Hey readers! My name is Nick Olszewski. I am a summer Tax Intern at Kreischer Miller and a rising senior at Rider University.
My relationship with Kreischer Miller dates back to my sophomore year of college, when I had the opportunity to meet MaKayla Hancock, the firm’s Talent Acquisition Manager, at a networking event. MaKayla provided great insight into the firm, and the first impression I got was impactful. The impression held true, and MaKayla ended up being an authentic representation of Kreischer Miller’s culture and team members.
After the networking event, MaKayla took the time to set up a meeting with me to tell me some more about the company and public accounting. After this meeting, I was invited to come for an office visit. I then decided to apply and had a very good and insightful interview process.
Making Meaningful Connections
I was lucky to have been at the right place at the right time, because many people have trouble finding internships nowadays. From my perspective, it seems that luck does end up playing a big part in many things in life, including finding a job. I’ve heard many stories about how a random conversation or an unexpected run-in with someone turned into to an extraordinary career opportunity. However, I believe that you can minimize the amount of luck you’ll need in the future by placing yourself in a position to be at this “right place at the right time.”
In the context of a college student, the seeds could be planted by simply forming relationships with your professors. You can learn great life advice and wisdom from them, and they could also be a bridge between you and a connection sometime in the future. For example, my accounting professor eagerly introduced me to MaKayla at the networking event I mentioned above, and that one introduction is still paying dividends over a year later.
I believe that college students should attend as many events as they can that provide the opportunity to network. Rider University is great because they put together plenty of accounting events where recruiters and accountants come to the school to speak with students and teach them about their company. Rather than going into networking events with huge expectations, you should go into them with a goal to learn and meet new people. One of my wise Kreischer Miller team members once said, “you have to make a deposit before you can make a withdrawal.”
We know that great connections can provide great opportunity, but they can also provide life-long learning. For example, my class at school assigned me to do a small informational interview with an accountant. Instead of taking an easy route and talking to someone I already knew over the phone, I reached out to a local CPA who does my family’s tax returns and stopped by in-person. The ten minute interview with him turned into a two hour engaging conversation where I learned a plethora of information about the industry, his career story, and life advice. It concluded with me having a new mentor and making a friend that I can go to for questions about anything career related.
Optimizing Your Opportunity to Learn
I believe tax is an ongoing skill to be learned, which is what draws me to the industry. Kreischer Miller has provided me with the opportunity to make this the biggest learning experience I’ve ever had. I emphasize “opportunity” because one must apply themselves to make this opportunity a reality. Simply going through the motions of preparing tax returns is only going to teach you so much.
I began to piece together the work I was doing and kept asking, “Why?” As a result, what started to form was a broad picture of how the business and financial world operates. I’ve learned about how people earn and use large amounts of money, how businesses operate, how money flows through organizations, how and where assets are kept and transferred, and how tax laws affect day-to-day financial decisions.
Based on my experience as a tax intern, gift and estate tax has been my biggest learning opportunity. I have been lucky enough to see many different gift tax situations and piece together a decent amount of knowledge about the subject. Each return teaches me about something new, such as trusts, tax laws, asset transfers, and the long-term planning that goes into gifting strategies.
My other major learning experiences have been individual income tax returns and not-for-profit returns. I was especially happy to get experience with individual returns because it gives me the ability to do my own taxes and help friends and family with questions about theirs.
The not-for-profit tax returns I have worked on were also very interesting because I learned about the business side of charitable organizations, which is something that people don’t often think about.
How Kreischer Miller Sets Team Members Up for Success
While Kreischer Miller fosters an environment in which we learn through experience, the firm has also provided me with an arsenal of learning resources. They offer countless self-study courses and host live educational webinars where the presenters speak about various topics including taxes and planning strategies.
Additionally, it’s encouraged to form genuine relationships with the directors, and they’re all very open to setting up times to talk, sharing their career stories, providing advice, and educating team members on topics of interest.
Overall, my internship experience has given me a great introduction to the public accounting world. Kreischer Miller has set the standard in my mind of how a good company operates. It should be a place that treats everyone with great respect, has a sense of community, provides its employees with the opportunity to expand their knowledge – whether through experience or studies – and fosters an environment that encourages the formation of genuine connections with others. Kreischer Miller does all these things exceptionally well, and I am very lucky and grateful to have gotten this experience.
Click here to learn more about accounting internship opportunities with Kreischer Miller, or visit the Careers page to learn more about the firm.
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