<p>“what are the benefits for working for the BIG 4? The way people describe it is as if it is slavery.”</p>
<p>I wouldn’t call it slavery, more like indentured servant.</p>
<p>Just take a tour around one of the grinder offices (LA, NY) of Deloitte lead tax or PwC ISG around this time of the year and you’ll see drones of mindless zombies who are anti-social and ****ed off about working until midnight or later every day until 9/15.</p>
<p>go blue, </p>
<p>is the traveling local? Do you get to fly to other states? The traveling must suck but it must open up many networking opportunities with folks from fortune 500 companies…no?</p>
<p>Also in the big 4–is it more of a matter of them letting you go or you lasting and not quitting?</p>
<p>Travel is local for audit. For advisory practices it is a little wider area, typically. If you are in the strategy advisory groups, then those are on a full national scale.</p>
<p>Goose, I’m currently an Accounting/IS major and I was wondering how much travel do individuals with skills in both areas travel? </p>
<p>If I get placed in their IT/Risk department, do I travel on a local or national level?</p>
<p>With the Accounting/Is joint major, would I still be considered for solely accounting positions if their happens to be a shortage for IT accounting jobs?</p>
<p>I’ve been contemplating back and forth between Accounting/Finance and Accounting/Information Systems.</p>
<p>I’ve refrained from Accounting/Finance due to the similarities.</p>
<p>I have a question regarding the MACC degree. Im currently entering my junior year at UF with 73 credits. I am unsure whether i should pursue the 3/2 program offered or just get a bachelor and minor in something for extra credits. Will not getting a masters limit me in the future? I am just unsure if i want to do strictly accounting my whole life but dunno if id ever go back to school. My goal is the big 4 after school so i realize i have to be cpa eligible. Also another concern is i have pell grants, bright futures and prepaid and learned that my senior year i would lose scholarships and federal funding. So basically would the big 4 want me to get the masters or what minor would be better suited(if it matters at all). Will i be screwing myself over if i cant get the gpa or recruited by big 4? This is only my second year at UF cause i came in with a lot of credits so prepaid and bright futures might be able to help pay for masters at undergrad rate. Lastly, if i only did bachelors i would take 4 4 credit accounting classes and tax and audit(3 credits each cause they are at graduate 6000 level)- i personally think they do this to try and force us into 3/2 program. Anyway i would appreciate any advice, i got accepted to kpmg interview workshop next week so i would like to know if i should ask any certain questions. Also im taking gmat on 20th cause i plan on taking hard classes next summer but at this point im just hoping for 500 in case i wanna do 3/2 program</p>
<p>I obviously wanna be eligible for a cpa and one day maybe wanna be a CFO or something just not sure yet</p>
<p>illicitx, it looks like you are considering IT Attest Advisory, Risk and Control Advisory, Internal Audit advisory…in these disciplines, you will do a good bit of local travel with some national travel sprinkled in depending on your client.</p>
<p>You are set up great with that combo.</p>
<p>Thanks for the clarification…</p>
<p>Is there more flexibility in the Accounting/IS rather than just Accounting? Could you provide some more info on how it can benefit me and what additional IT certifications I should get?</p>
<p>How are the hours? Are the Big 4 IT hours heavily slave induced? (60-70 hour workweeks)?</p>
<p>Just as do the hours for most large accounting firms. I know regional firms where the staff work 45 hours a week in one office and 60+ hours a week in other offices. The office I work at is for a regional firm and we work 55+ during tax season but one of our offices lost clients and until they laid people off they worked around 45 during the busy season.</p>
<p>The partners want to make $ off you so you will work long hours. They don’t make as much $ if you work less hours. Realize your boss directly benefits from the hours you work. This doesn’t hold true for industry as you are just overhead and not billing out your hours.</p>
<p>The reason why the hours at Big 4 are so crappy is managing your overall utilization for the year while not letting the budget get out of hand. It doesn’t look good to kill the budget and write off a bunch of time. Hopefully the manager can bill some hours out of scope but the client won’t like that and won’t pay if its not value added. </p>
<p>You’ll probably have to eat your time and pick up extra work for all the time you ate. Hell, I ate entire weekends during busy season just to keep the budget on track.</p>
<p>My partners give me very realistic budgets though so I usually meet them and do not have to eat hours. Also I am pretty fast.</p>
<p>Valley: That’s good. I wish all firms were like that. On recurring clients with the same team and a partner that will pass on SALY, that’s the way it should be. </p>
<p>It’s hard to identify if or when things will blow up though in creating the budget. If you have a new team and you discover that we’ve been doing it wrong for the past 3 years and an accounting method issue comes up, then that’s the time to start your charge hour diet.</p>
<p>It also depends on the firm culture. It’s standard policy to tell people not to eat their time, but if the manager/partner is on your ass about it, then well, you are screwed if you don’t. I’m willing to take shots in exchange for a happy manager who is willing to vouch for me. </p>
<p>It’s also good to avoid working for people who you don’t get along with personally. Those kind of people have a hard time separating personal issues with work issues. Personal issues combined with engagement issues almost always results in failure no matter how hard you try and could result in a poor evaluation if you can’t stand up for yourself.</p>
<p>Hey guys, I will be a college freshmen at Baruch College this fall and my goal is to work for one of the big 4s. Do you know how the recruitment is at Baruch (a statistical answer would be preferred instead “recruited heavily”)? I’m not sure should I stay there or would I have a better chance, say SUNY Binghamton ( people and the school’s website said 95% of the accounting majors got an offer from the big 4s). Thanks for reading!</p>
<p>NCDave, I attended Baruch abot 40 years ago. I got interviewed by any Big 4 that I wanted. At that time, many accounting partners in NY attended Baruch. Although I don’t know if this is still true, I would bet that Baruch has a lot of connections with all of the accounting firms in NY. Check with your career services department.</p>
<p>I want to an a parenthetical. The key at that time was to get at least a 3.5 in accounting and overall too. If you can do that, you should be fine.</p>
<p>would a numberpad on the laptop be necessary for accounting/finance majors? are the courses more about data entry or application/knowledge of rules/procedures</p>
<p>any current business undergrads could chime in! thanks!</p>
<p>yes it is definitely very helpful. i made sure to upgrade my sony laptop to a 19 inch screen so i could get the number pad on the side. it made my online accounting homework much easier</p>
<p>Quick question:</p>
<p>I’m not really aware of the internal structure / business practices of major Big 4 accounting firms and larger accounting regional firms but do finance majors have any place there? </p>
<p>I think it’s safe to suggest that these firms do not strictly recruit accounting majors. I’m not necessarily looking into accounting but was wondering if there are potential career paths for finance majors. </p>
<p>My major is Finance and it’s more catered towards wealth management / investments (derivatives, MBS, the likes).</p>
<p>School me,
Thanks!</p>
<p>bowlhead, I would agree that the big 4 probably don’t strictly recruit accounting majors. It would probably also be safe to say that the VAST, VAST majority of the people who do get recruited are accounting majors. Take that as you wish.</p>
<p>taxguy, from your experience, have you seen a high demand (and lack of supply in the work force) for IT audit jobs or positions that prefer a double major in acct/MIS?</p>
<p>don’t big 4 / larger regional firms also offer consulting (albeit specialized /technical) gigs to their clients? taxguy have you seen strategist / management consultants within an accounting firm? or would i be better off looking at only consulting firms as possible career places.</p>