Skip to main content

big 4 hiring

Would it be out of line if I currently work for a private company to ask one of our Big 4 auditors if they are hiring? 

The Firms are absolutely dying for people these days, so go for it. Definitely not out of line, but funnily enough, it's against policy if it's the other way around. I know of an auditor in an other office who got fired for reaching out to the client and asking if they had available positions. This is a breach of independence, and is thus a good reason to fire you. Yes, a lot of auditors go work for clients, but this is usually because the partners put in a good word for you, and the client is usually not the particular engagement you worked on. In fact, this is pretty common. There have been plenty in the past year. I know of many clients that are looking for senior accountants/assistant controllers with 2-4 years of Big 4 experience.

PS - Stay in private, public sucks.

Comments

Anonymous said…
Hi. Is Big 4 considered as public sector? I thought they are under private sector?
Sonu Soni said…
Hi, Will big 4 hire you if you are coming from one of the clients? It will be like spoiling relations with client.
Anonymous said…
Thanks for answering my question, ended up making the switch. Went through my first busy season, after several years in industry. At least for the moment, working much less hours than before. Keep up the good work, enjoy reading your blog.
Bryce said…
I couldn't agree more, most of my friends who went to work for the big 4 quit within the first year or two, the ones who went with the private sector are mostly still with the same company.

Popular posts from this blog

ADP/Payroll

Just realized that the very payroll/adp reports we all enjoyed looking at in order to see how much our client contacts made, now seem to piss me off. Especially when your main contact, who couldn't tell a debit from a credit, makes significantly more than you, and leaves at 5. It's almost guaranteed to get you in a foul mood and yak with your team about the ridiculous salaries that certain employees get when compared to yours.

should you choose to audit financial services?

I'm trying to decide whether to audit financial services companies or non-financial services companies. What would you say are the pros and cons of either industries? Do individuals who choose non-FS have less career mobility within the firm or if they decide not to stay with the B4 after a few years? Really depends on what you'd like to do after (unless you really love auditing). If you want to a controller,etc. at a p/e firm or a hedge fund down the road, you'd want to go into financial services. The pay won't be too bad, especially if you get a share of the insane bonuses they dole out. If you want to audit industries with tangible products and want to get a better understanding of the operations of such businesses, then other industries are the way to go.In terms of mobility outside the firm, auditing other industries is the way to go since you have plenty of options when you exit the audit world. For example, in 2008, after Lehman collapsed, it was incredibly hard ...

auditing vs consulting

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 ...