Company: KPMG
Date: 2008-04-25
Overall rating: 4/5
Employment status: current

If you can handle the long, tough hours the payoff will be WORTH IT!
Pros: The benefits are great. You get five weeks of paid vacation/PTO on top of several firm holidays which you will NEED for the number of hours you work when you are there (see the dissatisfied work-life balance). If you are up for the hours and ready to kiss your life goodbye for 17 hour days during your 6-8 week busy-season every year the payoff in experience and things you get to do like interacting with high level executives at Fortune 500 companies is so worth it. At a time in the Bay Area after the dot-com bust when companies are declaring bankruptcy, very close to breaking even, or watching every penny that is spent KPMG is still spending to impress. You can expect lavish recruiting events and lots of presents and goodies at events. There is a beautiful black-tie optional Christmas party with dinner and live music, summer picnics, fall baseball day with tailgate party, winter ski trip (where the company will pick up your trip, lift ticket, rentals, lessons, and food/drinks), sign off parties after your busy season, ALL of which you can bring a guest to.
Cons: The downside is the hours. You work a lot, you will rarely if ever see a forty hour week.  And on top of that you are expected to study for your CPA exam. You can use your vacation to study because there is a separate charge code for the schedule so the entire form knows who is taking time off to study but it’s the last thing you want to do on your vacation your first couple years out of college. Busy season can be rough: long hours in little rooms packed full of sleep-deprived, fiendishly working people can lead to some late night crying sessions in the bathrooms. If you can just let things go and ride it out you will be fine and a little stronger than you went in. There is a lot of pressure to get your work done fast when you often times don’t have control over how fast or when you are provided the support and answers you need from the client. Everyone understands this but it does not extend the deadlines so you need to get your stuff done.