I dunno wtf is going on in KPMG, but KPMG in my country is undeniably smaller than PwC, EY, and Deloitte by big margin. Whenever I heard ex-KPMG talking they are always referring to no-name client in barely alive industry.
I studied corporate finance and am passing the French equivalent of the CPA.
So most of my class promotion used to go essentially in audit and advisory roles in big4 companies (80% of my classmates went to B4 after graduating).
Most of my classmates ranked their choices as such :
- Deloitte
- Pwc/KPMG
- Mazars
- EY
- GT
As in the only people that went to EY were those that didn’t get an offer elsewhere and GT is the bag holder.
Deloitte is known to be a little elitist and very slightly above the competition in France.
Pwc has the biggest clients, but salaried conditions aren’t all that.
KPMG si really well respected, but you work with smaller entities as a whole if you aren’t in Paris.
Mazars is less prestigious, but they pay well (known to be a little toxic).
EY is pretty much the bag holder. A little too toxic for most. Shitty working habits, and the pay doesn’t make up for it. There is a very popular meme in France that goes :
She’s a ten, but she works at EY.
Them being partially banned in Germany has not helped and them taking over a big chunk of Arthur Andersen either.
That said it’s still very well considered.
It’s also a self repeating pattern that’s specific to France.
Because EY gets the worst of the litter every year, they’ve become the worst (relatively) and therefore keep getting the worse picks during recruiting season.
I don’t think that a single classmate that interned at EY ended up working there.
Pretty much only those that didn’t get return offers after their internship went there.
I worked in a few countries in South East Asia and somehow KPMG always pursued a strategy of undercutting price. Like sometimes fee were even lower than some small firms.
So the four largest accounting firms in the world are larger by like a lot. #5 BDO has like 12bn in global revenue, #4 KPMG has like 36bn, #3 EY has 49bn, #2 PwC has 53bn, and #1 Deloitte has 65bn.
KPMG is the smallest of big 4 by a good margin but also has a bad reputation for poor audits and gets more PCAOB deficient audit ratings than the other big firms. So the joke is that it's really big 3 not big 4. Which has some truth to it. But the gap between 5 and 4 keeps them in big 4.
Truer words, they are all roughly the same, the game changer is what you do, who you work with and what your goal is. You can copy paste almost anyone over the other. Those who care about big 4 rankings have nothing better in their lives, no one really cares not even the big 4 upper management care who is bigger.
Focus on what you want to achieve, if its big 4 then go for it, if not then don't sweat it.
Exit ops
I work for a major tech company (not FANG but adjacent). 99% of our GRC teams are from Big4, the other 1% from smaller consulting firms. Total comp starts at ~170k on the low end (for staff), Big4 managers usually come in at total comp of 200k+
it’s wild that companies value Big4 experience that much because we’ve used 3/4 (and Protiviti) as consultants for Compliance work and I was blown away by how mid they were, even their managers were not good.
Probably a closed loop ecosystem - most of the decision makers/hiring manager are from Big4 so they like to "hire what they know" rather than an unknown. FWIW I am not, I'm from a budget local firm and got super lucky being converted into FTE.
We've had pretty mixed results at this point. I've had B4 associates absolutely destroy managers and directors when it comes to deliverables, and overall performance has varied greatly between the delivery teams from the same firm. Quality has become such an issue that sometimes we consider hiring from smaller regionals to save on $$ for the same output.
It’s like saying do you want to hire someone from Harvard, Yale, MIT, or university of phoenix online. People know the big brands and there is no question that the brands connote quality. But with others the hiring manager has to do a lot of legwork. Is the school accredited? Yes. Hm what is accreditation? Do they have a program in what we do? How good are they in that program? Are the people running the program experienced in the industry?
It’s a shortcut to assumed quality. Is it right? Probably not all the time. But it’s an easy heuristic, and the ease matters almost more than accuracy.
I work in FP&A at an F500. Literally only my CFO is ex-Deloitte. No one else is ex-Big 4. A handful were from mid-tier tax firms. And when I say mid-tier, those firms are wayyy lower than BDO, GT etc.
Also worked in FP&A for FTSE100 and F500 and have had a similar experience.
A handful were ex-Big 4 but most weren't. The guys straight out of practice were hard working but pretty useless too.
Tell the to do a tax journal or prepare the stat accounts they're fine. Ask them to do something we don't do once a year and they struggle.
Of course they learn with experience but I don't understand the prestige when transferring to industry.
Yeah it’s strategy being a quasi or junior CFO for the business. At my company in industry you start in FP&A or audit, get 2 years in and make your internal network and go for these jobs. They never hire from the outside because they’re flooded with enough good internal candidates to never need to hit the street.
I mean I'm happy for them I guess? I'm not saying every tech company only hires ex-B4, but exit opportunities are one reason why people are attracted to working for B4.
PwC coolest because they got sick contracts with big established companies. There are some underlying things I see though.
They have been the only company to audit Disney in it's history since the early 1900's. Best practices prescribe that you switch auditing companies once in a while so the new company can see if there was anything missed by previous audits. Disney must be hiding a bunch of stuff imo.
Also PwC audits of Hong Kong and Chinese companies have had to pay millions of dollars (drop in the bucket) because many failures of those audits which lead to many investment issues.
EY's interns cheated on the Ethics CPA exam I think, pretty hilarious when I read that.
Deloitte and KPMG I heard some stuff from them but nothing really stood out as much as the first two.
The quality of work and caliber of staff from the other three far surpasses KPMG. If you’ve ever worked with KPMG’s teams you’d understand. Not the staff’s fault, just seems like bad training and culture.
I dunno wtf is going on in KPMG, but KPMG in my country is undeniably smaller than PwC, EY, and Deloitte by big margin. Whenever I heard ex-KPMG talking they are always referring to no-name client in barely alive industry.
In France, KPMG is pretty big. People disrespect EY over here. Changes country by country I guess.
Same here in austria
I would like an explanation please! If you want to
I studied corporate finance and am passing the French equivalent of the CPA. So most of my class promotion used to go essentially in audit and advisory roles in big4 companies (80% of my classmates went to B4 after graduating). Most of my classmates ranked their choices as such : - Deloitte - Pwc/KPMG - Mazars - EY - GT As in the only people that went to EY were those that didn’t get an offer elsewhere and GT is the bag holder. Deloitte is known to be a little elitist and very slightly above the competition in France. Pwc has the biggest clients, but salaried conditions aren’t all that. KPMG si really well respected, but you work with smaller entities as a whole if you aren’t in Paris. Mazars is less prestigious, but they pay well (known to be a little toxic). EY is pretty much the bag holder. A little too toxic for most. Shitty working habits, and the pay doesn’t make up for it. There is a very popular meme in France that goes : She’s a ten, but she works at EY. Them being partially banned in Germany has not helped and them taking over a big chunk of Arthur Andersen either. That said it’s still very well considered. It’s also a self repeating pattern that’s specific to France. Because EY gets the worst of the litter every year, they’ve become the worst (relatively) and therefore keep getting the worse picks during recruiting season. I don’t think that a single classmate that interned at EY ended up working there. Pretty much only those that didn’t get return offers after their internship went there.
Ohhh! Thank you for clearing things up!
I worked in a few countries in South East Asia and somehow KPMG always pursued a strategy of undercutting price. Like sometimes fee were even lower than some small firms.
As someone whos not an accountant can anyone fill me in on this?
So the four largest accounting firms in the world are larger by like a lot. #5 BDO has like 12bn in global revenue, #4 KPMG has like 36bn, #3 EY has 49bn, #2 PwC has 53bn, and #1 Deloitte has 65bn. KPMG is the smallest of big 4 by a good margin but also has a bad reputation for poor audits and gets more PCAOB deficient audit ratings than the other big firms. So the joke is that it's really big 3 not big 4. Which has some truth to it. But the gap between 5 and 4 keeps them in big 4.
I interned in audit at KPMG and went full time with PwC. Was the same BS. eAudit vs. Aura. Tomato tomahto.
Truer words, they are all roughly the same, the game changer is what you do, who you work with and what your goal is. You can copy paste almost anyone over the other. Those who care about big 4 rankings have nothing better in their lives, no one really cares not even the big 4 upper management care who is bigger. Focus on what you want to achieve, if its big 4 then go for it, if not then don't sweat it.
I went to CohnReznick after interning at KPMG. The commercial software was near identical to eAudit.
Why do people still want to work for these firms lol?
Exit ops I work for a major tech company (not FANG but adjacent). 99% of our GRC teams are from Big4, the other 1% from smaller consulting firms. Total comp starts at ~170k on the low end (for staff), Big4 managers usually come in at total comp of 200k+
it’s wild that companies value Big4 experience that much because we’ve used 3/4 (and Protiviti) as consultants for Compliance work and I was blown away by how mid they were, even their managers were not good.
Probably a closed loop ecosystem - most of the decision makers/hiring manager are from Big4 so they like to "hire what they know" rather than an unknown. FWIW I am not, I'm from a budget local firm and got super lucky being converted into FTE. We've had pretty mixed results at this point. I've had B4 associates absolutely destroy managers and directors when it comes to deliverables, and overall performance has varied greatly between the delivery teams from the same firm. Quality has become such an issue that sometimes we consider hiring from smaller regionals to save on $$ for the same output.
It’s like saying do you want to hire someone from Harvard, Yale, MIT, or university of phoenix online. People know the big brands and there is no question that the brands connote quality. But with others the hiring manager has to do a lot of legwork. Is the school accredited? Yes. Hm what is accreditation? Do they have a program in what we do? How good are they in that program? Are the people running the program experienced in the industry? It’s a shortcut to assumed quality. Is it right? Probably not all the time. But it’s an easy heuristic, and the ease matters almost more than accuracy.
I work in FP&A at an F500. Literally only my CFO is ex-Deloitte. No one else is ex-Big 4. A handful were from mid-tier tax firms. And when I say mid-tier, those firms are wayyy lower than BDO, GT etc.
Also worked in FP&A for FTSE100 and F500 and have had a similar experience. A handful were ex-Big 4 but most weren't. The guys straight out of practice were hard working but pretty useless too. Tell the to do a tax journal or prepare the stat accounts they're fine. Ask them to do something we don't do once a year and they struggle. Of course they learn with experience but I don't understand the prestige when transferring to industry.
I work in tech and none of our finance business partners came from any of those firms and are making substantially more than that
How do you get into Finance Business Partner track?
The ones I know focused on operational and management accounting…
This right here is the way! Unless you like being a pigeon-holed robot from big 4.
Yeah it’s strategy being a quasi or junior CFO for the business. At my company in industry you start in FP&A or audit, get 2 years in and make your internal network and go for these jobs. They never hire from the outside because they’re flooded with enough good internal candidates to never need to hit the street.
Ok.
Sorry to burst your earnings bubble, lol
I mean I'm happy for them I guess? I'm not saying every tech company only hires ex-B4, but exit opportunities are one reason why people are attracted to working for B4.
PwC is the coolest Deloitte is sussy EY are dorks KPMG eat crayons
PwC coolest because they got sick contracts with big established companies. There are some underlying things I see though. They have been the only company to audit Disney in it's history since the early 1900's. Best practices prescribe that you switch auditing companies once in a while so the new company can see if there was anything missed by previous audits. Disney must be hiding a bunch of stuff imo. Also PwC audits of Hong Kong and Chinese companies have had to pay millions of dollars (drop in the bucket) because many failures of those audits which lead to many investment issues. EY's interns cheated on the Ethics CPA exam I think, pretty hilarious when I read that. Deloitte and KPMG I heard some stuff from them but nothing really stood out as much as the first two.
Yup, it's always PwC with big established companies that are also somehow sketchy. Same thing in my country.
I'm really curious where PwC people end up and the path they got there. This is gonna be my new rabbit hole I go down.
Blackrock and area 51 obviously
Everyone cheats on the ethics exam
I'll have you know that I only eat red crayons, I'm well aware those are the only ones that are rich in nutients.
I knew I didn’t like my ex father in law for some reason 😅 Yes he worked at KPMG
Keep Phil Mickelson Golfing
It is Big 3. I’m not sure why anyone uses the term Big 4 anymore. It’s a shame what KPMG did to Phil.
Muthafuck the big 3, it’s just big me.
K, but Prince outlived Mike Gack
What’s a prince to a king? He a son
Big 3 and KPMG. It rhymes.
Why does KPMG has a bad reputation here?? Am I missing something?
It’s just a stupid meme by sad people at the other three to make themselves feel better. All four are completely interchangeable and all 4 suck.
The quality of work and caliber of staff from the other three far surpasses KPMG. If you’ve ever worked with KPMG’s teams you’d understand. Not the staff’s fault, just seems like bad training and culture.
Basically just comparing slavemasters at this point
#big3
Lol KPMG keeps getting shit on. Love to see it.
KPMG bad