Could it vary by location ? I have been told of several who left audit / assurance after a few years due to boredom and moved to different areas of tax.
It could be by location. However, in general, if someone were to transfer from assurance/audit to tax after 3 to 4 years in audit and because the learning curve is steep, that person will start out technically behind his/her tax peers. This can make it a difficult promotion to the next level. Transferring to tax and then being able to function in tax competently with the peers and clients for a couple of years (before the next promotion) are the issues. There are exceptions to general rule. I can see this happening to a person transferring from audit or tax to consulting/advisory.
Ha - well her long term boyfriend is in the Army so she is really hoping to be agile in her career and make a name for herself enough to choose her location and travel for work so right now it works for me AND her lol.
Oh it is hard - but if you can make it there, you can make it anywhere – I found once I had solid positive experience at one of these firms I had no trouble finding a job. It is NOT for everyone for sure, but I was a road warrior for many years - M - F, not Th, but today there are much more benefits, parental leave etc. than in my day.
@toomanyteens Congratulations to your daughter! It is very impressive to land an internship at KPMG!. And Hopefully after the internship she impresses them enough that they want to keep her after graduation. My company likes to retain good interns if all possible.
My company uses a lot of consultants, McKinsey used to be our go-to. But now KPMG seems to be the prefer vendor. I hope they pay your daughter WELL, because these guys are making so much money from us lol.
@Nhatrang: Isn’t there a significant functional difference between MBB consulting services and Big 4 advisory ?
One is used for planning & recommendations (MBB), while the other (Big 4) is used for implementation of such changes.
@Publisher I’ve been told by many that the lines are getting blurred today (between true strategy consulting and management / operations consulting). Essentially, at some level they all do all. MBB have set up lines to do implementation and the Big 4 are getting much more into C Suite MC (less pure strategy). Lots of clients want “end to end” solutions.
Anecdotal but older bro is a former MBB (back when they ONLY hired newbies from top MBA programs) and he told me that his firm has changed so much it’s hardly noticeable - in scope of work, size, recruiting, etc. Just a few thousand headcount in the 80s and now they are 10x- 20x the size.
MBB is still the gold standard but the Big 4 have certainly closed the gap (measured by they compete with and win alot of contracts).
@rickle1 : Thank you for your response & insights.
I think that the Big 4 stepped away from MBB type consulting after the Enron scandal which ended Arthur Andersen as a Big 5. Were worried about conflict of interest issues with audit/assurance clients.
My understanding is that the only Big 4 with a true consulting division is Deloitte. But, I agree, that the other Big 4 firms are always seeking ways to expand revenue & the lines do get a bit blurred.
PwC has ventured into the practice of law–beyond the practice of law common to accountants since 1913–by opening a Wash DC law firm a couple of years ago.
Occasional chatter in legal news services about combining law & accounting.
I don’t know, but the kind of work we (my area within the company) need consultant for is strategy. For example, we need the next gen of quality systems to meet with the today demand (AI, cyber security, real time, data analytics, etc…) our quality systems are outdated. So we have KPMG in do full assessments of the current state, taking VOCs, facilitating workshops and braining storming sessions, design future state, recommend technologies that meet the future needs, etc. and etc…
Any of the companies that have consulting functions will be able to do those type of work. I am with my company for over 20 years, and we have had many vendors, and still do (there are a list of vendors we go to) in to do this type of work for us, some of them are PwC, Deloitte, McKinsey, KPMG, Gartner, etc. just to name a few. KPMG for some reason showed up a lot in the last couple of years for the projects that I am involved in. But McKinsey is still a strong player, they are very much present here, but for huge projects I see more KPMG leading.
We have a culture where Consultants are like a pacifier. I haven’t seen a project with >10M that we don’t have high level constant (NOT talking about the implementation piece) to help us with the initial business case.
For specific implementation type of skill set, we have a list of 100 vendors that we can go to. The KPMG/McKinsey guys don’t usually stay behind to do implementation simply because we can’t afford them (typically $200 to $500 per hour from lowest to highest level).
Sounds like your company is using PwC for cost reasons. PwC and MBB are not in the same league.
To be honest, the last project I used PwC was maybe 12 years ago, we haven’t used them much. I just named them there bc maybe some other groups in my company still using them. With over 130K employees, hard to know what other people are doing in the company.
I didn’t realize till now how happy and proud to really be for youngest son then. He just started with Deloitte the first of October. Wow. I knew they were big but not that well known. (not my area of experience or expertise at all)
^^^ I love love Deloitte employees - Been working with them for the last few years, not strategy work but day to day work (developers, data architects, testing, validation, etc.). I rely on them so much that I don’t think we can function without them. I have shamelessly asked some of them to join our company as permanent employee but too much paperwork and headache I usually just give up. They really know how to pick their employees. You have a lot to be proud for your son!
Yes, thank you! What a nice review of his new company.
I like to make my consultants eat their dog food. You come up with the strategy then you do the implementation. My favorite day is usually the demo day (just show me). 
I generally like to go with boutique/niche firms.