[loyaldodgersfan]

I’m a recent college grad and I was fortunate to receive an offer to work at one of the Big 4 firms. I’ll be starting in a few months and, needless to say, I’m pretty excited and nervous at the same time. In many ways, I am still a naive individual entering the corporate world. Any advice for this aspiring CPA as I begin my job? What should I expect and what should I do to really learn and distinguish myself in the firm? Any advice is greatly appreciated!

[taxsage]

I have worked at a couple of small firms and I am now at a Big 4 firm. Big 4 firms are actually less scary than small firms since they have a culture of training and a mechanical promotion and raise system. This can be bad for those who are honestly on a league of their own, but is great if you are an average performer since you will likely not be penalized financially if you are not “distinguishing” yourself. So my first advice is not to be worried about performance until you are targeted as a low performer. You want to meet the target goal of 1800 billable hours and not be considered a low performer. Other than that your natural aptitude and eagerness to do your best should be good enough to get you by.

If you want to prepare yourself for your future career I would work on your excel and adobe pro skills. The rest of your free time should be focused on the CPA exam since this is a huge time sucker that will make it very difficult to find time to work on work related weaknesses outside of work. After you have the CPA exam done, mastered excel and adobe, you can then spend time learning the audit/tax software applicable to your function after your start date. After you have all the skills necessary to do productive data entry you can then proceed to learn the accounting/tax law.

Attitude is huge. So you want to be positive and likable. If you are positive and likable you will likely get good reviews from most people.

Networking is the tool you will use to shape your career. If you network well you may be either to pick teams with cool people(who may give better reviews) or choose work that aligns with your interests.

Your main goal is to please your seniors. So you want to figure out your seniors patience level as quick as possible.. Some enjoy to walk people through things and others want you to figure things out by looking at last years work papers. Some seniors may be budget conscious; others may value being left alone more. A general rule is you want to do everything you can based on last years work papers and come to your seniors with questions that have to do with exceptions or things that appear out of the ordinary. On the other hand if you get stuck; you should ask for help. The good thing about Big 4 firms is the budget is often enormous so the budget is not brought up as often as a small firm, and the huge teams make it less likely to find the person(s) who pushed the project out of budget. This is important because you are often given a lot of time to actually figure things out on your own; in contrast at a small firm you may want to ask questions more frequently to meet the productivity requirements for each engagement.

Standing out is very difficult in a Big 4 firm. I would say of the 20 something new hires I started with only two are stand outs. Everyone else are cogs in the wheel. The people who stand out get the most hours and are rewarded with the same raises. Most standouts will not stay long enough for their extra effort to matter. Raises are very mechanical and most performance related bonuses are a couple hundred bucks. That being said standouts also have the most options as far as engagement choices. I am not telling you this so that you underperform, but I think a lot of new hires try to out perform their peers by working outlandish hours. Being an average new hire will get you far in this industry so don't put to much pressure on yourself. Being a stand out is very important at senior manager level since it can decrease the years to partner. In contrast senior and manager will be given to most everyone that has the endurance to stay to year 2 or year 5 respectively.

[fuzyfro89]

What is your goal in “Standing out”?

Everyone wants to do a good job. Unfortunately, many of us grew up in the latter innings of the “participation trophy era”. Surprise, in big 4, and many work environments, you have to be truly exceptional to be recognized and known as such. Maybe ~10% of each start class is ranked as a top performer, 70% in between, and 20% either don't get it or just aren't trying because they realized the big 4 or public accounting is not for them.

Also, unfortunately, the raises you get for being a top performer barely feel like a reward. Imagine working 15% more than everyone and busting your butt, and let's say the firm is SUPER generous and gives you 5% more than everyone else (also, more than likely). If you start at 55k and the avg raise is 7%, you get 12%, meaning, instead of 58.9k you get 61.6k.

Just like above, this is not meant to discourage you, but just so you understand reality. What matters more than anything else is you learn something, get quality experience, leave good impressions for future references (or if you decide to stay in the firm for 10 yrs), and truly reflect once in a while on what you want out of your career.

The people who are most successful are honest with themselves about their career ambitions and will use big 4 to its fullest… whether their goal is inside or outside the firms. If you want to use it as a springboard to industry, then great! Just work hard, know your goals, and jump when the time is right. If you want to stay and build an audit career (or tax/advisory), that's fine too! Learn and seek mentors and form an educated opinion on what it truly takes to get ahead (hint: it's much more than being a braniac at your job, although that is important eventually), and seek to round out your skill set and polish your presentation as a professional.

[loyaldodgersfan]

Thank you for all the help! I appreciate it! 🙂

[Anonymous]

Hi Taxsage,

You have mentioned, “If you want to prepare yourself for your future career I would work on your excel and adobe pro skills”

Can you be more specific and tell us what aspects of Excel and Adobe pro skills are more important

Thank you

[Author]

Replies