 So what actually matters when it comes to getting your very first job out of college? Because I know that first job, that's the toughest one. You know, you gotta get your foot in the door, get a little bit of experience. It's that whole catch-22 situation of you need two years of experience to get the job, but in order to get two years of experience, you have to get a job. So what advice do you have to someone in terms of the most important things for getting that first job, in terms of internships, grades, work experience, projects, volunteering, skills, et cetera? Yeah, that's a good question. So I think that the most obvious thing that comes to mind is gonna be grades. And so getting good grades, you know, and I think that obviously everybody who's going to college, for the most part, everyone is trying to get the best grades that they can. And I'll say as a hiring manager that grades are hugely important for those who are still coming out of college. You know, later on in your life, as you progress in your career and you have a few years of experience under your belt, it's gonna matter less and less. But for the first job and the second job perhaps, your grades are gonna matter hugely. So I really advise everyone to put a lot of effort into getting the best grades and getting a great point average that's something that you feel proud of when you put it in your resume, right? A lot of times, if you're not proud of it, you will leave it off your resume and I get it. But I advise you to get it high enough that you wanna put it out there and showcase it. And then secondly, I think that joining clubs and societies in school can get you in a position where you can get an internship or an entry-level role much faster. And the story with that, that I'll tell you is that in my fourth year of college, you know, both me and my wife were studying to be accountants. She was part of the, I forget the name of the club, but it has to do with Latino accountants or aspiring Latino accountants. And so she was invited, both of us were good students for the most part had really good GPAs. She was invited to interview with, you know, a couple of big accounting firms, Ernest and Young, PWC and the third one, I forget which one. I, on the other hand, wasn't part of any of these clubs and I didn't get invited to any of these events. So you can see right there, and my grades were better than hers, but I wasn't invited to any of it because I wasn't part of these clubs. What I did instead is when they had an event in the campus of the school, I just walked in and sort of like introduced myself, even though I wasn't even invited. And it's a funny story that's how I actually got my first job at PWC, but this shows you the importance of joining clubs and societies in college. It may be, you know, extra work that you may not feel like doing, but it's really important just getting that first job where you'll learn, you know, get a good foundation in accounting. Hey guys, Shane from the future here. I really quickly wanted to mention because for some reason I forgot to in the video, Bill has some phenomenal resources for anybody who wants to become an accountant. I'm going to include those at the top of the description down below. So definitely check those out. And so I guess we talked about, you know, the importance of grades, joining clubs and societies. And also, you know, related to clubs and joining clubs and societies is networking in general. Like I've, you know, I've known people who've gotten their first entry jobs or internships through their professors in college. So just keeping, you know, good relationship with your professor, networking with your co, with your classmates. Sometimes you just hear of new opportunities. So it's at the end of the day, when it comes to getting your first job, it's going to be about your grades and who you know. So networking, whether it's offline, like on campus or through, you know, online or like a LinkedIn, it's really important. So grades, societies, clubs and societies and networking, these are really important. Got it. Kind of expanding upon that, what you just said. I am a little bit surprised at what you just said. A lot of the time, you know, I talked to different professionals and they'll tell me that their grades actually didn't matter. Like they wasted a lot of time doing their grades. And it's interesting to hear that. So that's really great insight for the audience. I would like you, this is going to be a little bit difficult. Sorry about this, but I would like you to rank from order of least, actually most important to least important grades, clubs, leadership positions, internships, work experience, networking, skills, projects, and then the school that you actually go to from most important to least important in terms of getting your first job. So specifically for getting your first job out of college. Yep, yep. Listen, I think it's a great question, but I'll tell you what this is like. This is like the ingredients to a great meal, right? It's cliche to say you need all of the above, but I'll say that any experience, the thing is that the thing that is lacking when you're a college graduate is experience. That's your problem, right? That you have no experience, right? You're looking for somebody to hire you, but you have zero experience. So I'll say out of all of these experience is key. If you get some experience during college, you'll try to get that. So one of the things I've done when I went to college, as I went to the careers office and I used to go and just sit there and flip through the pages where that was back in the day. Now it's probably done online, but back then it was actually an actual book, so like the yellow book, and you go through the job advertisements and apply to them. I got some work in accounting during college, and that has proven to be hugely important when I went to apply for my first job, right? So having some experience is really good. On top of that, so this is the most important out of all the things you mentioned. And then secondly, I'll say grades. If I work my way backward and say the least important, I'll say leadership positions. And that's because simply when you're applying for your first job, you're not expected to be a leader. So that's not hugely important. I'll put that at the bottom of the list. I'll focus more on grades and getting some experience. Skills is gonna be a byproduct of all of that. So if you get some experience and you focus in your studying and becoming a good student, you're gonna acquire the skills. It's gonna be there. And like we mentioned in the previous question, joining clubs and societies is just like a, why wouldn't you do it? It's just gonna help you to do it. So yeah, I say it's important to kind of focus on all of these things and tackle your grades and your skills and your experience. But I'll just put on top of the list experience and getting some experience during college, whether it's an internship paid or not paid. And focus on getting good grades. That's really important. Awesome, okay. So are there any pitfalls that people should know about going into accounting? Yeah, so one of the things that, and this is something that you'll learn when you, if you go to college and you take accounting classes, one of the pitfalls that I've seen people do is they get into accounting thinking that it's more like math, like just adding sort of being a number monkey and like being counter, it's really not. It's way beyond that. It's more of being able to read a pronouncement or a guidance from one of the several accounting bodies and being able to see how that relates to the business that you're working in. It's becoming more and more of reading sort of legal or literature language that is issued for accounting and applying it to the business or reading a contract that you wrote with a customer or with a vendor and figuring out what could be the problems that could arise from this kind of contract or is it really good for the business or not? So this is one of the things that steam people focus too much on the math side of things when it comes to accounting while they just realize later on that it's more of a, and it's sort of a business. This is more of a business major, more than a math major. The second thing I'd say when it comes to the pitfalls is the amount of stress. When you're working in accounting, just comes with the territory, you'll be issuing financial statements, right? And like, who are the readers of financial statements? These are investors and like these are like some of the most aggressive people out there, right? So inevitably you'll end up with a level of stress. It's not a unmanageable level of stress, it's manageable compared to other careers, but some people are just surprised by that, the amount of stress that you have, especially if it's a publicly traded company, right? There'll be a lot of pressure. You know, however, like I said, it's manageable and also you'll get paid for it. You'll be rewarded for the level of stress that you put into your work and it's seasonal. So you're not sitting at the edge of your seat, you know, every single day, right? It's manageable and it's seasonal. All right, so I guess the third, you know, one of the pitfalls that I've seen people, you know, think or have a misconception about accounting is something that they realize later on in their career where accounting is not a glamorous sort of work. A lot of times when you speak to family or friends about what you do, you know, they just glaze over and just not really, you know, care that much. So, and this is okay, like this is something that I got accustomed to. It's not as sexy as working as an engineer or as working in an ER room as a doctor. So this is something that you need to know beforehand before you get into it. It's not a negative, but it is what it is, right? It's the perception of society of what an accountant is, you know, someone may not perceive your what you do as glamorous, but it's okay. You might be making twice as much as they make, right? It's fine, but it needs to be something that is addressed and understood by someone who's getting into accounting before they begin their journey. And so just to summarize the pitfalls, you know, accounting is not mass. They're different, to be in math is different than being in accounting. The stress level is there, but it's manageable. And then finally, it's not the glamorous sort of type of work that you can be sitting with a group of friends and discussing and people will be kind of glued to the conversation. It's not as sexy as that. So just realize that before you get into it. Yeah, I would say these are like the pitfalls of, you know, of accounting.