadsheet plus one system you have never heard of. That tells you the skill worth building before graduation more precisely than any careers page.
What has automation changed about your work in the last few years?
Why ask it
You want specifics about which tasks have disappeared and which are unchanged. Broad answers about technology reshaping the profession are not information.
How does working at a large firm compare with a smaller one, if you have done both?
Why ask it
The trade-offs are real: training and brand on one side, client contact and hours on the other. Someone who has seen both sides can tell you what was gained and lost.
How much of the job is dealing with people rather than numbers?
Why ask it
Students often choose accounting expecting quiet technical work and find it is largely chasing clients and colleagues for information. Better to know which one you are signing up for.
When have you had to tell a client something they did not want to hear?
Why ask it
This gets at the part of the job that is nerve rather than technique, and it shows how much backing they got from their firm when they held the line.
Have you ever been pressed to sign off on something you were not comfortable with?
Why ask it
Ask it plainly and accept a general answer. How willing they are to discuss it at all is a fair indication of how the ethics you study look in practice.
What does pay look like across the first five years, roughly?
Why ask it
Ask about the range for the role rather than their own salary. Most practitioners will give you bands, and those bands differ sharply by firm size and city.
Where do people go when they leave accounting?
Why ask it
Exit routes are one of the strongest arguments for the qualification, and they are rarely discussed on campus. Expect finance roles, industry controllers, and people who leave entirely.
What would make you tell a student not to do this?
Why ask it
Framing it as a warning gives them permission to be honest. If nothing comes back at all, weigh the rest of the conversation accordingly.
If you were starting again now, would you still choose accounting?
Why ask it
Placed late, this gets a considered answer. Follow up on what they would choose instead, and whether the reason is the work itself or the way the profession has changed.
What should I be doing over the next year to keep my options open?
Why ask it
This turns the conversation into something actionable: an internship deadline, a course to take, an exam to sit early. Ask for one thing, not a list.
Interviewing a Working Accountant
Practical guidance for the conversation itself
Before the Conversation
Find out what they actually do first
Check whether they work in audit, tax, advisory or inside a company. Asking questions aimed at the wrong specialism wastes most of your time slot.
Avoid their busiest weeks
In many places the first quarter of the year and the weeks before filing deadlines are unworkable. A request sent in the quiet season gets a longer answer.
Bring five questions, not twenty
A twenty-minute call fits five questions with follow-ups. Choose the ones whose answers would change what you do next term.
Asking About Money, Hours and Ethics
- Ask what the range is for a role, not what the person earns.
- Ask about hours in a specific month rather than in general.
- Accept a hypothetical answer on ethical questions; do not press for a client's details.
- If they hedge on something, move on and come back to it from a different angle later.
- Ask what they wish someone had told them, which lets them choose the uncomfortable subject themselves.
Afterwards
Write it up the same day
Note what surprised you and what contradicted what you had been told at school. Those contradictions are the most useful part when you talk to the next person.
Do not ask them for free advice
A conversation about their career is a favor. Asking them to look at a tax question for your family turns it into unpaid work and usually ends the relationship.
Report back once
If you take the internship, sit the exam, or change your major, tell them. It is a short message and it is what makes a second conversation possible.