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biggs
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Joined: 26 Nov 2010
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Posted: 19 Nov 2011 at 01:11 \| IP Logged

You're not going to get a senior position without any
audit experience. It's a hard job, so you pretty much
have to have the equivalent senior experience coming from
a different public accounting firm.

That is not to say that it is impossible to get an
"experienced" position. I'm at a big 4 and know people
who come in from industry. They are allowed to enter as
experienced hires, but will essentially have to train
from scratch like all the other new hires/first years to
learn the firm's audit methodologies.

I think the most important thing that would help you in
getting a job at a Big 4, or at least getting noticed for
an interview, is a referral from someone that currently
works at the firm. Every single person I know that has
joined as an experienced hire has mentioned being
referred.

Fuhrman2408
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Posted: 30 Nov 2011 at 16:26 \| IP Logged

db729 wrote:

Honestly, I rarely hear about someone coming into Big 4 without either 1) being recruited from undergrad/MAcc or 2) have previous public accounting experience at a lower tier firm. Off the top of my head, I can only think of two instances.

I agree with this. I'm going through route #2 right now. When I was in college, the Big 4 did not interest me and I went the option of a midsized firm. I stuck around there for 2 years and got my CPA before moving to corporate. I was a core member of an SAP Implementation and now that the implementation is over I've been looking for move my career along and feel that I can't go it where I'm at...

I managed to get my foot in the door at PwC through some connections in my network and I had my interview today with a Partner and Sr. Manager at PwC. It went pretty well and they gave me the impression that I'm probably going to have an offer pretty soon.

In addition, I've been approached the Sr. Manager on my company's audit about joining his firm, KPMG. It's still in the early stages with that and I've made him aware of my PwC interview to see if he can help push things along.

With all of that being said, I'm been targeted for hire as an experienced associate at both KPMG and PwC. I wouldn't spend any time applying for Senior positions if you don't have any Public Accounting experience. Try to network with those around you who have Big 4 experience and see if you can get your foot in the door at the associate level!

CPA@23
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Joined: 07 Jul 2010
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Posted: 26 Apr 2012 at 02:58 \| IP Logged

db729 wrote:

I'm going to speak from the audit side (although I
imagine tax is the same), but for the senior position,
they ONLY hire people with previous senior experience at
a public accounting firm. Coming from industry, you
understand GAAP, but you don't understand audit
methodology, how to manage the team dynamics, run
engagements, etc. Very little skills are transferable in
order to fulfill the responsibilities of a senior. Being
an auditor and being an accountant are very different.

I agree with this in the sense that you will need to
learn the firm's audit methodology once you start working
for Big 4, which is something that you do not already
know despite the fact that you are a CPA. However, I have
heard about people being hired at Sr. Associate level
directly from the industry with no prior public
accounting experience. So, if there is a need for
industry specific knowledge at the firm, you do have a
chance of being hired at Sr. Associate level. Experienced
hire decisions are usually made on case-by-case basis. Is
the company that you worked for being audited by a Big
Four firm? I would try to do a bit of networking and be
able to elaborate on how your experience will enable you
to handle the responsibilities of an Audit Senior.

The problem is that experienced candidates applying for
Staff level positions are usually at a disadvantage
because they are considered to be harder to coach than
candidates who are 22-25 yrs. old.

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