Company: KPMG
Date: 2008-08-09
Overall rating: 1/5
Employment status: former

Know what you are getting into.
Pros: If you want to get real world experience for working with many clients in a compressed timeframe. I recently worked for KPMG for a few years. I agree with most of the comments I read on here. KPMG is a good place to work for a couple of years to get their name on your resume and that's about it. I also worked for a "second tier" firm for a while before KPMG and quite honestly, KPMG's employees are no more competent than the second tier firm I worked for. While your experience will vary on who you end up working with, the best at KPMG were certainly no better than those at the other firm I worked at.
Cons: You are working a minimum of 15 hour work days during high utilization periods. Management typically sell work to clients with unreasonable deadlines that are usually hard-set and cannot be changed. You have to prepare lots of binders for your projects, most of the BIG 4 companies have electronic workpapers, however KPMG has not made the step. While there are some good people at KPMG, I wouldn't recommend working there. The only way I would recommend somebody take a job there is if they absolutely have their mind set on working for a Big Four firm and have gotten turned down by Deloitte, PwC, and E&Y. While the other three firms may or may not have an environment similar to KPMG, they at least have the top technological tools for you to use. If you don't care whether you work for a Big Four firm or not, I would recommend going to either Grant Thornton, RMS McGladrey, or BDO. At the firm I was at, I felt the partners were a lot more honest and down to earth than at KPMG. While I still had to work long hours, it usually wasn't as long as at KPMG and it was never due to lack of technology slowing us down.