Canada seems harder, US depends on target school still for most hires. Of course, you can always transfer in as an experienced staff or senior, but the flame out rate is high due to being set up to fail on the worst engagements and low training
The people who work at Big 4 in Canada come from the same target and semi-target investment banking/Consulting schools in Canada. They all attend the same schools, Big 4 in Canada is VERY competitive.
I went to a Canadian target, landed PwC audit out of school, my roommate got rejected by PwC Canada, but landed investment banking at RBC … all jobs in Canada is are stupidly competitive.
Probably 80% of the people in Big 4 Canada come from the same programs that recruit for investment banking and high finance/consulting. You could be at Ivey/Queens and a quarter of people are working at Big 4 audit and the other portion of your classmates are at Goldman Sachs and MBB consulting too.
Big 4 is a lot more respected in Canada.
Canadian economy isn't as productive as the US
Less higher quality jobs
Back in 2019, mid tier outside of Vancouver can get away paying 38k cad for juniors to start.
MNP had a very terrible rep back then ,not sure if this has changed
Vancouver and Toronto offices are most competitive to get in.
It is as mentioned above , lack of depth in commerce and productivity of their economies. The only outlier in the English speaking word is the US, have the commercial high paying jobs broaden the market for talent and opportunities for all.
Idk I’m at a big 4 in a major Canadian city. I swear the hiring standards have gone to shit. We seem to hire anyone with a pulse and 4 year semi relevant degree from any university.
Yea, it’s really weird around here. I saw Big 4 hires University Canada West graduates with their fake MBAs now for consulting. I guess hiring standards are in a shitter.
Because the market on Canada is very small. If you strike out of IB/MBB in Canada, big 4 is the next best option. But when people go for B4 competition is insane. So you end up having IB/MBB candidates that all end up in B4.
Effort and job security tbh. I have the grades and etc to be competitive for IB/MBB, but chose big 4. These were my specific reasons:
1. Because I preferred accounting courses over finance
2. The job security is a lot worse in those (from what I hear)
3. IB hours are awful, but consequently pay significantly more
4. IB/MBB doesn’t directly recruit from my school like the Big 4 do. So it takes a lot much more effort with networking, and luck.
> PwC audit out of school, my roommate got rejected by PwC Canada, but landed investment banking at RBC
I actually suspect that if you are a 4.0GPA type, getting into investment banking is easier than getting into Big 4. At least when I was in school, there were a few really intelligent individuals that didn't land public accounting offers but ended up in investment banking (and their first choice was actually B4). Big 4 seemed to weigh GPA a bit lighter than investment banking so the quieter nerdy types underperformed during recruit for accounting jobs.
It's a numbers game.
For investment banking at the time, you needed a perfect or near perfect GPA. For public accounting, I'd say 3.3 and above might be sufficient but not necessary (Yes, I know, someone you know got in with a 3.0 but the likelihood drops significantly).
So for someone with a 4.0, investment banking meant that you didn't need to compete with anyone below a 3.7GPA or whatever it was. The same individual that chooses to go public accounting would need to contest with the 3.3-3.7 crowd. After a GPA/Resumes are good enough, then it's really about interview performance.
>Of course, you can always transfer in as an experienced staff or senior,
This, it’s very easy to get any job in public accounting if you’re willing to make a lateral move.
>but the flame out rate is high due to being set up to fail on the worst engagements and low training
But this, it sucks being an experienced hire. You’re expected to do more with less.
Experienced hires get destroyed by staffing and picked up on the hardest and worst engagements at the firms because the best and easiest engagement have been picked up by those who started at the firm day one for continuity.
Engagement can definitely play a role but I think it’s usually whatever problems caused them
to leave their prior firm continue at the new firm. It’s not like theres a huge pay discrepancy between firms in a given market so if people move it’s usually because they weren’t doing well.
I plan on getting some public expeirence at small firm then joining entry level big4 .
Can I apply the same way as a non experienced hire?
I gues ideally you just do the internship and entry big 4 as a new grad.
I’ve only heard of staff 2 and above being experience hires. I’d recommend staff 2 and not waiting until you’re a senior. Although, what’s funny and sad is, I saw a guy be a senior at a small firm for 3 years and big 4 still downlevelled him to staff 2.
So for you, wait one year, then apply.
Kinda “easy” if they recruit on campus, which if they do it means theyre getting the second fiddle target school kids or getting some top kids at the best non targets.
But those kids are all 3.5+ gpa, with clubs and other accolades. So not just anyone.
If youre at a random school, its harder bcs even the top kids are barely getting b4 as they get very picky after the known schools. I commented this before but some schools they su just auto reject, kpmg always auto rejects me. I actually applied to another role after that comment(3 years in a row) and now with b4 experience at EY, and they still auto rejected me. Someone from my school had to do something, we have 3 total working at kpmg but they all have other degrees from other schools. My school has 35k students for reference lol and churns out ok amounts of b4. Just 0 to kpmg
Your observation is very correct. In Canada, they only hire top of the class from target schools. This is because the elites have way less options than the US. All those prestige jobs, high finance and consulting barely hires fresh grads. Do you think top 1% of Stanford grad would do Big4? Then think about what options do the top UofT grads have.
It’s been so in the last few years. This newest class of associates are absolute dogwater. I never worked as much as this last busy season simply because I had to walk them through every little step. Literally would spend 3 days to turn around and give me a blank workpaper
Why does this happen?
I thought entry level was suppose to be copy paste easy work?
Are they not knwoledgeable about the field or just lack listening and taking notes?
No this new class of associates is legitimately trash.
For example: I gave a junior 10 payroll samples to test which is literally looking at paystubs and entering paystub data into a formula driven excel worksheet. I even walked them through the first sample. Client gave us the wrong paystubs for two samples. Junior just skipped those two samples and just signed off on the payroll working paper. Manager re-opened the working paper and asked why we said we sampled 10 paystubs but tested only 8, and the junior said that 2 paystubs were wrong so we only test 8 now, and then they SIGNED OFF AGAIN. I had even asked if there were any issues in payroll during fieldwork and the junior said there weren't.
This isn't a matter of training. These new associates just don't think. I ended up having to do so much of this juniors work at the last minute because they left so many bad surprises throughout the file.
As part of that new class, offended, but also agree.
I’m still a student, not a full-time, and I’m teaching A2’s like basic common sense for certain sections.
From what I've gathered the big 4 in Canada (at least in Toronto and Vancouver) truly are very competitive and only the best make it in. In the US it seems the bar is generally much lower because they have a much larger economy and therefore more demand for employees, with a less educated workforce. This is also why they are paid a huge premium over Canadians as well
I've (tax) personally seen some horrendous hires, people that wouldn't fare well at any job just from little-to-no common sense/work ethic. There are also people who are brilliant and ultimately carry the dead weight. There can be a wide-range of talent depending on the group you're in.
Yeah, I remember right in the middle of COVID when the firms were bleeding left and right seniors and staff 2. My team got a staff 1 that was barely speaking English and was not speaking French (the two main languages here. That's like saying someone got hired at B4 in LA and did not speak English and barely spoke Spanish...)
The thing is a lot of firms complain and its just weird how those candidates even end up there, Did they get through connections.
I have friends with high gpas and are fluent who can't even get an interview back. How are such random people even getting through/
I can tell you as an experienced candidate from industry who already was designated, I had trouble getting a big 4 offer. Only after so many tries I was able to get an offer from MNP - in a far away suburb.
Yet the Big 4 in the big cities still had so many roles open. I found they were very picky.
It was weird cause one would look at me like I’m a trash candidate and then another would actively be very responsive and cater to me.
The work would’ve sucked at both. I’m not sure what the difference was. One just liked me better and the other one wrote me off without giving me a chance.
Idk why? But fuck them both, I’m never doing that shit again.
I know! Even between MNP offices - the one in the city wrote me off completely, but the one in the suburb had such nice staff and offered me the same or more pay as I would get in the city, and offered me extras too (relocation, past education reimbursement, etc.).
Strange enough - the one in the city dealt with client/industry types I had more experience with versus the ones in the suburban office.
I don't think it's true.
I started my career at PwC in Australia. I applied for all Big 4 and was successful for PwC and Deloitte first, so I didn't bother following up with EY/KPMG doing their in person assessments. To get in was pretty difficult and very competitive. Submit your application for the graduate program, pass an online assessment testing your decision-making abilities, record a video of yourself answering some questions, do a video interview, then an in-person assessment centre where you had to work with other applicants on some issue and finally an interview with a partner.
There's plenty of people who are trying to apply and get in, and there's only a small cohort that gets accepted. So yeah, they're generally going to choose the applicants who have the best grades and perform the best in the assessment pieces.
The pulse thing has always seemed to apply for experienced hires. Not entry level. Everyone tends to be useless at the role so you want the best candidates so you waste less time teaching them.
Experienced hires a few conversations and the work they did you can get a good idea of their capabilities.
Also I think this is more audit.
Everyone here is completely missing the point.
Yes the big4 will hire the smartest. But there are only so many geniuses. The reality is the people who network a lot and get to know the hiring teams and partners get the remaining consideration.
Think about it, you have to spend more time with these people than your family. You think they want to hire a bunch of people they don’t like just because they’re smart? As long as you’re not an idiot, you can do audit work. Hence why they hire the way they do.
Find a person who you think you will get along with and focus on that person for networking, and they will get you the job.
Here’s the truth, to get a job in Big 4 1) you need to have connections or 2) actually get recruited from one of the target schools. If you were from a non target school like me I had connections to get in. However, I want to stress by saying this I worked in Big 4 for eight months only to get canned, I was shocked how people could work in such a shitty job for low pay and crazy hours to learn absolutely nothing. After I got let go from Big 4 I went to industry to get my experience.
After I worked in industry I started realizing that none of what I learned at big 4 was actually applicable to industry and my technical knowledge of accounting improved when I did month end close, bank recs and actually understood what the journals that were being posted actually do. 99% of audit staff do not know what they are doing and are mainly copying and pasting while faking that they actually know what they are doing. When they asked me to tie out Revenue in the Big 4 I can assure you that that tie out was completely garbage and not the correct way to teach accounting graduates.
For example: lots of audit staff were going into the client files and adding up 2 numbers and then claiming “everything ties out”. When I went to industry and did my revenue recognition and reconciliations I could figure out an invoice level what was happening to the revenue figures and why revenue was not tying out. Most of the time audit staff are judging seeing the clients clean books and are not actually seeing the corrections and errors that went along the way to actually correct final figures on the financials. I really hate to say after working in industry I realized that Big 4 is a big fucking scam. None of the guys coming out of those firms are any better at accounting or good at what they do. I would suggest getting your career started in a small company, where you can learn the full cycle of accounting properly and develop real accounting skills instead of testing for immaterial bull shit that the firms made audit associates do. The one thing to consider before you decide is to understand that EVR is a bitch to get.
The CPA profession has rigged the experience requirement for those in Big 4. Like i can assure you that most of the staff in big 4 are not actually getting all the competencies and are only really getting audit and financial reporting experience like for example: treasury and management accounting could not be done be auditors so I don’t understand how the CPA body considers public accounting “pre-approved”. Public accounting in my honest opinion is producing worse accountants with boomer mindsets, this profession is becoming a problem.
We have seniors in public accounting jumping ship to industry to only have never in their years of experience at public completed a journal entry or done a month- end close. Private companies are starting to catch on that the seniors and managers in big 4 are not worth their value when they hop to industry and are chosing not hire many big 4 seniors and managers for senior level positions in industry.
Do your research before applying to companies. Also, don’t drink the koolaid that Big 4 feeds you, protect your mental health and learn to be a good mentor which is enjoy doing. I have made it my mission to train new staff well and new accounting graduates the correct way unlike the horrible way I was taught in audit. Anyways, I know this is a rant but I hope this answer gives you more information and help and helps yu.
Lmao this comment didn't get a lot of attention but is completely the truth.
But truth be told, big 4 will get you far by name alone. It's the easiest way for someone to get their foot in the door and the name still commands tons of respect in large organizations.
Big 4 hires the most, so you'll get your collection of stinkers and geniuses and everything in between.
Meanwhile I started in industry with a cohort of 8, and I'd take every single one of them over a big 4 grad any day.
Take my upvote.
Source: industry developed CPA, having worked with tons of students/ candidates, big 4 or otherwise.
One of the industry companies I used to work for had a policy of not hiring PA’s because of the kinds of issues you’ve noted.
Observing a business from the outside is very different from administering it on the inside.
I feel like I only got hired cus nobody wanted to move to the city where my office is located lol. Partner said in interview that they're not getting enough applicants.
It’s crap that all the Big 4 only allow you to select 2 locations to apply to. Some people like me are willing to work in any state as long as we get in…
Not true in my experience, however I had a garbage GPA when applying for internships and only applied to 2/4 (got rejected for even an interview from both)
I can say false. I applied to all 4, multiple times, and never even received a single piece of communication. Honestly I think they age discriminate too, I was 32 when I got my degree and started applying.
Not in Canada and US, l came from a target school in my country, when l graduated from university, almost everyone could land at least one big 4 graduate position a decade ago, but if you wanna land a job in IB, consulting or even good departments in F500 companies, it’s much more competitive. However thing has changed now, finding a position in big 4 now could be challenging, oversupply of fresh accounting graduates. Of all professional jobs at entry level, accountants now at the bottom end of the income range.
As much as i dislike big 4 as a whole, they do have a standard in hiring staff.
Below would be VN experience big 4 for audit, so might highly vary from other countries (And this will be for staff and intern only since most senior and manager hire are just from 1 public to another public, hardly you ever see someone from private join)
HR round:
_ Usually due to the high amount of staff needed every year, you would usually pass the HR CV round with reasonable CV (when i still work in one, senior would have cv of new blood through un-official mean to pick for their team, list would usually be roughly 150ish candidate to pick from)
_ CV that was picked usually from top local school or from international school, or they have certain achievement that is widely acknowledge, etc... Or sometime the CV make 0 sense (like background marketing, economic, etc... or low grade) but usually that type of CV reek the smell of connection
Technical round:
_ You would usually sit with other candidate in a hall (like final exam) to do the test. Test is basic but honestly i think anyone can pass. The first time i took these test was back when i first out of uni, i'm pretty sure i should have fail since i did not know anything about tax and score abysmal but for some reason, i still pass.
Group interview round:
_ Take control and assert dominance and you pass (shy one usually get the boot here)
Manager / Partner interview:
_ Be the best boot licker you can and you can pass, the first time out of uni, i failed at all 4 big 4 at this round, simply because when they ask something lkke "we will work till 2am here, can you do it" and i would response along the line of "i will work and get thing done but i will not compromise my health for it" (the 2nd time i interview was much better, just repeat along the line of, "i want to contribute", "i want to learn", etc...)
=> In short, they do have standard, but you don't have to be the top of the top, you just need to hit certain mark
The weirdest part is when you get to Big 4, and one of those people with a pulse tells you, “oh we only hire smart people”. Like fuck you do, I’ve been here for three months and can tell that’s not true.
Campus recruitment is not that hard from personal experience. Most of the folks that I know who wanted to be in Big 4 and had the grades to back it up got offers. That said outside campus or non target school = good luck.
Mean they're doing on-campus interview which serves as their first round.
If your school isn't target, they will fly you for inoffice interview, which is obviously more expensive so the resume round has higher standard
In the UK, they do reject a lot of people. The grade requirements aren’t massively high but they have multi-stage assessments and interviews, and a lot of people get dinged.
Grades-wise, the easiest way is to join is as a school leaver, rather than going to university.
You attend a target school in Canada, if you don’t attend a school like Ivey/Queens/Schulich/Laurier/Rotman/McGill/UBC/Waterloo Big 4 basically throw your resume out most of the time since 90% of the partners and staff at big 4 come from these schools.
Canadian Target School with a high GPA big 4 is achievable.
Non-target? Good luck.
I worked at big 4 for over 8 years most of which in Toronto until senior manager and I can tell you without ANY doubt this is true to this day look on linked for ANYONE working at big 4 today in Ontario and most of time they are from these schools. You WILL see HEC and Concordia but they are regional for Montreal, which is a smaller office. I have to be honest in Toronto I have barely saw anyone from HEC or Concordia. They are Montreal targets.
McGill not being a target school is SO not True. Big 4 target and hire directly at McGill and in fact they are targeted for Investment Banking and top finance jobs.
McGill is not a target school. As someone who worked at the B4 in Montreal, I can tell you that Concordia (John Molson) and UDEM (HEC) are target schools.
Than why do you see so many McGill grads at Big 4 from Linkedin? Lol. Quick search they are everywhere. Non target means they don’t hire from the school, but on linkedin its clear they hire from Mcgill.
Just did a quick search. PwC Canada has 200 people from HEC, 200 from Concordia and 140 from McGill. KPMG Canada has 340 from HEC, 280 from Concordia and 240 from McGill. Deloitte (couldn't find the page for Deloitte Canada) has 750 from Concordia, 710 from McGill and 700 from HEC. B4 actually hire from all school in Montreal, but they are definitely mostly hiring from HEC and Concordia, which are the two best schools here if you are studying Business. McGill is great in other fields, but I would not say it is a target school unless you are saying that all universities in Mtl are target schools
U just proved yourself wrong than. A non-target school would not have hundreds of people working at big 4 lol. You called McGill a non-target which is simply not true. When you say a school is a non-target it means most people from the school don’t get hired there.
I worked in toronto for years past Manager, McGill grads were everywhere.
I never said it was a non-target school. As I previously stated, it is not a target school. There are schools in which B4 will spend more efforts/ressources in hiring (target schools), schools in which people have to go above and beyond to be hired as the firms do not attend recruiting events (non-target) and schools in which firms attend event, but they are not spending much ressources on (UQAM, McGill, etc.) I can give a concrete example. At UQAM (in my firm), we had between 2-4 employees attending recruiting events vs HEC having 12-15 employees.
Of course, if you're from Toronto, you would see a lot of people from McGill, but that is not because it is a target school. It is simply, because B4 are hiring from two English universities in Quebec: Concordia and McGill. As such, I would expect McGill alumni to be overrepresented.
I don’t know why you are arguing with me on this i’m not saying McGill is better or whatever, my point is that a lot of people in Big 4 end up being McGill/Ivey/Queens/other schools who missed out in investment banking and MBB in Toronto, had nothing to do with montreal schools and Big 4 recruitment. Generally target schools/semi target are Ivey/Queens/McGill for investment banking and MBB. The whole purpose of this thread is to say there are top calibre candidates that apply to big 4 from top schools and McGill is one of them.
How many schools in the country offer 3 coop terms other than waterloo and laurier? Schools very well known for pumping out top candidates.
I don't understand your argument.
I feel like the term should be updated to “Anyone with a pulse and half a brain”.
I went to a non-target you’ve never heard of, with absolutely no recruitment, and got offers from both Deloitte & EY in Audit (applied to Consulting at KPMG & PwC).
Albeit I did graduate with a 4.00/4.00 GPA and did extra curricular’s.
It used to be very competitive and you needed top grades, extra curricular’s, good school, etc. to get in. Now, I can’t speak for non-campus hiring, however I have heard that they have lowered the hiring criteria (GPA average, resume screening) during the last couple of years because the pool of potential applicants has significantly decreased as a direct result of less students going into Accounting programs in university. I also think more students are exploring other careers to get their CPA, such as through larger organizations or the big banks who have CPA accredited programs now. This is not to say everyone who applies will get accepted. But it isn’t as competitive as it was 5+ years ago.
This is accurate. And there is so much more of a push for active management and teaching in office because some of who we hire need all the help they can get. I will hire and give a year to figure it out, and if you suck, then we will move on. It’s not fun, but we are firing junior professionals at a much higher rate than we used to as well, and I think it’s in large part because they are poor candidates in the first place.
Is this Canada?
I am wondering what makes a good candidate? Are you talking about how much accounting knowledge they have coming out of school and tehcnical such as excel work?
Or just work ethic and soft skills.
US. And it’s a mixture of work ethic and ability to learn. I’m not expecting you to come in knowing what you are doing, but I explain something and then you fail to apply it the next time it comes up, we are going to have a problem.
In Canada it's hopeless, here you compete with the entire world for placement jobs and the big4 here have zero loyalty to Canadians, just another US office.
I went to a smaller business school and not a single peer in my cohort not even the A type who were exuding confidence and potential offers, got all the coops and internships, got a big4 offer after graduating.
I got hired at EY Vancouver in 2019 as an intern, went back in 2020 as full time. My intern cohort was mostly stacked or if they lacked in some area like GPA they were outstanding in other experiences.
It’s been five years so things may have changed but it is kind of true they’ll take anyone with a pulse. But at that time, the pool of applicants they had was so huge that they did get to cherry pick the exceptional ones out of the pool of pulses.
That said, I got in from a non-major university/target school (BCIT). Most of my cohort was UBC DAP and Beedie. What helped for me was a really high GPA, networking a lot with people in B4 and with my peers, and extracurriculars in consulting, so if you have experiences and skills that they want, your school doesn’t matter as much.
I'd say it's pretty easy in Canada to get a co-op/intern role. I go to a complete non-target school (only person from my school hired in awhile) and I got an internship at PwC for this summer (just finished my second year, but applied spring of my first year).
My GPA is pretty high (3.9), but honestly the big cities hire a lot of interns. Pretty sure in Vancouver and Toronto, all the Big 4 hire like 50 interns every summer. Most people I know had offers from multiple firms.
I also have absolutely no accounting experience, I've never even taken an accounting class, my school doesn't have an accounting program. I don't plan on pursuing accounting or a CPA, just here for the resume boost lol.
Tbh not even sure how they hired me, but it shows that you don't need to be super crazy to get one.
3.9 gpa is pretty crazy lol.
Well your an intern so I think you will eventually become one of those linkedin candidates with 2 big 4 coop 3.8+ gpa and glowing extraciriculars.
Not true for my case. They only took the finest boot lickers and cock glazers my university had to offer. I went to the recruiting events via my university’s meet the firms events and got squarely shunned.
Wasn’t even a gpa thing it was a beauty contest at my school. Glazing the prettiest ladies and handsomest dudes. And I’m pretty sure their offer ration was like 70/30 girl to guy ratio. All the girls the damn prettiest my business school had. So I put no weight into it.
Not really that true.
In the US, if you go to a target school and are involved and interview well, chances are good. But not all schools are target schools.
The big takeaway is B4 doesn’t really mean shit in the long run. Yeah, it can help propel you places. Yeah it can open doors. But it isn’t the end all be all.
Probably true for audit. Not true for any division that requires a brain. Unfortunately audit is the strongest representation by headcount so the other divisions reputations get tarnished
I worked in both the US and Canada. It is A LOT harder in Canada including for Audit and Tax. Hire anybody with a pulse is a US thing which was kinda true up until last year but this year idk with all the layoffs. Canadian talent is so much better than US talent especially these past few years.
When I was in school the B4 were fairly strict with only hiring the highest GPAs, and native English speakers. (top in accounting were foreign Chinese - still hasn't changed too much as they paid 5x the fees). After getting my CPA (CA in those days) I saw they'd pretty much give anyone an offer at that point as an experienced hire. 50-75% of those who went in as coops were gone. And when I was a SM they'd be begging me to come. Of course knowledge as a SM was much more useful than as an idiotic coop. Honestly I don't even remember my GPA and its one of the weakest stats but its important to B4 early on.
Not true. Never got an internship or a full time offer for any of them out of college even though I graduated summa cum laude for undergrad and magna cum laude for masters. I had internship experience for a top 20 firm, founded and was VP of a club on campus and also did Beta Alpha Psi.
Maybe it's easier now since this was a decade ago.
[non-US]
Market dynamics differ wildly depending on where you are. Plus there are nuances beyond that:
I've been in one office where yeah they hired from a pretty thin local pool because it was just a small place with tricky work permit issues so standards were pretty loose on skill side.
And I've been in another where the uni phase of qualifying was so brutal that anyone left standing at the end got a B4 job by default - there were fewer people making it than B4 had demand so most people had multiple B4 offers.
...both examples of hiring whatever they can get but very different dynamics.
I think its wildly different in Canada than it is in the US.
In both countries having B4 experience on your resume carries a lot of weight (even if it shouldn't) but it's far less competitive in the US from what I can tell. It's still not a total shoe-in, you have to have decent grades and a somewhat likable personality. I have seen stories on this subreddit about offers getting rescinded because of slipping grades. But on the whole, US Big 4 will take in quite a few people, even some that might be a little questionable.
Semi true. In recent years in US it’s become more restrictive but still pretty easy. If you have a half decent set of grades and can interview well your in most likely. The real trouble depends on which area you’re trying to go to. There are high need areas like the US’s Bay Area, will hire anything with a pulse to fill a seat and get even some marginal work done. High demand areas will be a lot more picky because they can.
Canada seems harder, US depends on target school still for most hires. Of course, you can always transfer in as an experienced staff or senior, but the flame out rate is high due to being set up to fail on the worst engagements and low training
The people who work at Big 4 in Canada come from the same target and semi-target investment banking/Consulting schools in Canada. They all attend the same schools, Big 4 in Canada is VERY competitive. I went to a Canadian target, landed PwC audit out of school, my roommate got rejected by PwC Canada, but landed investment banking at RBC … all jobs in Canada is are stupidly competitive. Probably 80% of the people in Big 4 Canada come from the same programs that recruit for investment banking and high finance/consulting. You could be at Ivey/Queens and a quarter of people are working at Big 4 audit and the other portion of your classmates are at Goldman Sachs and MBB consulting too. Big 4 is a lot more respected in Canada.
Weird how it’s lower paying and harder to get in and more respected
Canadian economy isn't as productive as the US Less higher quality jobs Back in 2019, mid tier outside of Vancouver can get away paying 38k cad for juniors to start. MNP had a very terrible rep back then ,not sure if this has changed Vancouver and Toronto offices are most competitive to get in.
Big 4 in Van and Toronto are crazy competitive to get in. And hence why they kinda underpay compared to the rest of the market.
Just like our CPA program! *cries in Canadian*
Don't know what it is about the other Commonwealth countries but UK and Australia both pay peanuts too. Not quite as bad as Canada though.
It is as mentioned above , lack of depth in commerce and productivity of their economies. The only outlier in the English speaking word is the US, have the commercial high paying jobs broaden the market for talent and opportunities for all.
Toronto's economy is too concentrated in the RE sector.
Canadian economy is smaller and more competitive than US. Fewer companies are headquartered in Canada vs US.
Idk I’m at a big 4 in a major Canadian city. I swear the hiring standards have gone to shit. We seem to hire anyone with a pulse and 4 year semi relevant degree from any university.
Vancouver?
Ya
Yea, it’s really weird around here. I saw Big 4 hires University Canada West graduates with their fake MBAs now for consulting. I guess hiring standards are in a shitter.
In Canada, Big 4 may just not be worth it. Incredibly low salaries and high COL.
Why would anyone go to B4 if IB/MBB is an option? I am genuinely baffled.
Because the market on Canada is very small. If you strike out of IB/MBB in Canada, big 4 is the next best option. But when people go for B4 competition is insane. So you end up having IB/MBB candidates that all end up in B4.
Because if you’re not one of the 50 people in Canada hired into IB that year you have to move on with the next best thing.
its not even the same career path lol
Effort and job security tbh. I have the grades and etc to be competitive for IB/MBB, but chose big 4. These were my specific reasons: 1. Because I preferred accounting courses over finance 2. The job security is a lot worse in those (from what I hear) 3. IB hours are awful, but consequently pay significantly more 4. IB/MBB doesn’t directly recruit from my school like the Big 4 do. So it takes a lot much more effort with networking, and luck.
> PwC audit out of school, my roommate got rejected by PwC Canada, but landed investment banking at RBC I actually suspect that if you are a 4.0GPA type, getting into investment banking is easier than getting into Big 4. At least when I was in school, there were a few really intelligent individuals that didn't land public accounting offers but ended up in investment banking (and their first choice was actually B4). Big 4 seemed to weigh GPA a bit lighter than investment banking so the quieter nerdy types underperformed during recruit for accounting jobs.
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It's a numbers game. For investment banking at the time, you needed a perfect or near perfect GPA. For public accounting, I'd say 3.3 and above might be sufficient but not necessary (Yes, I know, someone you know got in with a 3.0 but the likelihood drops significantly). So for someone with a 4.0, investment banking meant that you didn't need to compete with anyone below a 3.7GPA or whatever it was. The same individual that chooses to go public accounting would need to contest with the 3.3-3.7 crowd. After a GPA/Resumes are good enough, then it's really about interview performance.
>Of course, you can always transfer in as an experienced staff or senior, This, it’s very easy to get any job in public accounting if you’re willing to make a lateral move. >but the flame out rate is high due to being set up to fail on the worst engagements and low training But this, it sucks being an experienced hire. You’re expected to do more with less.
Experienced hires get destroyed by staffing and picked up on the hardest and worst engagements at the firms because the best and easiest engagement have been picked up by those who started at the firm day one for continuity.
Engagement can definitely play a role but I think it’s usually whatever problems caused them to leave their prior firm continue at the new firm. It’s not like theres a huge pay discrepancy between firms in a given market so if people move it’s usually because they weren’t doing well.
I plan on getting some public expeirence at small firm then joining entry level big4 . Can I apply the same way as a non experienced hire? I gues ideally you just do the internship and entry big 4 as a new grad.
I’ve only heard of staff 2 and above being experience hires. I’d recommend staff 2 and not waiting until you’re a senior. Although, what’s funny and sad is, I saw a guy be a senior at a small firm for 3 years and big 4 still downlevelled him to staff 2. So for you, wait one year, then apply.
Kinda “easy” if they recruit on campus, which if they do it means theyre getting the second fiddle target school kids or getting some top kids at the best non targets. But those kids are all 3.5+ gpa, with clubs and other accolades. So not just anyone. If youre at a random school, its harder bcs even the top kids are barely getting b4 as they get very picky after the known schools. I commented this before but some schools they su just auto reject, kpmg always auto rejects me. I actually applied to another role after that comment(3 years in a row) and now with b4 experience at EY, and they still auto rejected me. Someone from my school had to do something, we have 3 total working at kpmg but they all have other degrees from other schools. My school has 35k students for reference lol and churns out ok amounts of b4. Just 0 to kpmg
Your observation is very correct. In Canada, they only hire top of the class from target schools. This is because the elites have way less options than the US. All those prestige jobs, high finance and consulting barely hires fresh grads. Do you think top 1% of Stanford grad would do Big4? Then think about what options do the top UofT grads have.
Not very. I applied for a job a few years ago and got a rejection letter about 45 minutes later.
It’s been so in the last few years. This newest class of associates are absolute dogwater. I never worked as much as this last busy season simply because I had to walk them through every little step. Literally would spend 3 days to turn around and give me a blank workpaper
Why does this happen? I thought entry level was suppose to be copy paste easy work? Are they not knwoledgeable about the field or just lack listening and taking notes?
That easy work goes to India now
So could it be that they are no longer getting the trianing and just being put into harder more ccomplex work now?
No this new class of associates is legitimately trash. For example: I gave a junior 10 payroll samples to test which is literally looking at paystubs and entering paystub data into a formula driven excel worksheet. I even walked them through the first sample. Client gave us the wrong paystubs for two samples. Junior just skipped those two samples and just signed off on the payroll working paper. Manager re-opened the working paper and asked why we said we sampled 10 paystubs but tested only 8, and the junior said that 2 paystubs were wrong so we only test 8 now, and then they SIGNED OFF AGAIN. I had even asked if there were any issues in payroll during fieldwork and the junior said there weren't. This isn't a matter of training. These new associates just don't think. I ended up having to do so much of this juniors work at the last minute because they left so many bad surprises throughout the file.
Hmm I see. So just common sense issues and work ethic.
As part of that new class, offended, but also agree. I’m still a student, not a full-time, and I’m teaching A2’s like basic common sense for certain sections.
From what I've gathered the big 4 in Canada (at least in Toronto and Vancouver) truly are very competitive and only the best make it in. In the US it seems the bar is generally much lower because they have a much larger economy and therefore more demand for employees, with a less educated workforce. This is also why they are paid a huge premium over Canadians as well
the US should just outsource work to Canada instead of india.
They did during covid
I've (tax) personally seen some horrendous hires, people that wouldn't fare well at any job just from little-to-no common sense/work ethic. There are also people who are brilliant and ultimately carry the dead weight. There can be a wide-range of talent depending on the group you're in.
Yeah, I remember right in the middle of COVID when the firms were bleeding left and right seniors and staff 2. My team got a staff 1 that was barely speaking English and was not speaking French (the two main languages here. That's like saying someone got hired at B4 in LA and did not speak English and barely spoke Spanish...)
The thing is a lot of firms complain and its just weird how those candidates even end up there, Did they get through connections. I have friends with high gpas and are fluent who can't even get an interview back. How are such random people even getting through/
I can tell you as an experienced candidate from industry who already was designated, I had trouble getting a big 4 offer. Only after so many tries I was able to get an offer from MNP - in a far away suburb. Yet the Big 4 in the big cities still had so many roles open. I found they were very picky.
It was weird cause one would look at me like I’m a trash candidate and then another would actively be very responsive and cater to me. The work would’ve sucked at both. I’m not sure what the difference was. One just liked me better and the other one wrote me off without giving me a chance. Idk why? But fuck them both, I’m never doing that shit again.
I know! Even between MNP offices - the one in the city wrote me off completely, but the one in the suburb had such nice staff and offered me the same or more pay as I would get in the city, and offered me extras too (relocation, past education reimbursement, etc.). Strange enough - the one in the city dealt with client/industry types I had more experience with versus the ones in the suburban office.
I don't think it's true. I started my career at PwC in Australia. I applied for all Big 4 and was successful for PwC and Deloitte first, so I didn't bother following up with EY/KPMG doing their in person assessments. To get in was pretty difficult and very competitive. Submit your application for the graduate program, pass an online assessment testing your decision-making abilities, record a video of yourself answering some questions, do a video interview, then an in-person assessment centre where you had to work with other applicants on some issue and finally an interview with a partner. There's plenty of people who are trying to apply and get in, and there's only a small cohort that gets accepted. So yeah, they're generally going to choose the applicants who have the best grades and perform the best in the assessment pieces.
Definitely not true. At least not if you are at a target school.
The pulse thing has always seemed to apply for experienced hires. Not entry level. Everyone tends to be useless at the role so you want the best candidates so you waste less time teaching them. Experienced hires a few conversations and the work they did you can get a good idea of their capabilities. Also I think this is more audit.
Everyone here is completely missing the point. Yes the big4 will hire the smartest. But there are only so many geniuses. The reality is the people who network a lot and get to know the hiring teams and partners get the remaining consideration. Think about it, you have to spend more time with these people than your family. You think they want to hire a bunch of people they don’t like just because they’re smart? As long as you’re not an idiot, you can do audit work. Hence why they hire the way they do. Find a person who you think you will get along with and focus on that person for networking, and they will get you the job.
Here’s the truth, to get a job in Big 4 1) you need to have connections or 2) actually get recruited from one of the target schools. If you were from a non target school like me I had connections to get in. However, I want to stress by saying this I worked in Big 4 for eight months only to get canned, I was shocked how people could work in such a shitty job for low pay and crazy hours to learn absolutely nothing. After I got let go from Big 4 I went to industry to get my experience. After I worked in industry I started realizing that none of what I learned at big 4 was actually applicable to industry and my technical knowledge of accounting improved when I did month end close, bank recs and actually understood what the journals that were being posted actually do. 99% of audit staff do not know what they are doing and are mainly copying and pasting while faking that they actually know what they are doing. When they asked me to tie out Revenue in the Big 4 I can assure you that that tie out was completely garbage and not the correct way to teach accounting graduates. For example: lots of audit staff were going into the client files and adding up 2 numbers and then claiming “everything ties out”. When I went to industry and did my revenue recognition and reconciliations I could figure out an invoice level what was happening to the revenue figures and why revenue was not tying out. Most of the time audit staff are judging seeing the clients clean books and are not actually seeing the corrections and errors that went along the way to actually correct final figures on the financials. I really hate to say after working in industry I realized that Big 4 is a big fucking scam. None of the guys coming out of those firms are any better at accounting or good at what they do. I would suggest getting your career started in a small company, where you can learn the full cycle of accounting properly and develop real accounting skills instead of testing for immaterial bull shit that the firms made audit associates do. The one thing to consider before you decide is to understand that EVR is a bitch to get. The CPA profession has rigged the experience requirement for those in Big 4. Like i can assure you that most of the staff in big 4 are not actually getting all the competencies and are only really getting audit and financial reporting experience like for example: treasury and management accounting could not be done be auditors so I don’t understand how the CPA body considers public accounting “pre-approved”. Public accounting in my honest opinion is producing worse accountants with boomer mindsets, this profession is becoming a problem. We have seniors in public accounting jumping ship to industry to only have never in their years of experience at public completed a journal entry or done a month- end close. Private companies are starting to catch on that the seniors and managers in big 4 are not worth their value when they hop to industry and are chosing not hire many big 4 seniors and managers for senior level positions in industry. Do your research before applying to companies. Also, don’t drink the koolaid that Big 4 feeds you, protect your mental health and learn to be a good mentor which is enjoy doing. I have made it my mission to train new staff well and new accounting graduates the correct way unlike the horrible way I was taught in audit. Anyways, I know this is a rant but I hope this answer gives you more information and help and helps yu.
Lmao this comment didn't get a lot of attention but is completely the truth. But truth be told, big 4 will get you far by name alone. It's the easiest way for someone to get their foot in the door and the name still commands tons of respect in large organizations. Big 4 hires the most, so you'll get your collection of stinkers and geniuses and everything in between. Meanwhile I started in industry with a cohort of 8, and I'd take every single one of them over a big 4 grad any day. Take my upvote. Source: industry developed CPA, having worked with tons of students/ candidates, big 4 or otherwise.
Glad I could make you laugh and impart truth for the new generation haha.
One of the industry companies I used to work for had a policy of not hiring PA’s because of the kinds of issues you’ve noted. Observing a business from the outside is very different from administering it on the inside.
If you meet the requirements you shouldn’t have a hard time. Have a 3.5, attend the job fair; get the recruiters info.
3.5/4.0? I think I’ve seen lower get in. I go to UofT.
It’s just a guideline. I got a b4 internship with a 2.9 so who knows. This was 2016
Yeah I figured
If you go to a target school in Toronto and have decent grades like 3.5+ it’s pretty easy if your not in a target yea tough luck pretty much.
The average kids probably aren’t posting their resumes on linkedin
True lol, 90% of the people on linked in from my school just have it with nothing bcs some professors make you create an account
Easy if they’re on your campus, hard if they’re not
I feel like I only got hired cus nobody wanted to move to the city where my office is located lol. Partner said in interview that they're not getting enough applicants.
It’s crap that all the Big 4 only allow you to select 2 locations to apply to. Some people like me are willing to work in any state as long as we get in…
Not true in my experience, however I had a garbage GPA when applying for internships and only applied to 2/4 (got rejected for even an interview from both)
I can say false. I applied to all 4, multiple times, and never even received a single piece of communication. Honestly I think they age discriminate too, I was 32 when I got my degree and started applying.
I imagine because they want to lowball kids as much as possible. I bet they are ageist but not cuz u did anything wrong
Yeah I am trying to get into Big4 and i see no job opening lol.
Not in Canada and US, l came from a target school in my country, when l graduated from university, almost everyone could land at least one big 4 graduate position a decade ago, but if you wanna land a job in IB, consulting or even good departments in F500 companies, it’s much more competitive. However thing has changed now, finding a position in big 4 now could be challenging, oversupply of fresh accounting graduates. Of all professional jobs at entry level, accountants now at the bottom end of the income range.
As much as i dislike big 4 as a whole, they do have a standard in hiring staff. Below would be VN experience big 4 for audit, so might highly vary from other countries (And this will be for staff and intern only since most senior and manager hire are just from 1 public to another public, hardly you ever see someone from private join) HR round: _ Usually due to the high amount of staff needed every year, you would usually pass the HR CV round with reasonable CV (when i still work in one, senior would have cv of new blood through un-official mean to pick for their team, list would usually be roughly 150ish candidate to pick from) _ CV that was picked usually from top local school or from international school, or they have certain achievement that is widely acknowledge, etc... Or sometime the CV make 0 sense (like background marketing, economic, etc... or low grade) but usually that type of CV reek the smell of connection Technical round: _ You would usually sit with other candidate in a hall (like final exam) to do the test. Test is basic but honestly i think anyone can pass. The first time i took these test was back when i first out of uni, i'm pretty sure i should have fail since i did not know anything about tax and score abysmal but for some reason, i still pass. Group interview round: _ Take control and assert dominance and you pass (shy one usually get the boot here) Manager / Partner interview: _ Be the best boot licker you can and you can pass, the first time out of uni, i failed at all 4 big 4 at this round, simply because when they ask something lkke "we will work till 2am here, can you do it" and i would response along the line of "i will work and get thing done but i will not compromise my health for it" (the 2nd time i interview was much better, just repeat along the line of, "i want to contribute", "i want to learn", etc...) => In short, they do have standard, but you don't have to be the top of the top, you just need to hit certain mark
You just need to be from the right school with decent grades.
The weirdest part is when you get to Big 4, and one of those people with a pulse tells you, “oh we only hire smart people”. Like fuck you do, I’ve been here for three months and can tell that’s not true.
Campus recruitment is not that hard from personal experience. Most of the folks that I know who wanted to be in Big 4 and had the grades to back it up got offers. That said outside campus or non target school = good luck.
Campus recruitment just mean they have those occasional booths at the uni?
For my school, all the big 4s, national and regional firms would have multiple recruiting events either on campus or at a venue and office visits.
Mean they're doing on-campus interview which serves as their first round. If your school isn't target, they will fly you for inoffice interview, which is obviously more expensive so the resume round has higher standard
I went to a smaller college in Vancouver (Langara) and many of my classmates were hired on at Big 4. Most started as co-op students.
In the UK, they do reject a lot of people. The grade requirements aren’t massively high but they have multi-stage assessments and interviews, and a lot of people get dinged. Grades-wise, the easiest way is to join is as a school leaver, rather than going to university.
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Your gpa might be average but your work experience def isnt. Youre not “anyone with a pulse” tbh
You attend a target school in Canada, if you don’t attend a school like Ivey/Queens/Schulich/Laurier/Rotman/McGill/UBC/Waterloo Big 4 basically throw your resume out most of the time since 90% of the partners and staff at big 4 come from these schools. Canadian Target School with a high GPA big 4 is achievable. Non-target? Good luck.
I don't attend any of these schools. This was probably true back in your days. It is not true today. Thigs have changed.
I worked at big 4 for over 8 years most of which in Toronto until senior manager and I can tell you without ANY doubt this is true to this day look on linked for ANYONE working at big 4 today in Ontario and most of time they are from these schools. You WILL see HEC and Concordia but they are regional for Montreal, which is a smaller office. I have to be honest in Toronto I have barely saw anyone from HEC or Concordia. They are Montreal targets. McGill not being a target school is SO not True. Big 4 target and hire directly at McGill and in fact they are targeted for Investment Banking and top finance jobs.
McGill is not a target school. As someone who worked at the B4 in Montreal, I can tell you that Concordia (John Molson) and UDEM (HEC) are target schools.
Than why do you see so many McGill grads at Big 4 from Linkedin? Lol. Quick search they are everywhere. Non target means they don’t hire from the school, but on linkedin its clear they hire from Mcgill.
Just did a quick search. PwC Canada has 200 people from HEC, 200 from Concordia and 140 from McGill. KPMG Canada has 340 from HEC, 280 from Concordia and 240 from McGill. Deloitte (couldn't find the page for Deloitte Canada) has 750 from Concordia, 710 from McGill and 700 from HEC. B4 actually hire from all school in Montreal, but they are definitely mostly hiring from HEC and Concordia, which are the two best schools here if you are studying Business. McGill is great in other fields, but I would not say it is a target school unless you are saying that all universities in Mtl are target schools
U just proved yourself wrong than. A non-target school would not have hundreds of people working at big 4 lol. You called McGill a non-target which is simply not true. When you say a school is a non-target it means most people from the school don’t get hired there. I worked in toronto for years past Manager, McGill grads were everywhere.
I never said it was a non-target school. As I previously stated, it is not a target school. There are schools in which B4 will spend more efforts/ressources in hiring (target schools), schools in which people have to go above and beyond to be hired as the firms do not attend recruiting events (non-target) and schools in which firms attend event, but they are not spending much ressources on (UQAM, McGill, etc.) I can give a concrete example. At UQAM (in my firm), we had between 2-4 employees attending recruiting events vs HEC having 12-15 employees. Of course, if you're from Toronto, you would see a lot of people from McGill, but that is not because it is a target school. It is simply, because B4 are hiring from two English universities in Quebec: Concordia and McGill. As such, I would expect McGill alumni to be overrepresented.
I don’t know why you are arguing with me on this i’m not saying McGill is better or whatever, my point is that a lot of people in Big 4 end up being McGill/Ivey/Queens/other schools who missed out in investment banking and MBB in Toronto, had nothing to do with montreal schools and Big 4 recruitment. Generally target schools/semi target are Ivey/Queens/McGill for investment banking and MBB. The whole purpose of this thread is to say there are top calibre candidates that apply to big 4 from top schools and McGill is one of them.
Wow, 3 coop terms?
Is that special?
Yes it is. Usually 1 is norm?
Mm not really, WLU has 3, UW 5 I believe
How many schools in the country offer 3 coop terms other than waterloo and laurier? Schools very well known for pumping out top candidates. I don't understand your argument.
I’m just stating that “one coop term” is not the norm. Consider also coop length of UofT is 12 months, just saying it varies widely across the country
Yeah having 1 internship is usually the norm. U of T is 12 months for PEY not for rotman. It varies alot but the average kid will have 1 internship.
I feel like the term should be updated to “Anyone with a pulse and half a brain”. I went to a non-target you’ve never heard of, with absolutely no recruitment, and got offers from both Deloitte & EY in Audit (applied to Consulting at KPMG & PwC). Albeit I did graduate with a 4.00/4.00 GPA and did extra curricular’s.
Half a brain is 4.0. You’re right though, non targets do need to be basicallly 4.0 plus legit referral
It used to be very competitive and you needed top grades, extra curricular’s, good school, etc. to get in. Now, I can’t speak for non-campus hiring, however I have heard that they have lowered the hiring criteria (GPA average, resume screening) during the last couple of years because the pool of potential applicants has significantly decreased as a direct result of less students going into Accounting programs in university. I also think more students are exploring other careers to get their CPA, such as through larger organizations or the big banks who have CPA accredited programs now. This is not to say everyone who applies will get accepted. But it isn’t as competitive as it was 5+ years ago.
This is accurate. And there is so much more of a push for active management and teaching in office because some of who we hire need all the help they can get. I will hire and give a year to figure it out, and if you suck, then we will move on. It’s not fun, but we are firing junior professionals at a much higher rate than we used to as well, and I think it’s in large part because they are poor candidates in the first place.
Is this Canada? I am wondering what makes a good candidate? Are you talking about how much accounting knowledge they have coming out of school and tehcnical such as excel work? Or just work ethic and soft skills.
US. And it’s a mixture of work ethic and ability to learn. I’m not expecting you to come in knowing what you are doing, but I explain something and then you fail to apply it the next time it comes up, we are going to have a problem.
In Canada it's hopeless, here you compete with the entire world for placement jobs and the big4 here have zero loyalty to Canadians, just another US office. I went to a smaller business school and not a single peer in my cohort not even the A type who were exuding confidence and potential offers, got all the coops and internships, got a big4 offer after graduating.
I got hired at EY Vancouver in 2019 as an intern, went back in 2020 as full time. My intern cohort was mostly stacked or if they lacked in some area like GPA they were outstanding in other experiences. It’s been five years so things may have changed but it is kind of true they’ll take anyone with a pulse. But at that time, the pool of applicants they had was so huge that they did get to cherry pick the exceptional ones out of the pool of pulses. That said, I got in from a non-major university/target school (BCIT). Most of my cohort was UBC DAP and Beedie. What helped for me was a really high GPA, networking a lot with people in B4 and with my peers, and extracurriculars in consulting, so if you have experiences and skills that they want, your school doesn’t matter as much.
Sept 2024 start applicant in Canada. Gonna find out soon 😅
I'd say it's pretty easy in Canada to get a co-op/intern role. I go to a complete non-target school (only person from my school hired in awhile) and I got an internship at PwC for this summer (just finished my second year, but applied spring of my first year). My GPA is pretty high (3.9), but honestly the big cities hire a lot of interns. Pretty sure in Vancouver and Toronto, all the Big 4 hire like 50 interns every summer. Most people I know had offers from multiple firms. I also have absolutely no accounting experience, I've never even taken an accounting class, my school doesn't have an accounting program. I don't plan on pursuing accounting or a CPA, just here for the resume boost lol. Tbh not even sure how they hired me, but it shows that you don't need to be super crazy to get one.
3.9 gpa is pretty crazy lol. Well your an intern so I think you will eventually become one of those linkedin candidates with 2 big 4 coop 3.8+ gpa and glowing extraciriculars.
Not true for my case. They only took the finest boot lickers and cock glazers my university had to offer. I went to the recruiting events via my university’s meet the firms events and got squarely shunned. Wasn’t even a gpa thing it was a beauty contest at my school. Glazing the prettiest ladies and handsomest dudes. And I’m pretty sure their offer ration was like 70/30 girl to guy ratio. All the girls the damn prettiest my business school had. So I put no weight into it.
Accounting has always been more women leaning, ifs always like 60% women Just look at the class profiles of macc degrees lok its always like 65% women
Absolutely not true anymore. Public accounting is much more competitive now than 5-6 years ago.
Not really that true. In the US, if you go to a target school and are involved and interview well, chances are good. But not all schools are target schools. The big takeaway is B4 doesn’t really mean shit in the long run. Yeah, it can help propel you places. Yeah it can open doors. But it isn’t the end all be all.
The knowledge you gain working at B4 is extremely valuable.
not true, the executives are all vampires without a pulse
Not at all
Probably true for audit. Not true for any division that requires a brain. Unfortunately audit is the strongest representation by headcount so the other divisions reputations get tarnished
Didn’t know it’s that hard to get a job there, here in Germany we have a 60% acceptance rate for associates.
Maybe a large target school. I went a very small target school and it was vey competitive
I worked in both the US and Canada. It is A LOT harder in Canada including for Audit and Tax. Hire anybody with a pulse is a US thing which was kinda true up until last year but this year idk with all the layoffs. Canadian talent is so much better than US talent especially these past few years.
Australia is extremely competitive.
When I was in school the B4 were fairly strict with only hiring the highest GPAs, and native English speakers. (top in accounting were foreign Chinese - still hasn't changed too much as they paid 5x the fees). After getting my CPA (CA in those days) I saw they'd pretty much give anyone an offer at that point as an experienced hire. 50-75% of those who went in as coops were gone. And when I was a SM they'd be begging me to come. Of course knowledge as a SM was much more useful than as an idiotic coop. Honestly I don't even remember my GPA and its one of the weakest stats but its important to B4 early on.
They did post covid, things have changed since
Not true. Never got an internship or a full time offer for any of them out of college even though I graduated summa cum laude for undergrad and magna cum laude for masters. I had internship experience for a top 20 firm, founded and was VP of a club on campus and also did Beta Alpha Psi. Maybe it's easier now since this was a decade ago.
They still care about your GPA
Yea not true from experience. I have 16 months of co-op experience but with a terrible gpa from a prior semester. Got declined from every single firm.
[non-US] Market dynamics differ wildly depending on where you are. Plus there are nuances beyond that: I've been in one office where yeah they hired from a pretty thin local pool because it was just a small place with tricky work permit issues so standards were pretty loose on skill side. And I've been in another where the uni phase of qualifying was so brutal that anyone left standing at the end got a B4 job by default - there were fewer people making it than B4 had demand so most people had multiple B4 offers. ...both examples of hiring whatever they can get but very different dynamics.
I think its wildly different in Canada than it is in the US. In both countries having B4 experience on your resume carries a lot of weight (even if it shouldn't) but it's far less competitive in the US from what I can tell. It's still not a total shoe-in, you have to have decent grades and a somewhat likable personality. I have seen stories on this subreddit about offers getting rescinded because of slipping grades. But on the whole, US Big 4 will take in quite a few people, even some that might be a little questionable.
Semi true. In recent years in US it’s become more restrictive but still pretty easy. If you have a half decent set of grades and can interview well your in most likely. The real trouble depends on which area you’re trying to go to. There are high need areas like the US’s Bay Area, will hire anything with a pulse to fill a seat and get even some marginal work done. High demand areas will be a lot more picky because they can.
Deloitte turned me down either by race or age. I had a 4.0 and interview well.
I must be dead if that the case lol
Bruh, if you can read out a 6 digit number correctly and then type that number into an excel sheet, you can probably do 75% of accounting lmao
Ehh I don't think it's true.
Big 4 likes to pick from the top. They most certainly do not hire "anyone with a pulse."
Right only small mom and pop firms hire anyone with a pulse.
Hire any CPA with a pulse who will take $55k to $75k a year... yup.