[the guy]

Hello! I’m having a difficult time choosing my market team preference for PwC. I got into the San Francisco office but I would eventually want to get transferred to the NYC office to be closer to family in a few years. But for now, I’m very happy to be in SF and I may even decide to stay here if I end up loving my job.

I have a few questions:

1. What is the PwC SF office best known for when it comes to assurance?

2. What is the PwC NYC office best known for?

3. What market team in SF will give me the best shot of getting transferred to NYC and give me the best experience that I can apply in NYC?

We were given 4 choices: (1) Consumer & Industrial Products & Services (CIPS), (2) Financial Services (FS), (3) Software & Internet, and (4) Private Company Services (PCS). If you have pros and cons for the market teams, that would very helpful.

I’m a fresh graduate so I don’t exactly know what industry I want… I just know that I’m good with numbers. I’m leaning towards FS but I’m afraid it might be boring. Maybe someone out there can tell me it’s not? Thanks!

[jm962011]

I would say Financial Services would be your best shot at getting transferred to NYC, just based on the fact that NYC is like the banking capital of the US. vs. what San Fran is known for (think: Silicon Valley, high tech, software, etc.) so if you definitely want to stay in San Fran, I'd stay stick with Software and Internet.

But I don't have any insider information about PWC, just an idea of what the different markets look like. Might be a good idea to focus on where the economy is going.. which office might have lay offs because of the markets that surround them. Banking is always getting hit hard with regulation and a bad public view but you've heard of the tech bubble, yes?

[Anonymous]

@sanfranciscoguy – I work at PwC on west coast and might actually transfer to the SF office. The SF office has A LOT of banking clients. If you wanted to move to NYC one day, my advice would be to go to Financial Services in SF. One of my clients I'm on right now is managed by the SF office and the partner is from the SF office also.

TBH with you – you don't have to try that hard to transfer offices. As long as you're not an idiot and you don't leave for another Big4 or other job, PwC will let you move wherever you want. Fwiw I started in core assurance in September 2014.

Hope this helps!

[Susan Walker]

Agree with everyone above – I'm at PwC too – getting a transfer to another office isn't difficult, but the FS would be the most ideal for a NYC skillset.

FAR: 69 (10/2012), 70 (4/2015), July 2015
BEC: May 2015
REG: August 2015
AUD: November 2015

[Anonymous]

side note – PwC San Fran doesn't have the huge tech companies. The big non-FS clients at the San Fran office are Chevron, Ghiradelli chocolates, Levis and there are wineries. The San Jose PwC office has the big tech companies like eBay, paypal, genysys, etc.

[Anonymous]

Both Austin and San Jose are major tech offices. The majority of NY is FS.

[the guy]

@CPjAson, thank you for your input. I assume Chevron, Ghirardelli, and Levis are both under CIPS and that the wineries are under PCS? And I hope you get to transfer to the SF office. Let me know if you get to, we might be working together soon! Based on your experience, do you think the FS market team is as exciting as other market teams? Would one need a deep finance background to succeed in FS? I'm pretty confident when it comes to my accounting skills, not really on finance though because I only took a couple of classes on finance.

@Susan Walker, thank you for your advice.

@jm962011, thank you for sharing your insight. I think the Software team is the coolest of them all, but I just that there are other people out there who are more passionate about tech and are more tech-savvy than me, which is why I am not leaning towards it.

@CPA33, what, in your opinion, is the SF office best known for then?

[justgivemea75]

Hi OP,

I would look more into which industry you want to be in long-term than what will be most “transferable” to NYC. NYC is big enough to have a lot of anything you want. FS, from what I hear, isn't easy. It's a lot of process work and you end up working banker hours for audit pay. Not a good combination IMO.

Not to digress, but while we're on the subject, do we all want to discuss industry groups in general? I'm in CIPS and have some experience with manufacturing and tech companies. I feel this could be useful because I had to make this choice once and am now looking to switch due to lack of info

FAR - 84
AUD - 76 (phew)
BEC - 88
REG - 77

DONE!

[Anonymous]

Someone from PwC Houston or Dallas offices?

[Susan Walker]

I'm PwC Dallas.

FAR: 69 (10/2012), 70 (4/2015), July 2015
BEC: May 2015
REG: August 2015
AUD: November 2015

[the guy]

@justgivemea75 Yes, I think such discussion would be beneficial to a lot because it's a really big decision one must make. If I may ask, I'm curious as to why you are looking into switching to a different market team out from CIPS? What industry do you want to get transferred to?

How often do you hear of people switch from one market team to another? And at one point in their PwC career do they make this choice? Will the transition be difficult and will it take you less time to be promoted than someone who's been in the same market team since the beginning?

[Anonymous]

@SusanWalker: I am from PwC too, thinking about a transfer to Houston or Dallas. Do you have an email which I can send you few questions that I had related to the Dallas' Office? Or I can use the same name that you have here to find you in ST (IM)?

[justgivemea75]

@OP

I am considering switching simply because I think in the long-term, I'm more passionate about technology than I am about manufacturing. Geographic mobility is a big thing for me (part of why I went down the accounting route) and frankly, you can set up a tech shop anywhere while your locations for manufacturing are somewhat limited because of the nature of the business. Additionally, most of the manufacturing clients I've worked on how been in not so clean offices in very remote locations while the tech companies have all had great, clean environments and locations much closer to large cities. Furthermore, I just think tech is a more innovative field that has lots of interesting applications coming up (i.e. big data to create smart cities, or machine-learning algorithms, etc.) while manufacturing is kind of the same-old same-old. As such, I'm looking at potentially moving to TICE.

@Susan Walker: Do you know how big PwC's TICE practice is in Dallas/Austin? Those are two locations I'm looking at moving to, and having opportunities to potentially work on tech clients would be something I'd need to consider if I make the switch someday.

FAR - 84
AUD - 76 (phew)
BEC - 88
REG - 77

DONE!

[Susan Walker]

@Baricuainthehouse – you can find me on ST – Katelyn Huffman

@justgivemea75 – TICE is definitely growing in both of these offices – we've picked up a couple of new smaller audits in the past couple of months that fall into that industry and we have a pretty heavy presence in telecom already.

FAR: 69 (10/2012), 70 (4/2015), July 2015
BEC: May 2015
REG: August 2015
AUD: November 2015

[Author]

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