[Anonymous]

Anyone have to make this decision in the past? I have two offers and culturally I gel really good with DT, seems like they do a lot more to retain people in the whole process and the office is close knit, but not to say I didn’t enjoy PwC as well. So I am mainly looking at stuff such as benefits, pay (I heard PwC has bigger bonuses and milestone bonuses). Also I am interested in how the promotion structures work at each company and how it relates to salary/opportunities. I will be doing Tax.

Any insight is appreciated.

[thechapman]

I would go with the firm that has the people you like better instead of benefits, pay, etc. I imagine that stuff is largely the same within each city. For what it's worth, PwC promotes to senior after three years while Deloitte will be two.

Passed - 2014

[Anonymous]

Yeah I've read that, and I guess even though you can make Senior in 2 years if you are a rockstar, it is rare.

I'm honestly planning on staying at least until manager (I could be naive), so I'm trying to look down the line as well, because I really don't know what will happen. I know short term it really doesn't matter, pay differences will be minimal and any difference in benefits won't mean anything. But I am definitely trying to get a broad scope and see if anywhere offers better opportunities.

[gg2929]

Here is what you do… take a coin and say heads Pwc tails Deloitte. before it lands whatever you instinctively think to yourself should be the firm you go to. If it's in the air and you're thinking… i hope its tails… or i hope its heads… then go to that one. don't even look to see how it lands.

[PurpleK]

Benefits and pay are generally the same across both in the long run.

Instead, what you want to think about are the service lines you are interested in and whether one firm has a larger market share in the specific city you are in.

For example, in San Francisco, it is perceived that Deloitte has a larger private equity client base, whereas PwC has more mutual funds and venture capital. In NYC, PwC has more hedge fund clients whereas Deloitte has more bank clients. Actual figures may prove the opposite, but having worked for the Big 4 in both cities, this was the general perception (at least a few years ago).

If you ever are considering getting a job in private that is not tax related (for example controller or CFO), I would suggest leaving before becoming a manager. If you stay in public until manager, you will most likely pigeonhole yourself into tax positions for the rest of your career.

Lastly, all Big 4 have a lot of tax service lines. Avoid dead-end services lines like state and local taxation, government, and non-profit, unless of course you aspire to become an expert in those areas.

[Anonymous]

It's not set in stone that PwC's assoc –> sr route is 3 yrs while DT is 2. PwC Socal will promote (typically) in 2 yrs.

[Anonymous]

Well I'm not 100% sure what I want to do, but I'm thinking I'd like Asset Management/PE type tax, International (iffy on this), or Real Estate. Corporate seems interesting too depending on who it is. And of course there is stuff like M&A but I think that is dominated by JDs. I'm trying to avoid an SALT, Federal etc type of work as PurpleK said above.

I know PwC has Disney as a huge client, and I know of some of their corporate clients from one of the partners. DT I haven't really asked yet but plan on it. DT really wants me to try out Transfer Pricing, and they seem pretty flexible about placing me where I want to be from the start. I'm not sure if PwC is like this.

Also, as far as the 3rd year promotion, I did notice most of the people in the LA office on LinkedIn got promoted to Senior after two years.

[Anonymous]

If this helps anything, Deloitte will pretty much let me start in whatever field I want and the intern class is much smaller.

PwC is paying $2~ more an hour, which isn't a big deal, but over the internship a few hundred bucks. I feel like negotiating this would be pretty stupid though. I'm not sure if Deloitte gives a CPA bonus either.

[Anonymous]

Deloitte gives bonus, and DO NOT negotiate as an intern.

[Author]

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