Since 2018, we've been surveying Big 4 associates in audit, tax, and consulting about their jobs. Read on to get a taste of what they like and dislike the most – or just to get a peak into the love-hate relationship they have with their jobs.
This was by far the number one thing associates brought up when asked about the biggest plusses of working at the Big 4. In general, associates noted that the people at their firm are supportive and social.
The people! They are always great at taking time to teach you and exercise patience. Makes the transition period easier. – Junior auditor @ Deloitte
The people and the support network! Whether it is work-related or about my personal life, there is always someone at work to chat to and get invaluable advice from. Everyone I've met so far has been friendly and supportive, which makes a huge difference for an inexperienced newcomer like myself. – Junior auditor @ KPMG
A 'young and vibrant' work culture that makes coming to work enjoyable based on a great team that is extremely supportive (i.e. working with people who you actually miss when you go on a holiday). – Tax associate @ PwC
The working culture depends on the team, but fortunately for me, my team is very supportive of my goals and aspirations. – Tax associate @ KPMG
The team is supporting my learning and trusting me to help with projects while making sure I don't get overloaded – Junior consultant @ KPMG
Everyone is really friendly I can go and have a chat or coffee with anyone including partners – Junior consultant @ KPMG
Associates generally enjoyed the wide variety of people they get to meet and projects they get to work on.
Exposure to different clients, team members and managers – Junior auditor @ PwC
First and foremost the different people I work with on different audit engagements. Secondly the ability to experience multiple aspects of the accounting process through audit engagements. Not being stuck in one isolated section (i.e. Payables). – Junior auditor @ Deloitte
Wide range of experiences dealing with different businesses and industries – Tax associate @ Deloitte
Opportunity to work on a wide range of client engagements with exposure to a range of different transactions. – Tax associate @ KPMG
The exposure to various industries, clients, types of work, people of differing skillsets and experience – Junior consultant @ KPMG
The variety of engagements, allows me to develop my skills gradually in a safe environment – Junior consultant @ KPMG
In particular, many associates enjoyed getting to work with big clients.
Great experience working with a wide variety of large corporate clients – Junior auditor @ KPMG
The opportunities provided for travel and career enhancement, and the opportunity to work on big clients. – Junior auditor @ PwC
Gaining access to the highest caliber of clients – Tax associate @ KPMG
Ability to work on high-profile projects – Tax associate @ PwC
Level of exposure to high profile clients and businesses – Junior consultant @ PwC
Large and impressive range of clientele – Junior consultant @ KPMG
Big 4 associates also raved about the training and other learning opportunities their firms provide.
The training provided is first class – Junior auditor @ KPMG
Amazing learning opportunities working with interesting clients and working alongside talented employees – Junior auditor @ EY
In-depth on-boarding process, regular technical skills training, flexible work environment, ... fantastic work environment and great staff to work with. – Tax associate @ PwC
Get to work with the best tax professionals in the country – Tax associate @ PwC
Career progression, learning opportunities and professional development – Junior consultant @ PwC
The massive amounts of support received allow you to grow both professionally and personally – Junior consultant @ KPMG
Want to learn more about learning & professional development at the Big 4? Hear what tax, audit, and consulting staff say about their training opportunities.
Many Big 4 associates also like the flexibility of their jobs.
The flexibility to work from the office, home or even the clients office. – Junior auditor @ KPMG
Flexible working – Junior auditor @ EY
The flexibility with hours - working back late means you get work done, but also means that you can get to work after 8:30 if you've covered yourself with hours and workload. – Tax associate @ PwC
My team is extremely understanding of the need to have flexibility. Where the need for flexibility arises (e.g. attending to a plumber at home), we are allowed to work from home. – Tax associate @ PwC
The flexibility to be able to work from home and go into the office. This helps with keeping the mind fresh and allows you to work from the environment that suits you best – Junior consultant @ KPMG
Flexibility of work arrangements, eg; working from home when you have a doctors appointment – Junior consultant @ KPMG
Regular client contact, lots of autonomy and responsibility – Junior auditor @ KPMG
Flexible working arrangement, responsibility – Junior auditor @ PwC
Amazing amount of trust and responsibilities, accelerates learning and growth. – Tax associate @ Deloitte
Lots of responsibility for junior staff. You hit the ground running. – Tax associate @ PwC
I feel that I have been given real responsibility and a good level of autonomy in my role. I feel that there is a great level of trust from my managers and leaders in the quality of my work and abilities, which is very empowering. – Junior consultant @ Deloitte
You get thrown in the deep end, with a pretty high level of responsibility and autonomy early on, so you learn and build skills really quickly. – Junior consultant @ KPMG
Finally, many associates also mentioned their firm's brand & reputation as a perk.
Prestige and brand name – Junior auditor @ PwC
Reputation, training, and coaching provided – Junior auditor @ KPMG
Reputation within the accounting industry as one of the top four accounting practices. – Tax associate @ KPMG
exposure and brand and the people – Tax associate @ PwC
The company has a great reputation so people are impressed when you say you work there. – Junior consultant @ Deloitte
Global brand, good for building resume – Junior consultant @ PwC
The long hours was the number one thing Big 4 associates brought up when asked about the drawbacks of their job. Auditors in particular had a lot to say about this topic.
There is a culture or working crazy hours. Thankfully my client portfolio means I have not experienced this but I have definitely heard of a lot of people who are working until 1am for weeks here and there. The latest I have worked was 9pm and that was one time in 2.5years. So as long as you set your own boundaries and your client portfolio is ok you can avoid this. – Junior auditor @ PwC
The senior management does not seem to care about the number of long hours that staff has to put if a client engagement is understaffed. While we understand that we have a deadline to catch, this could have been managed better if the client engagement is not understaffed in the first place. Having said that, most of the staff in the mid management-lower level are great in a sense that they understand that we go through the hardship as a team – Junior auditor @ KPMG
Long hours, feeling overwhelmed with the sheer volume of work and pace of learning. Honestly just not being prepared for the pace and amount of work in audit. – Junior auditor @ EY
There is an unspoken pressure to stay back each night. This isn't necessarily very late (eg, may be until 6:30) but it does still impact the work/life balance. Also, in comparison to a smaller firm, the promotions and pay rises occur much slower. – Tax associate @ PwC
Quite long hours - but this is negated by how interesting the work is – Tax associate @ Deloitte
Consistent long hours, too much work – Junior consultant @ PwC
Sometimes required to work long hours – Junior consultant @ KPMG
Busy season also came up a lot when Big 4 auditors discussed the cons of their work.
During "busy season", the workload can be a bit of a shocker, the working hours long, and my personal life has to be put on hold for a couple of weeks. However, this only occurs during busy seasons, and KPMG does try to promote a healthy work-life balance. Having a great support network and engagement team to guide me through the work has also made it much more fun and bearable. – Junior auditor @ KPMG
The hours when we are busy are really, really long and often having to work those hours for months is very challenging. – Junior auditor @ KPMG
Today is Saturday but we have a few things that we gotta get done for the weekend, so I will be working every weekend from now on out until filing day. – Junior auditor at a Big 4
Some tax associates also mentioned feeling overwhelmed during busier times of the year.
Hours can get intense during certain times during the year – Tax associate @ EY
It can get a little overwhelming at the busy times – Tax associate @ Deloitte
Sometimes it is stressful both in workloads and relationships. – Junior auditor @ Deloitte
High stress levels – Junior auditor @ KPMG
Sometimes can be stressful with tight deadlines. – Tax associate @ PwC
Can be demanding, overly results-based and overly stressful at times at the expense of my development. – Tax associate @ KPMG
At times the job can be high pressure and eat away at your homelife – Junior consultant @ PwC
The pressure of working in the Big 4 and being able to meet goals – Junior consultant @ KPMG
Many Big 4 associates also spoke about feeling insignificant or unappreciated – especially in audit and consulting.
Lack of recognition – Junior auditor @ Deloitte
Because it's a large company, your value isn't recognized until you've been there for 4 years – Junior auditor @ KPMG
You feel irrelevant in the process – Junior auditor @ KPMG
Less recognition for employees than believed. – Junior auditor @ KPMG
It's very big, easy to become a number. – Tax associate @ PwC
Feeling like a little fish in a big pond! – Tax associate @ KPMG
Treatment of staff as disposable – Junior consultant @ KPMG
There is no recognition for good performance within my team, allowing us to feel like we are merely cogs in a machine. – Junior consultant @ EY
Being in a big firm, you tend to be treated like a resource – Junior consultant @ PwC
Many associates mentioned that the work may not always be interesting – especially when it involves administrative tasks assigned by senior team members.
The work itself - it's quite basic and boring. – Junior auditor @ PwC
The mundane administrative task that can overload already time pressurized audit environments – Junior auditor @ Deloitte
The work itself is not particularly analytical. It's quite monotonous and tedious and there is not a great deal of critical thinking or analysis. – Junior auditor @ KPMG
Very impersonal and quite boring at times – Tax associate @ KPMG
Work can be monotonous. – Tax associate @ KPMG
Administrative tasks that fall on the junior staff - Tax associate @ PwC
Very repetitive grunt work – Junior consultant @ Deloitte
The work can be mundane – Junior consultant @ PwC
Some associates also mentioned not having enough work to do at times.
Frequently not enough work, can get stuck doing very low level jobs – Junior auditor @ KPMG
I have been very proactive with asking for work and asking what the next thing to do it. but at times it does feel like im annoying people asking for more. – Junior auditor @ KPMG
Periods where there is no work – Junior consultant @ KPMG
Work varies between being busy, and then dead. I don't have long term projects, or projects for me to learn. – Junior consultant @ KPMG
I am reliant on there being work for me to do, as I'm not in a position to really take initiative over aspects of the projects. When the work is moving, I find it fairly engaging, however, quiet periods can be quite frustrating. – Junior consultant @ KPMG
No tax associates mentioned this in our survey responses, though there is some anecdotal evidence online. For example, one Big 4 tax accountant admits to working "20-40" hours a week when it's not busy season.
In consulting, some associates noted not having a say in the projects they were staffed on. This sometimes meant getting stuck on projects they had no interest in.
It can be quite disempowering and impersonal, and you often do not have a say in the engagements or projects that you work on; and are allocated onto long term projects with little consultation. – Junior consultant @ EY
in some instances it is very difficult to have a say about the types of work you would like to do and to control your career pathway. – Junior consultant @ EY
Being handballed BD/admin/project management tasks on short notice while on other chargeable work. – Junior consultant @ KPMG
For more context, check out this explanation from a junior consultant:
When you first join a Big 4 consulting firm, you don't have a lot of choice about what you work on. The work is sold and if you're available you're put on the project and that's how it works. You can say that this is what you prefer, but until you build those relationships in the areas that you're interested in and until they know you and start deliberately picking you for their projects, you get put wherever you're needed – and that's not what I thought because I knew that in Big 4 firms you have a ton of opportunity and variety, but I thought you had a say in what you do.
The tax and audit associates who responded to our survey didn't mention this lack of say. However, some tax associates did mention similar things.
less control over jobs as it is a big team with large clients – Tax associate @ KPMG
No opportunity to try different things. – Tax associate @ PwC
We are assigned to a team and we do not have the ability to move around to gain additional exposure. I feel that this is an important part of ... career development, to be able to explore what they enjoy and are good at. At times, the role you are in can feel limiting because you haven't had the opportunity to explore other options. – Tax associate @ KPMG
Specialization in a small division - does not allow/ provide exposure to different sides of a business. – Tax associate @ KPMG
Politics & bureaucracy was an especially common complaint among consultants.
The worst thing at times can be internal politics – Junior consultant @ EY
Politics play a big part in everything which can be tiresome. – Junior consultant @ PwC
The politics and importance of optics of working in a large corporate organization – Junior consultant @ KPMG
When I have initiated one on one conversations with the managers about my experiences in the job and my feedback, they have not been accommodating and have performed power plays over me. I feel that the managers are quite manipulative. – Junior consultant @ EY
Here's how one Big 4 consultant explains the politics:
I cannot stress how political this place can be. It is exhausting not just for some but for everyone, and there is no choice but to play the game. Otherwise you will not survive.
You could be having a coffee with somebody, having a very pleasant conversation and then an hour later you've found out person is throwing you under a bus and spoken to the boss and said you've done X Y and Z, and you're like "Hang on, weren't we just best friends just like 10 minutes ago?"
This is exactly how it works around here and you need to make sure that you are one step ahead of the game and my advice for people who actually want to work in consulting and want to succeed: You need to be a snake. It is a game and nobody can sit on the sidelines and if you don't want to play do not do not go near a role in consulting.
Staff in other service lines didn't bring up politics as much. One auditor mentioned it.
More politics/subjective nature in performance management than believed. – Junior auditor @ KPMG
Auditors specifically complained about needing to travel to client sites. One auditor told us that they needed to drive two hours to get to a client's factory!
Distance of some clients. – Junior auditor @ KPMG
The long commute to client site – Junior auditor @ Deloitte
Traveling constantly to different clients – Junior auditor @ PwC
Finally, some Big 4 associates expressed negative views on the practice of "hot desking." Hot desking is where employees do not have assigned desks or cubicles. Instead, they use any available workstation on a first-come, first-served basis.
In the agile working environment its hard to bond with your team when you don't necessarily sit together – Tax associate @ KPMG
I'm not a big fan of hot-desking. – Tax associate @ PwC
Hot-desking - it saves on overheads but my view is that there are hidden costs which outweigh the benefits (set-up/pack-up time, bickering over seats, and as studies have shown people are more productive in their own, personalized environment). – Junior consultant @ PwC
No assigned desks consulting – Junior consultant @ KPMG
Hot desking - not enough seats for everyone in the department – Junior consultant @ Deloitte
Picking a desk in the morning. – Junior consultant @ PwC
We hope this gives you a better idea of what it's like to work at the Big 4. And if you're still on the hunt for a promising opportunity, check out all the internships we have in accounting and consulting!