What's true & what's not about the Big 4: a guide for students
Frances Chan
Do the Big 4 firms – Deloitte, EY, KPMG, and PwC – live up to the hype? We looked at five common beliefs about the Big 4 and uncovered whether they're true through our survey data (of Big 4 juniors since 2018), interviews with real employees, and more.
- You'll have great exit options
- You'll get great training
- You'll get exposure to a wide variety of industries
- You'll be exposed to many different clients
- If you love the internship, you'll love the job
#1 You'll have great exit options
👍 True in these cases
You do have great exit options if you're leaving the Big 4 for related roles – namely, roles that use the skills and industry knowledge you developed at the Big 4.
After six months at KPMG, I'd get a LinkedIn message or cold call every two weeks from local recruiting firms. Lots of companies want to hire out of public accounting.
Once I got promoted to Senior Auditor (which usually happens at around the two-year mark), it became once a week. It was almost annoying since some of these calls came when I was in the thick of busy season.
But yeah, I would say my Big 4 role did help set me up for a wide variety of accounting roles afterwards.
– Former senior auditor @ KPMG, now senior accountant at a local company
It's also quite common for Big 4 people to be hired into a client's company – assuming you have a good relationship with your clients.
Usually people here will go to the client-side of work they do at EY. So for example in my practice (regulatory compliance), our exit options tend to be the banks we consult for, since we are already familiar with their compliance, audit, and business lines. – Consulting manager @ EY
Besides landing an in-house role at a company, many former Big 4 people also move to other public accounting firms, doing similar things. They might move to a mid-sized firm or to another big firm, even jumping ship to another Big 4.
Some people jump around Big 4's, even boomeranging back to the same firm before. They get a 15-20% pay bump every time they move. It's a career path of sorts. – Consulting manager @ EY
Some people leave the field of accounting altogether, equipped with transferrable skills and industry knowledge. This former PwC associate, for instance, became a recruiter who specializes in recruiting accounting and finance professionals. So he gets to use his knowledge of the field to help other accountants land better jobs – and he gets paid more than before!
So there are also lots of other roles that'll allow you to put your newfound skills and industry knowledge to use.
👎 False in these cases
That said, having the Big 4 on your resume isn't some automatic ticket to career success. For example, if you want to pivot into a totally different field that doesn't make use of your experience at the Big 4, it doesn't necessarily help.
I was thinking, no matter what the role is, after having Big 4 on my resume, the doors will open up. Turns out, it wasn't really the case because I was trying to go into another industry. If I was applying to other IT audit or audit roles, I would've gotten an offer much quicker. But since I didn't want anything to do with audit or accounting, it took some time to land my current role, which was a data analyst role. – Former junior auditor @ PwC
At the end of the day, it all comes down to how "transferrable" your skills are – i.e. how in-demand they are outside of your current role. So if you specialized in something that isn't in demand outside of the Big 4, your options may also be limited.
Been in transfer pricing the last 11 years ... Transfer Pricing ... is fairly specialized and it's hard to branch out. ... Trying to get a job outside of Big 4 is ... impossible b/c there aren't that many jobs and when there are, everyone applies, people with more experience than you so you feel kinda shackled. And even when you do get that job, the highest you'll get to is Director/Sr. director of tax. – Tax professional @ EY
#2 You'll get great training
👍 True in these cases
In our surveys of Big 4 juniors, we found that the ones in audit and consulting tended to say very positive things about the informal training they got on the job compared to the formal training sessions.
Training is good here but nothing beats learning on the job from a senior
– Junior auditor @ Deloitte
(Read more training-related reviews by junior auditors)
Prefer the informal, on the job training, but there are some genuinely good formal training courses as well.
– Junior consultant @ PwC
(Read more training-related reviews by junior consultants)
A consulting manager at EY puts this in context:
Honestly, the best training was on-the-job, where my managers would tell me what to do in different situations. I learned how to draft effective emails on the job training, how to run a meeting with a client effectively, how to write effective meeting minutes, things like that.
For example, let's say someone takes terrible meeting minutes. They'll take notes but it's just a stream of consciousness and they'll write down every single thing. They don't know how to summarize it or what to narrow down. They don't pull out key takeaways. Or if there are action items, they don't specify who was assigned and when the items need to be done by.
This isn't something you can learn through online courses. So as managers, we'll edit their meeting minutes. Sometimes, you may not get a good manager who teaches you to do that. But at EY, we do stress that you need to teach ppl. If someone's work is poor, that reflects poorly on you as their manager, which is probably why the informal, on-the-job training is quite good. – Consulting manager @ EY
👎 False in these cases
In general, Big 4 juniors left mixed reviews about the formal training sessions the firms provide.
None of the training programs at my company (that I have been forced to attend as they were compulsory) have been useful for me because my team is so specialised. – Junior consultant @ EY (Actuarial practice)
What causes the mixed responses to the formal training sessions? Consultants told us that it comes down to two factors:
- Your practice (area of specialization)
- How much effort you put into going through the training materials yourself
We have our internal trainings that people just skim through.
My focus is regulatory compliance, which means helping companies (in our case financial institutions) make sure they're following government regulations. Day-to-day, this means a lot of googling. On the spot, we'll usually google the regulation we need to know about and figure out what to do and how to implement it.
We do offer seminars and web-based learning modules on topics like securities, derivatives, and mortgage lending. We have all that content available. We also have different training days available - 3-4 day long programs. You can also log in and watch seminars. But you make what you will of it. You can go through it without learning anything or spend time really mastering the content.
But at least for my practice, we don't pay much attention to technical trainings, since we're not too technical – most of my job is googling stuff. We just need to build up knowledge over time. Training may be more useful for other practices.
– Consulting manager @ EY
Tax juniors also had negative things to say about what they felt was the lack of on-the-job training. It seems that there's lots of formal training on tax laws so everyone can stay up-to-date on recent changes, but when it comes to preparing tax returns for clients, associates are basically on their own.
Lack of real training about how to do our job. We receive training on how to understand tax law but not how to do a tax return and our seniors are too busy to show us. We are told to rely on the prior year workpaper and then attacked for assuming that the prior year return was done correctly.
– Tax associate @ PwC
#3 You'll get exposure to a wide variety of industries
One of the supposed benefits of working at a Big 4 firm is that you can get a taste of different industries, which will help you decide if you want to eventually work in one of them. But from what we've heard, this doesn't always happen.
👍 True in these cases
In consulting, there are chances to work with a greater variety of companies, because teams are more function-specific. For example, if you work in HR consulting, you could be staffed on a project for an oil & gas company for six months and then a consumer & retail company for the next six months.
Deloitte is quite "entrepreneurial." If you check the project posting board and see a project you're interested in or that you think would help your career, you could apply, send in your resume, set up a coffee chat with someone senior who's working on those projects – and if you turn out to be a fit, you'll get to work on that project.
Another way to get staffed on a project is by helping partners out with project proposals. If there's a partner who's working on something you're interested in (like ESG), you can help them out with their project proposal. Then, if they win the contract, you'll be the first one they staff on the team. (Of course, it's not a guarantee but they already know who you are and hopefully were impressed by the work you did for them!)
– Former junior consultant @ Deloitte
In the consulting service line of EY, there's also a dedicated rotation program for new hires to figure out what they eventually want to specialize in.
Entry-level hires in the US pick a service line. If they choose to apply for Consulting, they will enter a Consulting Development Program, or CDP. Their first 2-3 years they rotate to different projects that can fall under different service lines and practices, with the goal to eventually align under a practice.
– Consulting manager @ EY
👎 False in these cases
Big 4 associates in both tax and audit told us that associates don't actually get exposed to different industries. You're typically placed in an industry from the start and you stick with it the entire time you're at the firm.
At the Big 4, it's difficult to get exposure to a lot of things, because you're placed in a specific industry. My friends at smaller firms were able to work on more industries before picking one but in my experience, you basically pick your top 3 options before your internship or full-time job and the firm tries to place you in one of those.
– Former tax associate @ KPMG
You also don't have much control over where you're placed unless you've already done client work.
Due to COVID, I didn't get to do client work as an intern, so I didn't have a say in what industry I was placed into. If you do client work, the partners know you and if they like working with you, they'll pick you to be on their team. But if you don't, then they won't think to do that.
– Former junior auditor @ KPMG
The main exception might be if you work on a function-specific team. For example, if you're on a tax team that specializes in mergers & acquisitions (M&A), you'd help whatever clients need help with an M&A, regardless of industry.
However, as with tax and audit, exposure to different industries isn't guaranteed. But our sources assured us that you can network your way into different industries.
If you seriously dislike your industry, you can try to switch to a different group, for instance by networking with senior members of the teams who work on those industries.
– Former junior auditor @ KPMG
#4 You'll be exposed to many different clients
As with industries, it's not guaranteed that you'll work with many different clients.
In audit, you'll get exposure to different clients depending on your industry and location.
During my two years at KPMG, I audited companies in the asset management space, working on over 20 audits with 12 different clients – some public, some private.
However, from what I've seen, most teams aren't like this. In general, you might work on a few clients a year and they'll all be very similar clients (either all public or all private) within the same industry.
And in certain offices, you may only audit one client your entire time! For example, there was an insurance team at a different office in my state, which had one big insurance client. So even though they were technically the "insurance group," they just audited one client, year after year.
– Former audit staff @ KPMG
Compared to audit, tax people do usually get more exposure to a wider range of companies (both public, private, big, small). That's because while companies who need external audits tend to be mid- to large-sized companies, every company needs help with their taxes!
In consulting, because projects tend to be shorter-term, you have the chance to be exposed to more clients – but it also depends.
I knew people who worked for two years on a software testing project for the IRS – they went to the office every day and interfaced with the same five people during the entirety of their time there. I also knew people who worked for five Fortune 500 companies, worked with 20 different people, and even interfaced with CIO's as juniors.
– Former junior consultant @ Deloitte
As a student, you don't need to worry about getting pigeonholed into a client. That happens as you get more senior in the firm, because you'll get more specialized in an account (client) that you want to own. You'll have different projects within that account and you'll want to sell to them – and keep selling to them – because you have a good working relationship with them. But this isn't something fresh grads need to worry about.
– Consulting manager @ EY
#5 If you love the internship, you'll love the job
Ideally, an internship should be your chance to figure out whether the firm is right for you – whether you like the work, the people, everything. However, this isn't always the case – especially at the Big 4.
The Big 4 hire thousands of college grads every year, and compete heavily against each other (not to mention, other companies) for talent. So from the firms' perspective, the internships are a tool to make you like them – moreso than giving you a chance to get a real taste of the work.
As an intern all I did was go to the happy hours, get a bunch of free beer, do some very, very basic projects, sit in on meetings, and overall just kind of screw around, get free lunches and have a good time.
Soon after I started full-time, this is when I realized, man I hate my job. The hours freaking sucked which I knew going in but it didn't actually hit me until I literally had to rush home to get on my laptop on the weekend, ask if I had time to go to the gym, overall skip lunches most days, and not just have enough time to do anything outside of work or have any sort of actually good life.
The latest night I had at work was 4 am, yes, I was up till 4 am, I'm not kidding, and the latest meeting I had with one of my bosses was at 12:30 a.m. – Former intern and associate @ PwC
That said, there are ways to use the internships to figure out more about a firm and whether it's a good fit for you. For instance, you can invite people in the practice areas you're interested in out for coffee and even ask to shadow them, day-to-day. You just need to stay focused and not get distracted by all the happy hours!
What next?
So what to make of all of this? Here are a few tips to keep you on course:
- The Big 4 are massive companies and things vary from team to team, office to office. So apply away but base your decision not off the company as a whole but the people you'll actually work with and the things you'll actually be doing. These are insights you can only get from talking to people who work at the firm, so network and do a bit of homework.
- Make sure you know what you want to get out of this first stage of your career: Broad exposure to different types of work? Figuring out your skills/strengths/weaknesses? Putting aside a bit of money so you can go back to school later? Figure out what you want and see what firms, service lines, and teams can help you achieve your goals.
If you're still on the hunt for a promising opportunity, check out all the internships we have in accounting and consulting!