Life of an auditor

The gaggle of summer interns are here. Is it just me or have firms decided to stock up on female auditors? One thing's for sure, they definitely make the employees look old. Interning was a blast. Do little if any work on a variety of clients, party all the time in the city with your peers, and then get that nice job offer at the end of the summer, so that way you'll have no motivation to up your grades during your senior year in college.

Ok, things are just downright weird now. All the associates find the job "interesting" now? They "like" this job now, and are "happy" to be here. Come on now, don't tell me that people have changed significantly over the last two years. This is truly fascinating. I was just talking to some of my peers about this change in staff associate personality. I mean, I understand that people are peeing in their pants in this economy, and that they have to say all the right things, and be as productive as they can be. Heck, it helps me out that they're suddenly all about getting things done on time. But it still freaks me out. Higher level reviewers are now inflating reviews so as to save people from layoffs. HR, after noticing this, has been trying to widen the ratings between peers so as to get levels of differentiation for raises/layoffs. Sure, the firms are getting new clients, but they seem to be doing it for steep discounts. How much longer can they ke...

Okay fellow auditors...what happened to the complaining? Your zest to leave the audit field. I know there's plenty of accounting jobs out there. We still get those recruiter calls. Nobody's taking the bait and leaving. It's not like our industry is doing great. We're having layoffs too. Many of you have your CPAs, so it's not like you're waiting for the hours or anything. Are the firms just doing a better job at recruiting and retaining people? I mean, people stopped leaving even before the economy dipped. If the firms rely on people leaving so they can keep dipping into the college farm, and these people don't leave, do they have to keep laying off people all the time regardless of the economy. This is especially problematic at the promotional levels - senior associates and managerial levels. No firm can afford to have a plethora of people at these expensive levels, especially when the number of clients stay the same. HR's implicitly saying they're ...

is there a huge rivalry among the big 4 firms? Great Question. They obviously compete in order to get new clients and retain clients. They also compete when it comes to recruiting at colleges, that's for sure. I'd consider it a healthy rivalry. The firms strive to match each other's salaries and benefits every year, in different forms of remuneration. Amongst the non-partners, there's no real sense of the other firms being our "enemy'. It's definitely not a pepsi-coke style rivalry. As long as there's enough to go around, I don't think it'll reach that level. All 4 firms play a big role in helping the FASB set accounting rules. They meet frequently on helping set standards, etc. etc. etc. So many of us have friends at the rest of the firms, mostly from our graduating college class. So from what we hear, it seems to be pretty much the same sense at all firmns. I might be wrong though. Thoughts?

So this is what it feels like post-layoffs at the office? Rumors were flying around before you turned around. People were checking schedules to figure out names that no longer existed. One thing about these firms, they might take time to schedule people on client or fix scheduling conflicts, but when people are no longer with the firm, they remove their names from the system faster than Vin Diesel can hit the 60 mark using those fast & furious cars. But everybody's on high alert. HR's trying to feel the current vibe. People keep checking their email frequently, worried that they might get that dreaded email from HR. The staff associates are keeping the grapevine strong by wringing new information from all over the area. Wait, we have to please our firms now? Not the other way round? Big 4 culture gone wild. The associates suddenly start to become much more receptive to requests from seniors and above. Senior associates become more responsive to managers. Most people aren...

Here's a great article written by Francine Mckenna on the recent happenings in the Big 4. She talks about the recent layoffs and why they've happened. For those of you currently in the Big 4, it's a must-read: Retheauditors

Just had an interviewee shoot some follow-up questions to me. A decent email, which I helped answer. You know how interviewees ask follow-up questions after taking your business cards. I would think it'd be questions like "do you like what you do", "how many hours do you work"..stuff like that. Reminded me of a forward (legit email) from a couple years ago that I thought I'd share with those who haven't seen it yet (I've X'ed out all names and emails)... From: XXXXX Sent: Tuesday, November 27, 2007 11:49 AM To: XXXXXX Subject: KPMG Questions XXXX, Thank you for letting me e-mail you. XXX has been very helpful with my questions about KPMG, but I was wanting an opinion from someone currently working for the firm. I am having a hard time deciding on who to go to work for in Dallas. I am getting a lot of fluff answers from recruiters. Is it okay if you give me the true scoop on how it is working for unnessary? The following are very important questio...