Role of tax knowledge and skills: What are the graduate skills required by small to medium accounting firms

Smallandmediumaccounting(SMA)firmscanaccountforapproximately40percentofgraduaterecruitmentinAustralia.DoesthecontextofobtainingemploymentwithaSMAfirm require graduates to have certain knowledge and skills?This article reportsthefindings of a study into the technical and generic skills required by graduatescommencing employment within an Australian SMA firm. The findings suggest thattogether with financial statement and reporting, tax knowledge is highly valued forgraduatestoaSMAfirm.Intermsoftax,thisalsoincludestheabilitytousetaxsoftware.Also,thegenericskillsofcommunication,teamworkandethicsarehighlyregarded.Thisraises the question as to whether current university degrees are providing adequatetechnicalandgenericskilldevelopmentforthosegraduatesseekingemploymentwithaSMAfirm