Pros
1. Good people to work with 2. Corporate events were fun 3. Work experience is valuable, but there is a limit. You will not gain more after 3 years, anything after is not transferable in any other career.
Cons
1. Low salary for high hours. Salaries consistently dropped over the years across the Greater Toronto Area while inflation rises. 2. Employee benefits are phased out (spun in a way that they are being improved to employees) 3. Performance favors long hour workers (70-120 weekly hours) 4. You cannot advance outside accounting or tax because you are provoked to work all of your free time. Sabbaticals and leave of absences are almost never approved, only granted to partners. You are expected to work just as many hours even when you have a Reduced workload in contract. 5. Limited transfer opportunities - Management team (in a unit) have an incentive to keep you in their group. A transfer is the same as you quitting. 6. Limited opportunities within Public accounting, as mid size firms require a broader spectrum of talent which the big four have disaggregated out to other functions. In industry, there is a breadth of skills that are not earned in the big four. 7. Partners are tied to a budget to meet their own salary/profitability goals. This is why there is never 'enough' staff and why employees have to work more than the worth of 2 individuals at any given time. 8. You will never enjoy the full scale of your benefit package as management has a right to not approve it to their benefit if it hurts their internal budget (which it always will). 9. KPMG has a high percent of breaches in audit practices. Management causes this by reducing engagement hours to low numbers to meet partners incentives which breaches auditor objectivity and independence in a sector that is supposed to add confidence to the financial markets. 10, The respect and knowledge a CPA had earned is often not performed in this firm due to their limitations imposed by management. Partners are scared to lose their clients and will do anything including breach independence and objectivity to keep them. 11. Direct exposure in observing those at KPMG lie directly to government agencies. 12. Empty promises, numerous experiences having group agreed upon complaints brought to partners attention. As turnover is 80% and partners see employees as a number/statistic, there is no adjustment and often the group of employees wash out.
