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Blog » Carving a career out of the Big 4…

Posted on | June 29, 2011

Introduction: Professional Services Group

The Professional Services Team at Ingenium Group brings you the insight of Accounting Asia’s CEO, Dean Page, in the article below on “Carving a Career Out of The Big 4”. The insight from this article comes from experienced professionals that have worked in the Big 4 themselves. We will continue to bring you articles that give you quality inside knowledge of what is going on in the marketplace.

Our Professional Services Team serves all back office positions, with special concentration in Finance & Accounting and Human Resources. We work with top-tier organizations and look forward to being of service to you. See the consultant bios for more information on current open roles.

Carving a career out of the Big 4…

Dean Page spent seven years in the Big 4, most recently as a Partner at Ernst & Young. He is currently CEO of Accounting Asia (www.Accounting.Asia) and co-author along with Grant Young of the 2011 edition of “Cracking the Big 4 – A guide to getting a Job in Ernst & Young,, Deloitte Touche, PwC, and KPMG” (www.CrackingtheBig4.com)

We are often asked about the best way to get a job in the Big 4. The questions come both from law students in our international tax class at Tokyo’s Temple University and from professional colleagues who see time in the Big 4 as a good career move. It was this interest and our success in assisting a number of people land a position within
the Big 4 that lead us to write, “Cracking the Big 4”. In that book we devote more than 50,000 words to the subject. The purpose of this series of articles is to summarize some of the main points and strategies discussed in “Cracking the Big 4”.

What are the Big 4?

The Big 4 refers to the four largest professional services firms in the world – Ernst & Young (E&Y), PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), Deloitte Touche (DT), and Klynveld, Peat, Marwick & Goerdeler (KPMG). In terms of size and scale, the Big 4 have no parallel in the professional services world, with revenues of the largest, DT, exceeding USD26 billion in 2010, generated by more than 170,000 employees world-wide.

By comparison, the largest of the international law firms are small time players – according to American Lawyer (see www.AmericanLawyer.com) the highest grossing of the US law firms was Baker & McKenzie with revenues of around USD2.1 billion generated by approximately 4,000 lawyers. The sheer scale of the Big 4 translates into great clients, cutting-edge projects, and opportunities for training and networking that simply aren’t available elsewhere.

Many people see the Big 4 as only accounting firms. And yes, while it’s true they are by far the largest auditors of publicly listed companies, each of the Big 4 has an incredibly diverse range of business lines – from medical services to MA advisory. The Big 4’s deep pools of financial talent entrepreneurially exploit this by adding services as opportunities present. Consequently, the Big 4 is by no means the domain of only CPAs, and give due consideration to a variety of qualifications, experience and expertise.

In general, however, the basic service lines within the Big 4 tend to be:

1. 1. Assurance – A traditional service which covers everything from simple audit, due diligence, through to forensic accounting, and much more
2. 2. Tax – This covers all services related to taxation – from compliance (read tax returns) for individuals and companies through to tax consulting (e.g., advising and planning for the tax consequences arising from any conceivable transaction – an M&A deal to expanding into foreign markets)
3. 3. Advisory – these groups are like mini-investment banks inside the big 4. They identify and advise on deals and coordinate the work of the other services lines in these big dollar deals.

It is also worthwhile noting – the Big 4 are not firms in the strict sense of the word. While they present themselves as one global entity providing a “seamless” service, they are in reality separate legal entities (aka “member firms”) sharing a single tight brand. In fact, often you would not even recognize the real legal names of the
constituent firms. Heard of Shin Nihon Kansa Houjin? This is Ernst & Young’s audit firm in Japan.

You may ask how this is relevant to you. Well, the approach you take to landing that Big 4 position may also differ depending on the jurisdiction you’re in. Not only do the hiring practices between firms in different countries often vary, the culture within each firm is often quite different. Important factors to consider and have a grasp of before you send them your CV.

Why the Big 4

The Big 4 are great places to work and the experience you will obtain there cannot be matched. However, given their size they are akin in some respects to working in a bureaucracy. To paraphrase management guru Tom Peters (referring to his own experience at McKinsey & Co.) the Big 4 may be the best place to spend 5 years but the worst place to spend 20.

Photo Credit: Hongjoo Yang