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July 29, 2009If your university or college is worth its salt and is a “target school” for the recruiting, chances are that the Big 4 firms will throw some lavish parties for you – the students – at some swanky resorts in the area. Your school’s accounting association will typically be your ticket in to these events.
Once at the said party, you will find good food, an open bar (unless you’re a BYU student), and partners and senior managers who look like they are made of money. The Big 4 people attending may talk to you about how their particular firm is the cat’s pajamas, but most of them will delight in discussing tall tales from their sign-off parties with other partners and associates present. Over the course of the night, the highest ranking partner present will bust out an oversized check for a ridiculous sum of money for your accounting association or business program. There may be a speech or two from the “elected leadership” of the accounting association about how much this money will help the association, and how they loved every minute of their summer internship, and how they look forward to working with their Big 4 after graduation. The night will go on, and the booze will keep flowing. There probably will be dancing at some point. At the end of the night, well-fed and a bit tipsy, you will go home. If you have played your cards right, it may be with that cute boy or girl from one of your classes. Hurray for lowered inhibitions and free alcohol!
Time will pass. Depending on how far away from graduation you are, you will inevitably start to think about what you want to do after college. You will start thinking of all the places you should apply. Eventually, you will think back to that night of the party with the Big 4. You will start to rationalize.
“Working for them can’t be all that bad. Yeah, I’ve heard some people complaining about long hours, but man do those people know how to party. I had such a good time with them! And if worse comes to worst, and even if I have to work over-time here and there, it will be well worth it. I mean the partners were rocking monogrammed shirt cuffs with expensive cuff-links for Pete’s/fuck sake. They have to be rolling in so much cash!”
Three hours into this process, you will have convinced yourself that a Big 4 offer is your gateway to designer clothes, caviar, champagne, models and whatever other ridiculous things people buy with money.
Wrong!
The Big 4 firms go out of their way to give this appearance of extravagance. The expensive dinners and parties are the proverbial carrots dangled in front of the donkey (you). It’s a subliminal way for you to start associating a career with a Big 4 firm with monetary success. The starting salaries for associates on average is $55,000 and can vary anywhere between $42,000 to $70,000 depending on if you decide to go work in Montana or New York. This money seems rather enticing. It’s certainly much higher than the average starting salary for most college graduates, and Big 4 recruiters are usually quick to point out this fact. However, what they are not telling you is the fact that as an associate for a Big 4 firm, you are going to be working way more than the person making $35,000. So, if you factor in the number of hours most associates work during the course of the year, most of them are making somewhere between $10 to $25 an hour. That’s right, you are making somewhere between what an In-N-Out worker makes and what an unskilled road construction worker makes.
As an astute business and accounting student, which I assume you are, you should not find it difficult to see that being compensated $10 an hour is a terrible return on your investment of $80,000+ for your college education. The compensation at a Big 4 for the staff is so horrible that there are several class action lawsuits related to compensation that have been filed against them or are currently under investigation. The moderately handsome annual salary offered is a good way to ensure that they don’t have to pay overtime, in case you end up working overtime.
And you are definitely going to be working overtime. The Big 4 recruiting makes a big deal about comparing the number of hours worked by people at Big 4 with those at people at investment banks. That’s mostly bullshit. The rural areas aside, a Big 4 auditor in a large metropolitan area can expect to work a similar number of hours, and be paid about half as much, if not less. You should expect to spend almost every waking hour during the busy season at work, and if you’re lucky enough to work for an office with a “perpetual busy season” then double the fun!
Your friends, family, spouses, girlfriends, boyfriends, will all play second fiddle to the “needs of the team.” This is a very basic expectation that most supervisors have for incoming staff; as a result, don’t expect a big hug from your manager at the end of the engagement where he or she thanks you for your sacrifices. Most managers and partners have been in the same place as the staff and were shown no mercy, and as such, don’t really feel any regret or remorse in making you work until 2:00 AM, even on your birthday. A lot of them will not care if your relationships are falling apart because you can’t spend any time with your loved ones. Prior commitments to all non-engagement related events also go out the window.
The stress increases exponentially, as associates are promoted to senior associates. Many of them will age a lot faster because of the stress and tension. Within your first year of working at the firm as an associate for a Big 4, you will see a senior associate do one of the following: 1) Cry, 2) Punch a wall (car door also works), 3) Hyperventilate, 4) Break down completely. A few minutes/hours later, defeated by the tyranny, they will return to their desk and subserviently start their work again.
Welcome to the life of the Big 4.
There are 15 comment(s) so far.
I went to a recruiting event of a mid-sized firm the other day. It was the most boring and excruciating 3 hours I ever spent because they kept talking in detail about what they do.
That is when I realized that I have never heard a Big 4 firm talk in detail about their work. Obviously they realize how crappy it sounds and most students would probably run away.
The competition for the brightest students is intense amongst the Big 4. Chances are if you get an offer from one, you will get an offer from all of them. So, it’s in their best interest to impress you as much as possible, and get you to sign with them.
This is why interns are wined and dined a lot, while the actual staff is stuck working and ordering in.
“elected leadership” is the best combination of two words with quotation marks in the history of the internet, for tonight – for so many of the right reasons.
but come on…lets not forget how much value it adds to ur resume, when u wanna switch to industry..it has almost become a pre requisite that u need to have solid big 4 experience to break into upper level management jobs else where….
@ Al Dawson: I agree with you, which is why I wrote the other side to this argument about three months back. Try giving it a read:
http://www.narrowingthegaap.com/recruiting/why-you-should-work-for-the-big-4/
The big 4 recruiting strategy is ingenious.
Find the most attractive male and female third/fourth year accounting students, booze them up, let them dance, show-off a life of glamour and luxury, and sit back as they willingly sacrifice their 20s by working insane hours for what they think is a good salary.
Some people thrive in that environment, which is good. More power to them.
Not me though. I want a balanced life.
I recently accepted a position as a tax auditor with the state, and I won’t make a lot of money, but rarely will I work more than 37.5 hours.
Actually, I just found out my starting salary is only 4 grand less than a new associate at a Big 4.
@NYSTaxGuy: The starting salary for Big 4 associates is pathetic given the number of hours they end up working, not to mention the stress. That being said, you don’t work for the Big 4 to get a big paycheck from the start. You work with them to get the experience, so when the time comes, you can ditch them and work in private industry for a much bigger pay check. And 37.5 hours?! I am pretty jealous!!
I just completed an internship with the big four during busy season and they do not lie about working long hours. However, I enjoyed the internship and will be taking a full time offer. It was tough working in the Big 4, but it did not even closely compare with my time spent sitting in concrete towers on guard duty in Iraq . Life is all about perception. Don’t forget how much we have it made in this country. Elders tell me that people do not honor hard work anymore. I believe them.
@Superdad
Well said…
I am working or a company and drawing 100k. I have just got an offer from the BIg 4 and they want to pay me less by 20k. I am not sure if I should take this offer or not. Can anyone give me advise on this??
Really need help this time and want to make a decision.
I am working or a company and drawing 120k. I have just got an offer from the BIg 4 and they want to pay me less by 20k. I am not sure if I should take this offer or not. Can anyone give me advise on this??
Really need help this time and want to make a decision.
I may be a little too late to responding to this: but it all depends on what you want your career trajectory to be. If you’re an accounting manager somewhere, I would personally take the 20K cut, and put my time in the Big 4. At least in the States, if you want a decent shot at being a controller or CFO, you better have a Big 4 employer in the past.
I work for a pharmaceutical consulting group. I’m fresh out of college and I work in a privately held company. I make more money than my friends working for KPMG, work less hours, and my controller does not have her CPA license (she makes bank ). So do what makes you happy, its about knowledge, anyone that won’t hire you if you haven’t worked for a Big 4 firm isn’t worth working for.
Yo man, I have the same situation, I was just offered $100K + performance based bonus from a local firm vs, an offer from a Big 4 that is over $20K less. As a CPA and CFE with years of professional experience, I find this pay cut hard to swallow. I made the decision to reject this Big 4 offer after talking to my headhunter who told me the reason I got this $100K from this other firm was because I was not from the Big 4. He told me I beat out many Big 4 he sent to his client and his client only liked me. My headhunter says once I take a pay cut, it will create a hurdle for my next job in terms of salary negotiation and job opportunities. Pay often represents one’s job performance and my future employers will see a lot about me just by looking at the salary I command in my current job. So my headhunter advised me against choosing the Big 4 unless they can match my salary dollar for dollar. I guess it depends. Lots of people from Harvard are also unemployed while lots of people from a community college have jobs. Lots of people from Big 4 have good jobs in industry but many don’t have good jobs or good offers either, like in my case, my headhunter told me that I beat out the other candidates from the big 4 he forwarded to his client. Many big 4 people want to get out too to get this $100K job with a local firm. It depends on the individual. But if you read the book “How To Become CEO”, the first advice in the book is to always take the job that offers more money. My next job will have to be more than $100K and this is how people advance. You go from manager from one place for 100K and the next job as a senior manager to $120K and you keep moving. When you have the title of a VP and the salary of $200K, many doors will open, a couple years of big 4 becomes really irrelevant. As someone who has the ability to command a $200K pay, you can go to anywhere and be a controller or CFO. My headhunter told me today a big 4 that offers 20K less for me to join, tomorrow, another big 4 may offer me 40K more to join at a very senior position after I further polish my skills with this firm that offers me 100K to do more challenging work. But once I take a dive and bury myself low in the Big 4 sweatshop now, it will be hard to get out of it because there are too many people at that level.
If I can get a big 4 offer without prior big 4 experience, I am sure I will still become CFO for other companies in the future for no big 4 experience. Taking a 20K pay cut to just have the big 4 name is rather silly.
I just want to respond to Al Dawson’s comment about the requisite of solid big 4 experience for upper management in industry. Hmmm, not everyone in the upper management in the industry has big 4 experience, many of them are actually promoted from sales. (from my observation) Many CEOs are former marketing or sales VP….Yes, “solid big 4 experience” will increase you shot for upper financial management in industry, but it has to be “solid”, a few years as a senior associate in a big 4 isn’t “solid” enough. Very often, not even a “manager” at a Big 4 is solid enough. One got to climb to “senior manager” in Big 4 in order to be considered solid. This is just based on what I learnt and what I saw from all my years practicing public accounting and advising clients in the industry. But how many years do you want to slave in a sweatshop environment and untangle all the red tape to become a senior manager in a big 4? I think a better path will be to get whatever job that offers more money or better work life balance, get as many relevant solid skills as you can and get an executive MBA from a prestigious school, then it will be a better route to senior management than just a big 4 experience. Many CFO jobs in big publicly traded companies are offered to partners from Big 4, not senior associates or associates. After the big 4, seniors still need years to climb up the ladder in the company if they want that controller job.