tbh my gpa is <3 and i didn't start seriously looking in to what employers wanted until i was a forth year. i changed majors from computer engineering into business econ at irvine and pretty much coasted, but now i'm far behind a lot of my friends who did accounting minors / internships and got full time positions straight out. i also have very little in the way of work experience (cliffs: i was a bum in college and enjoyed it instead of working)
it's also comforting to hear the bit about people skills and communication. i've heard more than one story about kids getting to 1st round interviews with deloitte/pwc/whatever who can't even put a sentence together. i can definitely take them in that department.
Honestly, quit ruling yourself out due to your GPA or whatever. I obviously know nothing about you or how you act in real life, but I can give you some personal insight.
I had a GPA probably similar to yours due to similar reasons (read: I am a very intelligent guy, but I didn't
try that hard in college until later on, and by then my GPA was hurting). Despite this, I have great personal skills, love talking to people and am confident.
I went to the "open house" at the local offices of the firm I now work for. I am a finance major, NOT an accounting major, and this is primarily an accounting firm (it accounts for ~80% of their business). Even on the consulting side of the business, most people have accounting or econ degrees. I showed up at the open house, not knowing anybody, and felt instantly over my head. The other students walking around were MBAs, high level Alpha Kappa Psi members, 3.8 gpa types.
I got to talking to recruiters about the opportunities for a college grad with an accounting degree. I got introduced, and introduced, and introduced, and eventually found myself sitting in the office of a partner who had stayed late at work (and was not part of the open house). I sold myself to him on why they should hire someone with a finance background, and he seemed marginally impressed.
I got a call a week later inviting me to a 1st round interview. I went, knowing that I had nothing to lose. The interviewer was another partner, and he told me that, had I had an accounting degree and aspirations of a CPA, he would've hired me on the spot, and again, I was going up against some stiff competition. Despite this, he said he would call a different office in another close city and see what he could do. Two weeks later, I got another call, and went to a panel interview with 2 more partners and 2 senior managers, and I ended up getting the job.
I found out later that I beat out 11 people for the job at the second office. Two had advanced degrees, three others graduated top 1% of their class.
All of them had terrible personal skills.
Thats all I had going for me. As I said, I believe I'm a fairly intelligent guy, so I'm sure that helped, but the fact that I was attentive, talkative, confident etc is what got me the job, and they told me as much.
Interview well, and you will do fine, trust me.
