You should rephrase your question to 'Do you guys prefer working in a big 4 with no life most of the time, or a really small size firm with a higher chance of a better life'

In mid-tier firms, especially if you work in audit, it can be worse than Big 4. So if you really want a life, you should aim lower. Otherwise, just go to a big 4 instead of a mid-tier firm, it has better brand name, better pay and better exposure since have a life is not much of an option already.

Disclosure: I never studied in Australia. In fact, I did all my studies locally in Msia, did my professional accounting papers and worked with one of the Big 4s (in CF dept though) for about 5 years before I move to SG for a year and then finally, to again one of the Big 4s in Sydney doing CF as well.

To give you a bit of comfort: your option 2 is sensible and it will definitely put you in better position to secure a relevant role if you decide to move back to Australia eventually. I have seen a lot of bright candidates who struggled to get a relevant accounting role in Aus as a fresh grad because the competition is too fierce at the graduate level, yet there is generally a shortage of experienced auditors / accountants at the mid-level so if you can survive a few years in Big 4, it will definitely lead you to somewhere, with a bit of luck of course. Having said that, long hours and underpay is not a Msia prob, it is getting common too in Big 4s in Aus, esp Melb and Syd. So you are not missing out anything by not working in Big 4s in Aus (!)

By the way, just FYI, a good retail assistant's pay is almost equivalent to a top junior / mid senior's pay here in Aus. Once you reach the executive level in Australia, you will realise the pay is not as great as tax would have eaten up a quarter of your salary. If you really want to earn and save, SG is a better place.

Irrelevant I guess if your goal is eventually be in Aus anyway. Good luck.

Consulting is overrated, seriously.

First of all, I am of the opinion that consulting work are generally very fluffy and technically less rigorous - compared to other niche areas of consulting with technically heavy roles such as Corporate Finance, Data Analytics and IT consulting or operational research. This is the same for MBBs (Mckinsey, BCG and Bain), although the difference is that they tend to do more strategy piece and hence more interesting because of the conceptualisation work, as compared to operational and implementation work which is the main turf for the Big 4 consulting arms.

Having said that, operational and implementation work is more rewarding now these days due to the drying up of high profile, big ticket strategy work (and maybe clients get smarter too - why would anyone wish to pay outsider / young guns to advise seasoned CEO and give them some fluffy '10 year plan'?).

Based on my experience dealing with the Big 4s and myself working in Big 4 as well (I worked with consulting teams to support them on technical financial analysis and modelling), I would say Deloitte is pretty strong on the top of the chart, with a strong and dynamic regional team. EY and PwC are probably comparable though my gut feeling is that EY gets bigger volume of biz compared to PwC. I have never dealt with KPMG so I can't comment. Of course, empires rise and fall and things are constantly changing. I might be wrong.

Consulting department generally prefer to hire overseas grads / top local grads with a lot of credentials to show. They all exhibit qualities of strong command of english and charming personality, nothing uncommon for a typical consultant.

Consulting is mainly about people and process management and communicating ideas in a accessible manner - if you can deliver those aspects, then there is no such thing as 'cincai'. if you are talking in terms of technicality, then we are on the wrong topic. If you have been reading and observing the market, consulting is a growing business for the Big 4s and it is compensating the stagnant growth in audit and tax. Clients are willing to pay consulting because there is an emphasis for relationship and "be on-board with the client" - and they dig that. Sometimes, you get paid not because you are technically strong - it is a commodity these days - if is how well you know the client and how much they like you to be part of their team. Relationship pays. That is what consulting is all about and it is still something that conventional accountants find it hard to appreciate.

This post has been edited by Justin Wong: Apr 20 2016, 08:21 PM

Hi there,

1) For audit/tax and fresh grad, yes it is at most 2 weeks. I am not sure if you can prepare for anything so just go with the flow (let's be honest, it probably only help like 20%)

2) Generally yes because of low turnover, and you should consider that because low turnover also means slower promotion compared to bigger cities. If your 'Overseas' meant Australia, UK, US, then yes very likely.

3) The turnover is so high to a point of difficulty getting experienced candidate, you might be able to get your job back if you decide to leave, esp if you are in good terms with your managers or partners. Lucky plays some role too.

4) No point doing an internship, the pay sucks. My suggestion is to go in directly as fresh graduate. I don't know about the holiday part as it is personal choice. I don't think employers would or should look at that in a negative light. It is unreasonable.

it looks like you are just not confident enough - don't overthink and be more confident - it shows and it helps in your interview and your work performance. Trust Me.

Cheers

The last I heard, there are heavier travelling since it is a regional team (Covering SG, Msia, Indonesia, etc). I am not sure if things have changed. I had friends working in Accenture and they travel a lot regionally as well I heard.

Notwithstanding what i said about being less technically rigorous, consulting does train you well in synthesising information and presenting complex ideas in a simple way - a very practical skill that will serve you well in years to come - if you can keep up with the consulting game and the demanding schedule.

Accenture should give you a very good exposure as well as CV bragging rights. They pay well too as compared to Big4s. Hope you get it and good luck!

Hi mate, I came by your post and I share your sentiment and was in your position, so I would love to help out and throw in some of my views based on my experience.

My background is a bit messy and unconventional - I have been with Big 4s and professional services all my life in Msia and SG and am now with another Big 4 again in Sydney. I tried 3 months audit with one of the Big 4s when I started out but I didn't like it and did not do well, so I join Risk consulting (Internal Control) of another Big 4 for a year before I move to Corporate Finance and spent few years there in Msia and subsequently in SG (Mainly in M&A, restructuring and capital markets financial advisory). I am now with the consulting arm of a Big 4 in Sydney focusing on financial modelling and data analytics.

2 things to clarify: Yes consulting and CF is a smaller practice in big 4 compared to audit's revenue share but the growth is much higher (With the exception for Deloitte globally). In fact you can see that all the Big 4s are focusing heavily into consulting nowadays because of the growth. There is an insider joke around that Deloitte is no longer an audit firm because 60% of their global revenue is generated from non-audit service (read Consulting), and they do not see other big 4s as competitors in terms of consulting, at least that is true for markets like UK, US and Australia, not sure about Msia though. The point is consulting and CF are growing businesses and there will be major leap in the next 5 to 10 years, this partly explains why PwC was keen to acquire Booz just to catch up with the market.

Compared to other brand name consulting firms, the advantage of a Big 4 consulting is the packaging of service - the expertise in accounting and tax related service that might be needed in an strategy or implementation piece. Some Big 4s are well known for specific areas for example EY is strong globally in Infrastructure advisory and Insurance sector knowledge and KPMG is really strong in overall CF practice. I dunno much about PwC other than being a really strong audit player.

Like you, I hated paper work and am pretty lousy with documentation and checking stuffs, so it was a blessing in disguise that I was discouraged from joining audit after my first internship. Otherwise I would have been a lousy auditor until now. If you hate paper work, there is even more paper work in audit and I don't understand your motivation of joining audit unless for the sake of experience. Generally it is true that audit is a safer choice in terms of career option, especially in markets like Msia where consulting or CF is a smaller and less sophisticated market but if you are going to hate what you are doing, it is pretty pointless and you won't go far. I think it is important to know what you really want and what are you willing to trade-off.

Given your experience with the operational side of a bank, you might be better-off joining advisory, particularly in an area such as finance operation transformation, but such specialisation is not available in Msia and as far as I can recall, only SG and Aus have such practice in Asia Pacific. You can try your luck with EY because I think they have an FSO advisory practice and they tend work closely with SG as well. The thing about consulting is that you really need to able to present yourself very well - the mentality of a consultant is very different and to some extent, auditors generally find it uncomfortable with the way consultant works because they are willing to put forward their point of view whereas auditors refrain from making management judgements. If you are not a expressive, talk as you go type, consulting can be exhausting.

I might be digressing, but perhaps it will be helpful by asking what are you trying to achieve by joining a big 4 - if you do not know what specifically you want, it is hard to maximise the impact of your choice and audit seems to be the safest choice by default.

Cheers.

That is a neat summary. I would like to add a few more points particularly about Management consulting and Transactions Consulting.

Traditionally there is a pretty clear demarcation of Strategy houses (Mckinsey, BCG and Bain (MBBs) is a good example) and Operation houses (which generally encompasses IT implementation, HR etc and firms like Accenture and Big 4s are active in this space) however the distinction getting less relevant - Most consulting outfit these days have both Strategy and Operations team (Deloitte is a good example with a rather mature consulting practice) and MBBs these days are building up their operational implementation capabilities. This reflects the changing demand in the market where not many clients these days are willing to pay only strategy work without implementation package, and democratisation of data and knowledge (read big data and internet).

Without doubt MBBs will retain their prestige in strategy work and Big 4s will retain a very strong operational consulting capability but competition is definitely catching up - I have seen and known fews cases where MBBs lost major jobs to Big 4s (In Msia and Australia) and where clients believe Big 4 consulting did better jobs. Still, these anonymous examples might be exceptions but It will be interesting to see how the competition landscape will play out in the future.

Transaction consulting wise - it will remain true that Big 4s will not be able to compete with IBs because of the lack of balance sheet and size. Unlike consulting, size is everything to support big TC jobs. Again, I have seen cases where Big 4 won a major energy sector M&A from Bulge Brackets but it is a rare instance. There is little competition between IBs and Big 4s because they generally target different market segments and IBs may be major clients of Big 4 for TC jobs. I don't foresee things will change significantly in the Big 4 CF landscape.

Last but not the least, CFA is nice to have but don't get too hung up about it - it is prestigious without doubt (In Aus, you easily get calls from headhunter by having the title and if you work in the relevant field) but not a requirement in the finance sector.

That is all from me. Feel free to add.

It has been a while since I last visited this forum but I am going to reply you anyway since your question caught my attention.

If you seek career mobility, my experience is YES so far - many of my friends who stayed long enough in Big 4 including myself travelled and worked internationally with Big 4s in other countries.

You are right to point out that big 4s generally do not pay well compared to commercial sector jobs, but that really depends on what you seek - money or mobility? If you want to make a lot of money in the shortest period of time in your lifetime, common sense dictates that you should do your own business or be in a sales role. Besides, there is also a lot of good Management trainee programs out there that offers equally rewarding career start too. So let me make it very clear in a very succinct way before I proceed further about my personal opinion - Big 4s are not the only attractive choice nowadays but still attractive on its own.

If you want the brand name on your CV, the exposure to a variety of professional network and potentially a chance for overseas experience (by way of moving to Big 4 overseas), I will say Big 4 is a good choice. The network that I made connection with and the CV that I built with my Big 4 experience opened a lot of doors (I get headhunters calling every week), and I believe you can only see the real benefit if you have at least 3-5 years experience behind you, which means toiling away the good part of your 5 years social and leisure life.

Would I do it differently if I were to do it again? I would because it was not easy. But is it worth it looking back? Yes of course!

There is really no best choice really, you can only make the best out of your choice - so my advice is, take the leap of faith, and always be willing to go against the crowd and do what you think which may work for you.

You won't know until you try.

Cheers

1. Yes if you are find the right opportunity and choose to realise that value - Having a Big4 or equivalent CV is like holding a brand asset (it is the perception of skills and capability, mind that I use the word 'perception', reality can be different) - you need to able to position yourself correctly in order to get a lucrative job outside of Big 4. At the end of the day, having the Big 4 brand name is one hurdle, selling it is another hurdle.

Ultimately, what I am getting at is that you still need to sell something to get more money - whether it is your brand position or a product. When you reach a higher level in Big4, technical skills become less relevant, whether you rise up the top depends on how much business you can bring in, which is about sales.

If you expect to get your big 4 experience and hope that someone will always knock on your door and offer you a lucrative job, that won't happen very often. The big 4 brand name and the network are just tools you earn, you still need to know how to leverage them and maximise its value, which requires further effort.

2. If you are management consulting or financial advisory, you do not need professional paper. However, they generally prefer candidates with advanced degrees or those who are outspoken and presentable. So no, you do not need a professional qualification unless you are in audit or tax.

3. Generally, that is true if you are in Malaysia, Singapore or HK or most Asian countries, depending on how u define "Work-life balance".

4. Promotion in Big 4 is faster because of high turnover, and yes in good times, you get 3 to 6 months bonus.

1. Well, I don't think anything major will happen. May I know how old is he? If he is in his early 20's, that is alright and he can try out for 1-2 years to see if he likes it. If he is in his m-d 20s, He should really decide what he wants and stick to it - if he moves out after 2 years, employers might question his commitment. I am just saying this based on my understanding of how employers generally see things, so don't quote me on that.

2. Generally, you are automatically promoted every year unless you are a manager level and above, which can be harder, unless you fuck things up. It is not guaranteed but if you are not being promoted every year at the manager level and below, something is really wrong about you and you should consider alternative career option.

3. There will be politics everywhere. The larger a team or an organisation, the worse the politics get, it is natural. I think it boils down to how lucky you when it comes to which team are you being assigned to. If you can pass the interview, I think you should be up for the job, you should trust the Big 4 HR process that you will be selected based on certain fit - In fact, it might be a good thing sometimes that you are rejected, because you might suffer if they simply take you in. Bottom line, this is not something anyone can control, no point of fretting over factors you cannot control - it is almost like worrying about getting an accident on the road when you drive, if you are worrying about it everytime then you won't be driving for the rest of your life.

4. This is a hard one. It boils down to what your friend wants - comfort and good starting pay or deferred gratification and to prove something about himself? If I were you friend and with the benefit of hindsight, I might just stick around the MNC. But not knowing what will happen in the future is what makes life beautiful - it allows you to take risk and get you to somewhere you never thought you will reach. Like I said, it is a leap of faith - sure you might fail and you end up loosing a 'better' job, but hey you are not losing a limb or your life - just suck it up and move on. I had my fair share of bad choices - I joined the wrong team in some big4s in other countries too, it was a bad choice and I moved on to another company - you need to deal with your bad choice when it realise and move on, that is all. What is important is not whether you made the right choice, it is about making a decision, live with it and deal with it.

In this case, both choices are equally okay, just pick one, won't harm - for career development wise, most ppl will choose bIg 4, but hey, i don't have enough info about the MNC role to say it is bad. It is like asking me if someone should eat apple or orange, and if the orange that he chose turn out to sour, so what? Just choose apple next time.

Hope that helps?

if most of your colleagues or superior in advisory are with strong accounting/audit background, then chances are they will see everything in accounting/finance lenses. Hence most of the advisory jobs they get will be accounting and finance related too, which may make you feel accounting knowledge is very important and your lack of it is a shortfall. That is probably true in a Malaysian business environment where businesses still look at things in structured accounting and financial box.

I will share my experience instead and let you judged yourself whether your observation is valid - I tried out audit for few months when I started out and I failed miserably because I just can't handle audit work. I moved into internal audit and survived okay but I am not really good at it too. With that in mind, I felt that I need to get out of audit because I won't make it far. So by some luck and I got into CF did few years, did pretty well and eventually went into economics and financial advisory overseas - I thrived all the way ever since. Why? I guess I don't handle routine very well and I am just lousy at checking things but I am pretty good at understanding transaction structures and dreaming up financial engineering ideas - that is just me. Had I continue to soldier on audit, I won't go anywhere because audit won't allow my skills to flourish.

Don't get wrong, I truly admire the auditors and I worked with them quite closely in some IPO work and restructuring work where numbers need to be audited before it comes to me for analysis, and their help is very valuable but I can never do their job as well as they can.

Accounting knowledge can be very useful (I have an accounting degree too), and accouting knowledge definitely helped me a lot in my job, but not everything has to be dominated by accounting. I have a colleague who has fairly basic accounting knowledge (He is from consulting) but he can work out any M&A scenario analysis and any financial rationales with pure logic better than the best-trained accountants / CF practioners that I ever know, most of the time with unique ideas and insights (Perhaps his Phd in Physics and Mathematics help?). Obviously when it comes to accounting and finance related analysis (I specialise in M&A valuations, financial and economic modelling), he still needs my help, but I am no match for him in terms pure intellectual prowness. Does lack of accounting knowledge set him back? Dont' think so.

If you don't hate accounting, perhaps you should consider taking up a professional qualification in accounting, whatever that helps your career. It is not hard, definitely not harder than Phd in Physics.

Well, as a fresh grad, it is perfectly normal and healthy to feel inadequate. You are either a genius or an arrogant prick not to. Things will slowly come! Just keep an open mind and ask questions beyond your area of responsibility - it will develop your knowledge as well as your networking skills.

Hope your dreams come true in time, Good luck!

I was head-hunted for a role in Singapore years ago and worked there for sometime. I applied for my current job in Aus and have been here for 3 years.

I did an accounting degree with a local college in KL, and subsequently did my ACCA and CFA while working.

Considering your engineering background, why not consider financial advisory / transaction advisory - specifically valuation and financial modelling or transaction data analytics since you have a strong quantitative background (assume you like excel, R and stuffs of those kinds). It is an excellent pathway towards investment banking, if you that is your cup of tea. Besides, I think it might be easier to go in as well (i might be wrong as things in Msia might have changed).

I personally think strategy / consulting can be overrated at times - junior members do a lot powerpoint slides formatting / grammatical corrections instead of generating ideas. Besides, some of the transformation ideas do require experience and I believe building strong technical base is more important. Unless your strategy is to get a foothold in a mid-tier consulting firm and build your credentials so that you can eventually end up with MBBs (which is quite common as I have peers who did that, though it requires really good track record at your work)

Go and talk to more people and do some research about my suggestion as well if you like.

This post has been edited by Justin Wong: Jan 10 2018, 12:27 PM

1. There is no hard and fast answer to your question about the required skill to enter IB/Modelling because everyone's pathway can be different. (i can't answer your question specifically about data analytics because it is such a wide area and my earlier comment is more towards data analytics for a commercial/finance environment). Suffice to say, I think you need to step out of your technical /engineering mindset and shift your focus to commercial acumen - i.e., how does a business work and what are the revenue and cost drivers of a successful business. Ultimately that is what consulting or IB is all about - demonstrating commercial acumen. Your technical background is only a means to an end - using your logical thinking / engineering knowledge to solve a financial / commercial issue (in financial modelling and data analytics, you will need to design algorithms to solve specific business / data modelling problems and hence why engineering background helps). You can start by focusing a different aspect of your current working environment - what is business all about? who are the customers? how do they make money and manage cost? It is a question of mindset ultimately.

2. I am not sure if you are heading to the right direction if business consulting (which is what most ppl know about Mck and Bain) is your ultimate aim because there is no finance / commercial orientation to it. If you are thinking of going into IT consulting however, I am tempted to say that the course you are taking now may put you on the right track. If business consulting is your aim, I think you should start taking up more relevant courses like accounting, marketing or finance courses. After you mastered the basics, you can start signing up excel or R courses and learn the relevant applications in finance / market research context. These preparations in my opinion merely helps you to get a good grasp of what will be required in secure an interview for a business consulting role. Ultimately nothing beats a real job experience but first you need to get in. Reading up is probably the most logical thing for you to do in the absence of knowing what level of business knowledge you have.

One more advice - if you ever secure an interview for a business consulting role and if you were being asked why are you leaving engineering, please demonstrate that you have passion for business and you wish to be in a role to understanding how business work. I know you do not like the current work environment but using that as a reason to join business consulting simply shows that you are just trying to get out and business consulting is just a get-away option. Big no-no in my view.

Whatever I tell you now might be too general so feel free to throw me more questions for further clarification if that helps. I might not be able to answer you in time because I might be busy and I am in a different time zone (I live in Sydney) but I will respond.

Cheers.

This post has been edited by Justin Wong: Jan 21 2018, 10:10 PM

I was in internal audit for a year before I switch to corporate finance / financial modelling now specializing in infrastructure, project finance, structured finance and fintech related modelling and valuation (I am based overseas now after working for couple of years with one of the big-4s in KL).

About internal audit - basically your focus is on the internal controls of the business and identify any non-compliance with the policy and procedures (P&P) set by the management. Typical clientele that request for internal audit service are listed entities because unlikely small businesses where human monitoring and manual controls can be effective in managing day-to-day operations, the scale of the big corporations demand more systematic and defined processes to set controls over the various business processes (i.e., financial reporting processes in finance department, procurement processes in purchasing department, and IT controls in IT department etc).

As a internal audit outsourcing service provider, you are engaged to 'review' the specified processes (set out in the engagement letters) by reviewing the P&Ps, understand the end-to-end business processes (e.g., for the purchasing department, how does a new purchase get initiated and who can authorize the purchase and what criteria are used to decide if the purchase is necessary) and highlight any potential weaknesses in the process that may make it susceptible to fraud and abuses.

As you can see from now, internal audit provides a good opportunity to learn about the business operations instead of pure financials like in external audit and the typical exit opportunities for internal auditors are operational managers, in-house internal auditor and at its pinnacle, COO. if you are passionate about IT, you can go into 'IT internal audit' which is similar but with specific focus on IT controls. A strong training in internal audit will also prep you for a role in fraud investigation as well if you are keen to specialize in this area (fraud occurred typically because culprits exploit loopholes and deficiencies in internal controls and internal audit training helps you to identify these situations).

However, if you really enjoy sophisticated financial analysis and high finance type of work (i.e., corporate finance and financial modelling) then internal audit does not offer you that.


About advisory - 'advisory' as a department is a really wide area because you have the conventional management consulting (called 'Performance Improvement' or 'Strategy and Operations' in some Big-4s), Data analytics, and Transaction Advisory (or called 'Corporate Finance'). Each of them are so different so it is hard to give you any meaningful idea what it would mean to you personally without knowing your passion, your knowledge etc. Allow me to say this however - I believe it is relatively easier for someone to stick in audit over the long-run and be promoted to become a partner. In advisory, the pathway to become a partner is much more challenging because you need to be a 'hunter' (in advisory, you need to go out to the market and source for new business/projects) instead of a 'farmer' (audits recurs every year so business development is not so intensive). If you do not hate audit (which is rare since most peers that I know) and if your aim is to move up and become a partner eventually, then you may want to consider staying on to audit.

Hope that helps.