Company: KPMG
Date: 2017-05-02
Overall rating: 4/5
Employment status: current
Experience level: Junior

Advisory - Great Start to a Career
Pros: Despite being the runt of the Big 4, you still get access to industry behemoths, great learning resources, and name recognition that can open plenty of doors. The Big 4 are pretty much the same in the incestual world that accounting / consulting is in, but KPMG attracts a good combination of bright individuals and scrappy state school kids - at least in Advisory. It's a good combination of interacting with some brilliant people and hard working professionals. 

Compensation is adequate. The salary is competitive and the 5 weeks of PTO (with it rolling over in CA) is great! Work-life balance is decent. You work hard and have some unpredictable hours, but if an event is important to you, you will most likely be able to make it. 

Overall, a great learning opportunity to start a career and learn a good foundation of accounting / financial analysis that can be used to transition elsewhere if desired. Not much incentive to stay longer unless you truly love the work and want to realize the pension / 401k benefits, but with the Bay Area offering so much opportunity, Big 4 doesn't seem to entice that many to stay long.
Cons: Compared to other Big 4, KPMG lacks in some benefits, especially health-related perks. The company is well aware that it does not want to be a industry leader in this and instead shows that it offers better 401k and retirement options. Great if you want to be a lifer, not so great if you are planning an exit before year 3 or 4. 

The culture in Advisory is something that doesn't inspire you to say longer than 2 years. Nothing really shows you that Directors and Partners care about you or your career aspirations. Managers and Directors that are social and awesome almost always have a foot out the door, leaving the mundane, less people-oriented leadership in place. But this is the Big 4, so turnover is high - especially in the Bay Area.