Life of an auditor

What is your average length of overnight travel for audit? Also how is this compared to consulting? What would you say is the percentage of time you are at 'out of town' clients? Audit: There a lot of factors that play a role in determining this. Some people never travel out of state, some people travel 5-6 months a year. Some people have 1-2 clients that involve traveling 2-3 weeks a year. Your position also plays a role in determining how much you travel. So if you're a staff associate, and you are on a client with a facility in Nebraska, you'd have to be with the team the whole time. If you're a manager and above, you'll go to Nebraska for 2-3 days tops. You could ask to get put on jobs that require travel, and if you have personal commitments at home (baby,etc.), you can ask to get put on clients where you don't have to travel much. Your request will not always be heeded, but the firms will try. Consulting: Buy a carry-on, toiletries kit, etc. etc. becau...

I'm currently working for PwC and we are constantly getting emails about them raising the "finders" bonus for outside hiring. I don't know about the other big 4 but ever since the recession and the fact that they cut down hiring and people are leaving, we are now desperate for people! I would recommend applying ASAP. I'm in the Pittsburgh office but I know that from talking with our PwC people all offices are looking to hire external or from anywhere for that matter. PWC is definitely increasing hiring across the board in all groups, more than the rest of the firms. But the other firms have also begun to advertise referral awards since the need for personnel in 1-2 groups have increased. Linkedin may be a good resource to find recruiter contacts for those interested.

"I have spent a few years in corporate and graduated from college 5 years ago. I have passed the FAR section of the CPA exam so far. My question is, what are the chances of me at 30 years old, getting into public accounting? I don't expect to get into the Big4 unless I was a recent graduate but will the public firms still look at my GPA? This got me thinking about age. At 30, do you really want to get a job where you're going to be taking instructions from 23-29 year olds for your first five years? Can you deal with a busy season where you're going to be the one taking food orders every day? Recent college grads telling you to make copies for them? Easier said than done, no? If i was hiring for the big 4, i'd honestly shy away from people above a certain age for their sake. Don't get me wrong, age discrimination is illegal, and firms do hire older people at times, but I wouldn't recommend it. You might not fit in culture wise also since many of the activiti...

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 ...

This link's making the rounds amidst the big 4, an animated depiction of a hypothetical conversation between an auditor and his boss. Some people think it's the most hilarious thing ever, but i'd have to give it a 6 on a scale of 10. They could have taken this much further, but even though the concept was great, the content wasn't exactly must-watch tv. Does it truly reflect conversations amongst auditors? Snippets, yes. Are there bosses like that? Yes. Are there subordinates like that? Yes. Is it very common? Not really, but not too far off.