Big 4 Accounting Firms

The “Big Four Accounting Firms”, consisting of Pricewaterhouse Coopers, Deloitte, Ernst & Young and KPMG are the top four largest firms in the accounting world.

The Big Four accounting firms hire about hundreds of thousands of employees around the world while the next largest ones only employ about 10,000 people each, and regional firms only have about hundreds of employed accountants.

These Big Four accounting firms are also well known for their reputability, excellent training and networking opportunities. As such, jobs from these firms are highly sought-after and coveted by most accounting jobseekers all around the world.

Here are some personal and professional advancement opportunities offered by the Big Four accounting firms:

1.       Big Four Training

The Big Four’s edge in providing training to their employees is that they can afford to conduct in-house courses, unlike smaller firms who still have to look for courses outside the firm. In addition, they provide a wide variety of many other training opportunities to make sure that their employees meet the minimum educational qualifications required to maintain CPA certification, helping them meet the demands of their profession more effectively.

For instance, Deloitte, one of the big 4 accounting firms, conduct annual trainings for new employees, based on well-constructed and high-standard education curricula. They are sent to various locations where they will have their training sessions. Currently, Deloitte is on its way to building the “Deloitte University” where they will conduct all of their in-house training sessions.

2.       Big Four Clients

The Big Four Accounting firms have large and international clients; expanding your opportunities for personal and professional growth. Unlike smaller accounting corporations, the Big Four is more capable of exposing you to international growth opportunities, giving you the rare chance of meeting and sharing skills with accountants from all over the world. This will ultimately sharpen your professional competence to perform your job more efficiently.

3.       Other benefits

Another benefit offered by Big Four accounting firms is that they are large and have many branches or offices both in the U.S. and different parts of the world. So if you have to transfer residence in the future, you can still work for the same company in a different branch location.

There will also be more opportunities for you to specialize in a more specific field of expertise. With the big four accounting firms having multiple departments such as forensic accounting and consulting, there is indeed a good chance for specialization.

There will also be more travel opportunities since clients will most likely be big companies from all parts of the world giving you expanded advancement opportunities.

With these benefits in mind, it will be absolutely up to you if you want to settle with big four accounting firms or smaller regional firms. It will all depend on your goals and priorities.

Having a big four accounting firm in your resume gives you the undeniable edge, it means that you have been holistically trained to perform accounting jobs competently.