Fink's taxonomy applied to work-integrated learning: An 'audit' of success strategies accounting students employ during recruitment.

Annually, thousands of post-secondary students studying accounting in Canada participate in the Chartered Professional Accountant Recruitment (CPA Recruit) process to secure employment with accounting firms. Despite the competitive process, there has been negligible research studying how students secure these coveted positions. This qualitative research study explored the lived experience of ten students throughout the recruitment process, identifying 119 success strategies. Fink's taxonomy of significant learning, a conceptualized model that focuses on high quality teaching and learning, was used to categorize the strategies. Findings revealed that while having foundational discipline-specific knowledge was important, intra- and interpersonal skills were deemed more important in helping participants effectively apply and integrate their learning, ultimately demonstrating their ability to transfer learning between contexts. Implications and recommendations are discussed for academic programs to enhance curricular and co-curricular components for students to strengthen and transfer soft skills, and for organizations and professional bodies to improve recruitment practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]