Life of an auditor

have heard a few rumors that I was hoping you could clarify for me. 1) Big 4 firms do not hire on outside senior associates because they only recruit from their pool of staff associates. 2) Staff associates are only hired on straight of out college. So if you cant get an intern/job with a big 4 while you are in school, its too late to apply. I am soon to have my CPA and CFE and also have 2+ years of audit experience with a small CPA firm. I have not applied to the Big 4 because of these rumors I've heard. 1) Big 4 firms definitely do hire people with prior experience in audit firms. But they obviously have not since the recession because they've laid off so many personnel internally. It really depends on the essence of economics, supply and demand. If the firms need more seniors because the turnover has been high, they will accept external applications. So it's definitely not too late to apply, especially around this time because the turnover rate is slowly going back to n...

I'm wondering if you could describe the work they do at Japanese/Chinese/French/etc Services Groups. (For example, the "Chinese Services Group" at Deloitte U.S.). Do they interact with other lines of services? What is the perception toward these groups within the firms? These groups are always intriguing. Most people wonder WTF these groups do, and whether they are part of the audit practice. Then you get to understand that they do the same job, except it's on Companies based out of the respective foreign countries with operations in the US. Differences could include translation to IFRS from US GAAP,etc. Due to the number of people in these groups, they often pick up people in the regular audit practice to work with them on these audits. So for example, you can get to work with the French business group on a french sub-order if they need resources. From a perception perspective, it's not really that different. You are identified as a French Business Group member,...

I was wondering if you could break down the career opportunities in auditing and consulting (in a big 4). I know that consulting pays more in a big 4 and has more interesting work, but it seems that auditing has extremely good exit opportunities (Financial controller, CFO etc). Any thoughts on which is better in the long run? Well there's different consulting services offered by public accounting companies - the most popular being IT consulting and risk consulting. There are also other consulting services offered, but these two hire the most. Do they pay more? Yes, but not by much. Not enough for you to say: Shoot, the $$ is a huge reason for me to move over. Is the work more interesting than audit? Yes. You're actually looking over a company's processes and telling them what to do instead of what not to do (audit). Everyone I know who's made the switch likes it waay better than audit. In the long run though, choosing audit vs consulting really depends on what you want ...