We’re not sure when Deloitte dropped the hammer on Pandora but the timing of us hearing about it is dubious since the coveted #1 spot on BW’s list is safely in print.
Much like E&Y, we’re curious as to the motivation here. Bandwidth sucking notwithstanding, your morale doesn’t seem to be much of a concern here. Green dots, kindly discuss in comments your theories behind the latest buzz kill. The rest of you (minus E&Y, natch) can share what you’re listening to currently as pure schadenfreude.
Category: Big 4
If it happens at a Big 4 accounting firm, we’re talking about it here.
Apparently Your Farewell Emails Need Work
With all the bitterness out there, we’re really not sure why this particular person is getting attention.
We surmised yesterday that the Brits seem to take a more active interest in all things bean county but their articulation in farewell emails certainly can’t be superior to yours. After all, you can’t hear the accent when you read.
After the jump, a taste of the bitterness that’s getting lots of attention in the UK:
Today is my last day at PwC. I haven’t sent this to everyone because what would be the point? Why do people send their leaving emails to everyone? We didn’t care about you then and we certainly don’t care about you now.
I still presume hardly any of you knew me, which is good because I’m rubbish at audit, so I wouldn’t have helped your stellar careers.
I’ve also learned how not to decorate an office – green and orange block colour walls with business buzz phrases on. ‘Find your space’, ‘always add value’ etc. Where do these terrible phrases come from? Is there a team of people lurking about in Embankment Place whose only duty is to pump out corporate drivel?
I look forward immensely to never having to attend an event in which Our Beloved Leaders stand up and tell us we’ve massively exceeded budget, so in reward we get no bonuses and instead we get the treat of listening to Coldplay while quotes from the greatest leaders of our times are played across a screen.
I’m also on Facebook but I hate it. I’m sure you’ve got real friends of your own and I’d prefer if you left me alone quite frankly.
If we ever talked (doubtful, I avoided anyone that looked like they might give me some work), add away.
I’ve left some treats in the group area.
Not really.
Bye forever xxx.
PwC accountant’s email is global hit [Telegraph]
Let’s Just Call It an Even 50
More rumors out of KPMG today as the audit practice in New York will be ramping up to 50 hour weeks approaching October. Apparently the extra 32 hours for the entire month that was originally required will not suffice.
This follows a similar request put out to the Klynveldians on the left coast. Unless you’re a football fan or trying to observe religious holidays, this doesn’t strike us as much of a problem.
PwC’s Recruitment of MBA’s is Good News on the Hiring Front, Sort Of (UPDATE)
FINS.com has a piece on the Big 4’s recruitment of MBA’s that serves as lukewarm encouragement for those of you have considered the painstaking thought of going back to school.
More, after the jump
PricewaterhouseCoopers is ramping up its hiring of M.B.A.s, with plans to recruit 75 to 100 business-school graduates in 2010. [The Firm] planned to bring on 60 to 90 graduates from master’s degree in business programs in 2009, up from 40 last year…An improving economy and the need to make sense of new regulatory guidelines in the financial sector are what’s driving the trend
As you might expect, the hiring occurs in the advisory practices of the firms while those of you with that went back to get a master’s in accounting will most likely end up in audit or tax practices.
At PWC, most M.B.A. recruits have three to seven years’ experience and fill senior associate posts in its advisory practice. The M.B.A.s that it hires are recruited to work in finance, operations and supply-change management and human-capital management.
The article is less enthusiastic about the other firms, however:
Big Four rival Ernst & Young is hiring about 20 b-school grads into its performance-improvement practice this year, dipping from a peak of 25 in 2007 when it began hiring M.B.A.s…While KPMG does not actively recruit M.B.A.s since its consulting practice spun off in 2002, it does targeted M.B.A. hiring, according to Malana Sanders, a KPMG recruiting director…Deloitte does hire M.B.A.s, though, said Diane Borhani, head of U.S. campus recruiting for Deloitte in Chicago, who declined to provide specifics
So we’re at a loss on how we feel about this. On the one hand, it’s good to see at least one firm ending the slash and burn that’s been going on for the last 12-15 months (even if this is just advisory) but are you ready to go back to eating cup o’ noodles, no keg stands, and more school debt to do it?
Since it sounds like layoffs will occur regularly at the firms and BW says that two-thirds of you leave the firms within five years anyway, going back to school may be in the cards for a lot of you.
For those of you that fall in the 3 – 7 years experience range, discuss what, if any, thoughts you’ve had on going back to school and if would you go with a Big 4 firm. Scary thought, we know.
PricewaterhouseCoopers and Rivals are Recruiting More M.B.A.s [FINS.com]
The Creative Geniuses at E&Y Do It Again
We really have to hand it to some of the creative minds at E&Y. The quality of what they produce is overwhelming. All this and they ban Pandora? We’ll never understand accounting firm reasoning.
Anyhoo, the offbeat clapping is one thing, Zitor is quite another, but now we present you with the following:
Rumor Mill: More KPMG Layoffs
Frankly, this is getting ridiculous. We got wind of more staff layoffs going down in the Metro audit practice in New York today. Sounds as though emails may have been sent out last night and meetings are being held today.
One explanation we heard was that associates not currently assigned to a client were let go which seems dubious, even for an accounting firm, but we’ll run with it. If you’re one of the unlucky few, or have details on rumors concerning next week, drop us a line or discuss in the comments.
Who Knew that E&Y had a Creative Art Department?
Today, in how your firm spent your bonus news, we present you with Zitor, an alien who somehow ended up in Uncle Ernie’s shop. Zitor then ended up being assigned a counselee for year-end reviews which is fairly realistic considering his lack of expertise and work experience.
Zitor was apparently designed and plugged into the Ernstiverse to demonstrate how to be completely unprepared for a the year-end review process as a counselor.
What’s odd is that most counselors seem to be using logic from another planet so it’s not outside the realm of possibility that this was based on actual methods used.
Regardless of the genesis of this idea, it probably goes without saying that this had to be complete and utter failure for those of you with maturity levels above the age of 13. Nevermind that no one can decipher how accounting firms determine who the best performers are anyway.
Included with this frivolous attempt to relate to the troops, if you were so inclined, you could submit ideas for the line below from Zitor to end up in the next video for this “Coach from Another Planet”. While that sounds incredibly lame and worthy of our ridicule, we’ve decided to let you take a stab at it instead.
The line has been modified slightly to allow your much more creative suggestions to be submitted in the comments:
“At E&Y, we do not give feedback. We give ___________.”
Do your worst.
Uzbekistan Gives KPMG the Boot
Not sure how we missed this but since it’s still slow out there we’ll kindly inform you that the country of Uzbekistan has had enough of KPMG.
According to Kazakhstan Newsline, “Uzbekistan’s Ministry of Finance has canceled licenses for audit activity on the part of KPMG Ltd.”
Obviously you can see how this would not be good if you wanted to audit anything in Uzbekistan. If any of you are willing to bite the bullet for everyone and get a subscription to this fine source of media so we can know the full story, that’d be great.
Otherwise, just use your imagination about the reason for the Radio Station banishment and discuss in the comments.
Personally, we’re hoping it had something to do with two physically repelling male employees running naked around in a hotel conference room but perhaps that’s a stretch*.
Uzbekistan takes away KPMG’s license [Life of An Auditor via JDA]
*Thanks for pointing out that Borat was from Kazakhstan. They’re neighboring countries, close enough for today.
PwC Isn’t Starving
Since flat is the new up or whatever the hell people are saying these days, we’ll go so far to say that PwC continues to kick ass in the UK. Their revenue increased 0.5%, to to £2.25 billion, for the latest fiscal year. Advisory revenues managed to drag the audit and tax business out of the negative as the advisory revenue increased 5% while audit and tax dropped 1% and 4%.
BFD. Standard boilerplate statements accompany these numbers. Tough economy. Challenges. Hard work. Whatever. Partners still seem to be doing ok, as per partner profit was £777,000, although that’s down 3%, according to Accountancy Age.
More, after the jump
Fine but what we’ll kindly remind you of is that the firms in the U.S. don’t have to issue these fancy-schmancy annual reports with all the gory details. If they exist, we’ve never seen one.
Wouldn’t it be nice if the U.S. firms were required to put out thousands of copies of reports with plenty of pictures of happy employees, oh, and squeeze in some financial statements? One more explanation from Dr. Phil or Jimmy Turley about the awesome job you’re all doing wouldn’t hurt either.
Maybe you get enough of that already but isn’t knowing how much potential liability the firm has relevant to everyone that is stakeholder in the firm? Or what is being spent on magic 8 balls? The Brits don’t seem to have any problem putting out there. Just a thought.
PWC_Annual report 2009.pdf
In a Pinch, Deloitte Lets Anyone Sign Off on Audit Reports
Audit partners are busy people. Regrettably, things get overlooked from time to time. Birthdays. Anniversaries. Pants. There’s just too much to think about sometimes.
One thing that you wouldn’t expect an audit partner to forget is to sign an audit report. Sadly, it appears that this crucial piece of the engagement sneaks by too:
More, after the jump
Deloitte has agreed to pay a £10,000 fine after allowing three members of staff to sign audit reports who were not designated as “responsible individuals”, contrary to audit regulations. Between March 2003 and November 2007 the three employees signed 95 audit reports.
Personally, we’re hoping that interns signed off on these because that would amount to a level of irresponsibility of the utmost hilarity. Speculation aside, Deloitte took this matter very seriously:
“Deloitte prides itself on its rigorous quality procedures and is disappointed that the individuals concerned failed to comply with the explicit policy that only those authorised to sign audit opinions may do so. None of the individuals concerned now work for Deloitte and the firm has implemented further improvements to its processes and controls.”
Rigorous quality procedures that let 95 audit reports sneak by? Short of the partner being on their deathbed, what could have come up that would make it a good idea to have someone else sign the reports? As for “rigorous quality procedures”, these must be on a sliding scale dependent on the number of pints that everyone has at lunch.
Deloitte fined £10,000 over mis-signed audits [Accountancy Age]
Deloitte is Handing Out Giant Foam Fingers Today
BusinessWeek’s “Best Places to Launch a Career” hits the newsstands today and Deloitte stuffed the ballot box best.
E&Y is the first loser, PwC gets the bronze and KPMG jumped one spot to #4, up from #5 last year. Grant Thornton dropped in at #51.
A few stats that probably help Deloitte land on top include:
• Average pay range being $5k higher than all the other firms
• Highest average signing bonus and 90% of new hires received them
• Highest three year retention rate of 56%
• Lowest drop in entry level hiring
Regardless of who comes out on top in this list, all the firms will be hyping their inclusion while on campus this fall.
We’ll revisit this next week when more of you are actually at work, not hungover, or haven’t already left.
For the rest of you, feel free to discuss the list in the comments, as we’re sure there are opinions out there on this.
Best Places to Launch a Career [BusinessWeek]
Think You’re Bitter?
Since some of you might not be spending your weekend consuming massive quantities of red meat, and thus, might be a little bent out of shape, we thought we would present a couple of quotes from “farewell emails” provided by readers.
Granted, these have probably made the rounds but we’ve included our favorite passages to demonstrate just how bitter some people are. Hopefully this will result in self-reflection for some of you but for some of you, it may be the sign that you’re beyond help.
Feel better about yourself (or pretty much the same) after the jump
Former PwC, who is obviously concerned about the mass soda consumption:
I would greatly encourage some kind of weight loss challenge to be implemented firm wide. The herd of water buffalo you call your work force is embarassing and a bit gross. When I call a co worker over from 2 cubes down and they are legitmately out of breath when they get to my cube it may be time to knock off 10 or 80 pounds. The company seems to encourage this obesity; each busy season we get a giant package full of pixie sticks, chocolate and assorted sweets. As much as I would enjoy type 2 diabetes, I think I’ll pass.
This particular former Green Dot should seriously consider some Dr. Phil time:
I would like for you to take note that Deloitte’s continuous lying and deceit is not acceptable to me or anyone else. Deloitte has been the biggest Disappointment because they are Deceitful, Demoralizing and De-motivating to their graduates who they should be uplifting as they are the foundation for future leaders of this country…When I started at the DGA I was promised many things, house on the hills and a black convertible to name a few. I was told that all the sacrifices I make during the programme would be worth it in the end. I ask how will it be worth it and when is the end?
iPhones are one thing but if the new recruits are promising black convertibles, for crissakes, please let us know.
These two examples certainly give credence to the notion that on call psychoanalysts for Big 4 employees should be given serious consideration. If you’ve got more examples out there, shoot them our way. We’re here to help as many of you as possible.