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daliacpa
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| Posted: 26 Oct 2009 at 21:21 | IP Logged
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G8trJasonB wrote:
I'm in my 5th year of Big 4. Should you stay away? Not if you want the best experience for your career. Is it glamorous and enjoyable? Not really.
I'm not gonna sugarcoat it. Big 4 accounting most definitely sucks a lot of the time. However, you can't beat the knowledge you will obtain and what it does for your career. When I started, I was hardly worth anything in the job marketplace. Now I have a lot of options.
As for hours worked, there have been times that I've had to work upwards of 70+ hours/week but they have been few and far between. During this last busy season, which for me lasts from January to around late May, I was averaging around 50-55 hours week. That's not too bad. Since June, I'm averaging 40 hour weeks and have taken a lot of vacation time. I don't expect this busy season to be much worse for me. Of course, there are others that have experienced the 70+ hour work weeks and it isn't that uncommon, but typically it doesn't last for more than 4-6 weeks if it does occur (which may be a little bit of long estimate).
Overall, on a scale of 1-10, I'd rate my experience as a 7. You've got to take the good with the bad. The good: knowledge and experience, lots of vacation time (5 weeks), cool group of co-workers that are also intelligent, diverse working environments (kind of like changing classes in college - if one sucks, you can typically take solace in knowing its temporary and you'll be moving to the next soon). The bad: long hours at times, can be very stressful especially the first 2-3 years, travel (I travel 3-4 months/year), lots of adminstrative tasks that are expected to get done by you on top of your normal duties (this is often what drives people crazy about Big 4), low compensation compared to peers in industry at same levels. I will say that your experience will be exponentially worse if you are trying to finish the CPA exam while working in Big 4 (most are). Imagine coming home to study every night after working *only* 50-55 hours a week. Hell, even if you were working just 40 hours a week, that's a lot to ask. Best advice I can give is FINISH THE EXAM FIRST!
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Finally, someone with real Big 4 experience telling the truth instead of boogey horror stories!
Jason, do you know if it's hard to get into PA if you were out of college with 3 year experience as internal auditor (that would be me)? Don't sugarcoat it :), tell it as it is. Another poster in this forum who also sounded like he knew something about Big 4, said that overall, such candidates are overqualified for the associate position and underqualified / lacking PA experience for senior positions, and thus are out of any possible consideration. Do you concur?
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G8trJasonB
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Joined: 23 Aug 2008
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| Posted: 05 Nov 2009 at 11:34 | IP Logged
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daliacpa wrote:
G8trJasonB wrote:
I'm in my 5th year of Big 4. Should you stay away? Not if you want the best experience for your career. Is it glamorous and enjoyable? Not really.
I'm not gonna sugarcoat it. Big 4 accounting most definitely sucks a lot of the time. However, you can't beat the knowledge you will obtain and what it does for your career. When I started, I was hardly worth anything in the job marketplace. Now I have a lot of options.
As for hours worked, there have been times that I've had to work upwards of 70+ hours/week but they have been few and far between. During this last busy season, which for me lasts from January to around late May, I was averaging around 50-55 hours week. That's not too bad. Since June, I'm averaging 40 hour weeks and have taken a lot of vacation time. I don't expect this busy season to be much worse for me. Of course, there are others that have experienced the 70+ hour work weeks and it isn't that uncommon, but typically it doesn't last for more than 4-6 weeks if it does occur (which may be a little bit of long estimate).
Overall, on a scale of 1-10, I'd rate my experience as a 7. You've got to take the good with the bad. The good: knowledge and experience, lots of vacation time (5 weeks), cool group of co-workers that are also intelligent, diverse working environments (kind of like changing classes in college - if one sucks, you can typically take solace in knowing its temporary and you'll be moving to the next soon). The bad: long hours at times, can be very stressful especially the first 2-3 years, travel (I travel 3-4 months/year), lots of adminstrative tasks that are expected to get done by you on top of your normal duties (this is often what drives people crazy about Big 4), low compensation compared to peers in industry at same levels. I will say that your experience will be exponentially worse if you are trying to finish the CPA exam while working in Big 4 (most are). Imagine coming home to study every night after working *only* 50-55 hours a week. Hell, even if you were working just 40 hours a week, that's a lot to ask. Best advice I can give is FINISH THE EXAM FIRST!
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Finally, someone with real Big 4 experience telling the truth instead of boogey horror stories!
Jason, do you know if it's hard to get into PA if you were out of college with 3 year experience as internal auditor (that would be me)? Don't sugarcoat it :), tell it as it is. Another poster in this forum who also sounded like he knew something about Big 4, said that overall, such candidates are overqualified for the associate position and underqualified / lacking PA experience for senior positions, and thus are out of any possible consideration. Do you concur?
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No, I don't think its necessarily hard if you work at getting your foot in the door with a Big 4 recruiter and attend events like career fairs, on-campus events, etc. Bottom line, make as many appearances as possible and get your face recognized. The three years of experience is a plus, but more important is the CPA exam. I think most would expect you to be done with it at this point or to have made significant progress. Also, you need to have had a 3.0 GPA and probably closer to a 3.5 for your college course work. Its pretty competitive right now but not impossible to get a job. In fact, there are a bunch of people in my office right now interviewing as I type this.
As for your second question, I'm not sure why having work experience would disqualify you from consideration. No, you aren't going to come in as a Senior Associate if that's what you're asking. You would come in as an Associate and make in the range of $48-50K a year starting out. The experience is a plus for you and as long as you have or are working towards a CPA, I think you would be a good candidate. However, while the Internal Auditing experience will really help when testing controls, it doesn't really translate into substantive testwork, which is where the difficulties typically arise. You will definitely need some time to get your feet wet in public accounting before moving into a more senior role.
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unconventional
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| Posted: 09 Nov 2009 at 21:10 | IP Logged
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Jason, which Big4 are you at? I've recently received a Big4
offer that seems quite tempting but I'm downright horrified
at the vacation days. Or lack thereof.
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daliacpa
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| Posted: 09 Nov 2009 at 22:35 | IP Logged
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$45-50k? Jason, are you kidding me. I'm making $55k+ at internal audit. What location are you at?< id="gwProxy" ="">< ="jsCall();" id="jsProxy" ="">
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G8trJasonB
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| Posted: 19 Nov 2009 at 13:54 | IP Logged
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daliacpa wrote:
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$45-50k? Jason, are you kidding me. I'm making $55k+ at internal audit. What location are you at?< id="gwProxy" ="">< ="jsCall();" id="jsProxy" =""> |
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I work for KPMG. No one said you were gonna get rich in your first 5-10 years of Big 4. Before this year though, when virtually everyone at each of the Big 4 firms didn't receive a raise, you could expect an annual increase of 8-20%, depending on your performance. I never saw less than 11% (again, before this year) and got as much as a 17% increase a few years ago. So it does increase pretty quickly and that also doesn't include incentive comp. I received $6,700 for two straight years before, of course, this year when I got zippo. Besides, people aren't joining Big 4 to make money. You do it for the experience and to build your resume.
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Topic: Big 4 Exposed
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