Company: KPMG
Date: 2014-03-05
Overall rating: 2/5
Employment status: former
Experience level: Senior

Great place to begin, bad place to end...
Pros: KPMG is a great place to develop into a professional and generate tremendous insights into how the corporate world operates. No project is the same and being associated with the KPMG brand can open a lot of doors. You are given a lot of freedom to drive your own initiatives, rewarded for taking part in external and internal events, and encouraged to develop new business opportunities.
Cons: It is an extremely political environment at times where promotion seems more strongly linked to your relationships than your ability, while individual partners often carve out their own little fiefdom complete with fawning courtiers beholden to them. Pay is also terrible when you factor in the hours you have to put in, particularly at the graduate and assistant manager level. And like Amway and Avon, the big pay day only comes when you make it to equity partner--which you can expect to happen around 6 to 10 years after you make partner!  

Lastly, the partnership at the top at times feels like a boy's club and so you often feel excluded as a woman.