Here's the lowdown
Roughly half of WilkinGuttenplan's staff and about one-third of its partners began at the firm as interns.
Porte Brown starts young accountants as generalists so they can try bookkeeping, tax, audit, and client work before choosing a specialty.
Flexibility helps, but the stronger retention tool is a believable path to leadership, including early business-development work and planned partner turnover.
Accounting firms spend plenty of time worrying about where the next generation of CPAs will come from.
Two midsized firms have a useful answer: stop treating the internship like a summer audition and start treating it like the first year of a long career.
At WilkinGuttenplan, roughly half of the staff started as interns. About one-third of the partner group did too.
That is not a recruiting campaign. It is a talent pipeline that can last decades.
The internship already looks like the job
WilkinGuttenplan runs winter and summer internship programs for about 20 people a year. The New Jersey firm also visits schools, attends career fairs, and brings students in for a daylong event called Aspire.
The important part comes after recruiting. Interns do work that resembles the jobs they may accept later.
Audit associate Thomas O'Keefe joined as an intern in the winter of 2025. He said much of what he did during the internship remains part of his regular work today.
That continuity removes one of the oldest tricks in recruiting: selling a fun internship that has little in common with the full-time role.
The firm has about 150 employees, and most work remotely. Young staff still get regular reasons to meet in person, from large seasonal events to smaller activities during the year.
Remote work creates distance. The firm tries to make the occasional office day worth the trip.
Young accountants do not have to choose too early
Porte Brown uses a different retention mechanism.
Instead of pushing a new graduate straight into tax or audit, the Chicago-area firm starts young accountants as generalists. In a single week, a staff member might work on a client's books, prepare a corporate return, handle a personal return, and help with an audit.
That matters because many accounting graduates know they want the profession but do not yet know which part fits them.
Manager Ross McCormick said the chance to do several kinds of work is what first stood out to him. He has now been with the firm for six years.
The model is harder than training someone for one narrow task. Porte Brown supports it with shadowing, practice sets, sit-down training, and mentors who are often only one or two years ahead of a new hire.
That near-peer match is practical. A second-year employee remembers the first-year questions that a 30-year partner may have forgotten.
Flexibility works better when it has structure
Both firms offer flexibility, but neither story is simply about working from home.
WilkinGuttenplan found that its staff remained productive after the pandemic shift to remote work. Porte Brown lets employees use any of its Chicago-area offices, work from home, and adjust their hours around traffic or other needs.
The flexibility sits beside clear development systems.
At Porte Brown, young staff meet clients early and learn how to build business. Employees can earn commissions for bringing in new clients, so selling is not reserved for partners.
At WilkinGuttenplan, interns see real assignments before accepting a full-time offer. Feedback from employees at every level can also shape how the firm operates.
Freedom is useful. Freedom plus a learning path is much harder to leave.
The route to leadership has to look real
The strongest retention pitch may be the one no benefits brochure can fake: young employees can see people like them moving up.
Porte Brown has mandatory retirement at age 65 for equity partners. That creates predictable openings instead of asking ambitious employees to wait forever for a seat.
Young staff also work with accessible partners and get client-facing responsibility early. Managing partner Joe Gleba described many employees as "for-lifers" who spend their full careers at the firm.
WilkinGuttenplan's intern-to-partner history sends a similar signal. A student can look around and find leaders who once sat in the same internship seat.
Accounting firms cannot solve retention with remote days, office puppies, or a good holiday party alone. Those things can make work more pleasant.
The deeper reason people stay is that the next step feels visible. Give young accountants real work, room to explore, leaders they can reach, and proof that advancement happens. Then an internship can become a partnership track.
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