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Subject Topic: Applying to more than one Big 4 (Topic Closed Topic Closed) Post ReplyPost New Topic
  
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pomegranate
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Posted: 13 Sep 2011 at 01:22 | IP Logged  

I have an internship for Winter 2012 and I wanted to apply
to one for the summer with a different Big 4 firm to gain
more experience and compare corporate cultures. Is it bad
etiquette to apply to another firm when I already have an
internship for one?
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db729
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Posted: 14 Sep 2011 at 13:45 | IP Logged  

pomegranate wrote:
I have an internship for Winter 2012 and I wanted to apply
to one for the summer with a different Big 4 firm to gain
more experience and compare corporate cultures. Is it bad
etiquette to apply to another firm when I already have an
internship for one?


I really wouldn't do that if I were you. You're not going to get "more experience" with a summer internship from a learning perspective. Summer interns don't do crap really. I worked with three interns this past summer and we really didn't have much for them to do. So the only other reason for you to pursue the summer internship is to compare corporate cultures. The reality is they're all pretty much the same. Everyone whines and complains about their firm and thinks the grass is greener on the other side. And it's completely dependent on the industry group you work with and who you're working with at the time. You'll find teams that suck and teams that are awesome, no matter which firm you're at.

If you don't suck completely, you're going to get an offer out of your winter internship. Which I assume you will accept unless you intend on doing something completely outside of accounting. In that case, why even bother with an additional summer internship? If anything, explore other areas in business to see if you really want to do accounting. There's absolutely no point in comparing two Big 4s, if anything it might lead to your offer being rescinded.
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pomegranate
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Posted: 14 Sep 2011 at 14:15 | IP Logged  

Thanks for your response. Does it change anything if I would be applying to an internship in a different field (Audit vs. Tax) and I still have another year before graduation, so I wouldn't be working full time right after my internship. I would like to do another internship in this time but maybe I will try something outside of public accounting then. Or maybe apply to the same Big 4 but in Audit instead of Tax if that is even possible.
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db729
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Posted: 14 Sep 2011 at 15:16 | IP Logged  

pomegranate wrote:
Thanks for your response. Does it change anything if I would be applying to an internship in a different field (Audit vs. Tax) and I still have another year before graduation, so I wouldn't be working full time right after my internship. I would like to do another internship in this time but maybe I will try something outside of public accounting then. Or maybe apply to the same Big 4 but in Audit instead of Tax if that is even possible.


You seem to have a pretty weird schedule with school. Are you staying an extra semester? Anyways just a couple of thoughts I guess:

1) I seen people do an internship for one line of service, and then interview right after for another line of service within the same firm. Basically they did an internship, got an offer for audit, but expressed interests for like tax/advisory/etc. So that's definitely something to think about during the course of your winter internship. I'm sure you could just say that during your internship, you networked with people in and realized you'd rather do audit instead of tax.
2) If you're going to try to see tax and audit, do it in the same firm if you can. Like I said, interviewing with another Big 4 is kind of silly before even doing your internship. And after your internship, it doesn't make too much sense either.
3) If you want to do like banking or consulting, you can recruit right now for summer internships. That way you're not conflicting with another Big 4. If you get an offer for summer internship, great! If you don't, you have your winter internship still and see what happens then.
4) I've seen people do Big 4 internship and then jump to banking/consulting FT. If you do end up with a summer internship for banking/consulting, and then also a FT offer with Big 4. You can always (while try to avoid it) renege on the Big 4 FT offer. It won't hurt you really since you've decided to do banking/consulting instead.
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pomegranate
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Posted: 14 Sep 2011 at 15:25 | IP Logged  

I'm a Junior now and my winter internship is during what would be the second semester of my junior year. So I will still have the summer after Jr year and all of Sr year after the internship.

I am not really interested in Banking but would like to try tax and audit. I would like to stay within the same firm; my only concern is that the firms are recruiting now and if it doesn't work out with my current firm, I would have missed the deadlines already.
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