Thanks for responding.  :D

So a particular example of someone who isn't doing well is if they are assigned to audit a company and they miss pertinent information? For example, if the client has miscategorized consignment costs and you the auditor missed it, that would be a strike against you?

I've never worked in public accounting so I'm not sure exactly what would cause you to get a bad evaluation. I know being late to work will do it.

Well, when in your first year you can kind of tell who is going to be there another year.  When I worked in PA I could always tell for some reason (gut feeling) when someone was going to be asked to pursue other opportunities.  I actually had a first year that was all excited about his first job out of school.  Needless to say I actually enjoyed working with him a lot, I taught him a fair amount but he was on my engagements roughly 1/4 of the time but from the actual time that he was he always praised me on how I manage the client relationship so well and that I give him the guidance needed, etc.  But, for some reason I could just tell that they were going to cut him as I realized that he required additional time from a senior's position.  He was actually going to purchase a new car during busy season and I told him to just wait it out and that when I first started I bought me a new BMW but wished I just kept my old car given how you just wear the car down during auditing for the amount of travel you do, so he pushed off the purchase and two months later he was let go.  He had personality conflicts with most of the other seniors and managers but with me he got along and of course I would hear what others always talked about.  So I wouldnt' just classify one mistake as being a mark on your record its just after being in PA for a little while you can just tell who they want to stick around, who they abuse (people with H1's) and people who they want out. 

Once again, I always say that majority of people 99% leave PA, so get the best name on your resume for the first 5 years and leave for a better paying job with less hours.  View PA as an extension of Grad School, pay your dues for a couple years and leave <quote from a CFO on one of my first engagements> :)

JDMilan wrote: Thats the thing with PA, they all have their stupid evaluations which some tie to salary and bonus.  It really depends on who is evaluating you.  I worked for one partner who was super smart, always worked like a dog and really knew his stuff, always very methodical with his work ethic, didn't talk to his wife too much when she called while in the field or with staff but he made parnter in a short time.  He gave me a below average evaluation (my only one) given that his expectations are extremely high yet all my other evaluations were above expecations or greatly exceeded expectations from other partners and senior management.  I have had a manager blast me my performance evaluation (still above average) given I had one stupid altercation with another person while on an engagement (it was really stupid on both ends, and I was professional about it) but still it overshadowed my 6 months I worked with this managers.  I was like, well I did good to great for 5 months and 30 days and you still have mention this 1 day on the evaluation??? wtf?? I learned not to look too much into these evaluations...lol funny thing is where I work now we have triple the revenue of my old firm (which is top 10) and when I asked about evaluations they laughed at me.  So they gave me the responsibility to come up with annual performance evaluations for the entire company...lol kind of like a small committee or something like that....go figure.

Okay. It sounds like to me, what you know as far as accounting concepts and things like that don't really figure into your evaluation. It's about how you interact with the company staff and the clients. I can get along with clients because I have several of them myself with my business. Now with company staff, I've learned the hard way that you must go in to work and shut your mouth. Mind your own business, laugh at a couple of jokes, do your job, and go home. In my previous jobs, I always ended up butting heads with people. At my last temp assignment, I had 5 different supervisors. It felt like "Office Space" in there. Every one was in this one huge space so you couldn't really hide anything.