Life of an auditor

Wow. What a crazy market it's been the last couple weeks. Among the casualties..Lehman, Merrill and AIG. The Fed decides to bail out AIG, but not the stock holders. They then decide to ban short selling on financials. Now there are rumors that they're trying to help take distressed assets of company books. Unbelievable. Potentially a $1 trillion plan. Investing currently is not for the faint of heart. For those who haven't really been following what's going on, please do so. This is stuff for the ages. Anyway, enough rambling. So how is this affecting the big 4? I had a conversation with some partners concerning this issue, and they believe that the big 4 are "recession-tolerant", not "recession-proof". Yes, clients are fighting back on the fees this year more than ever before. Yes, some clients are being swallowed up by the market and thus no longer exist. Yes, they're using this "crisis" as an excuse to offer lower raises than in year...

"If one is interested in going the CFO/Controller route by beginning in Assurance, which sector do you think is best to start in with a Big 4 firm? (Financial Services, Consumer Products, Insurance, etc.)" Say you'd like to be the controller of a manufacturing firm, get on as many manufacturing clients as you can, including publics, stay until manager, and you should be able to get a controller position at the firm. As far as the CFO position goes, you'd either have to work to get there from the controller position, or in some instances, CFO positions are offered to senior managers and partners.