Vault has been teasing us for weeks with the promise of their annual Accounting 50. It's finally here, and we'll get to that in a minute but before we delve into the full ranking, let's celebrate #1 PwC once again:
Not only did New York-headquartered PwC again rank No. 1 in the Accounting 50 (and thus held onto its title of “best accounting employer to work for”) but it also again ranked No. 1 in our Prestige Rankings. In fact, it was the sixth year in a row that PwC took the top spot in prestige. And this year accountants at peer firms told us that PwC is “still the gold standard,” “the firm to beat,” “a good firm for large clients,” “highly thought of,” “top notch,” and “the best of the Big 4.” But peer accountants also called PwC “conceited” and said the No. 1 firm in America “will work you to the bone and spit you out.”
It's interesting that despite not one but two ongoing overtime lawsuits, the MF Global monkey around their necks, and that little issue with forced arbitration, PwC continues to hammer the competition as the "gold standard."
PwC also took home the trifecta in Vault's new sub ranking for three practice areas:
In addition, PwC ranked No. 1 in three new categories. This year, for the first time, we asked accountants to rate their peer firms in three practice areas: tax accounting, forensic accounting, and audit and assurance. PwC ranked No. 1 in all three. PwC also fared very well in our diversity rankings, earning the top spot for LGBT diversity, military veteran diversity, and overall diversity.
Also interesting, the fact that despite coming in 13th in comp and 18th in overall satisfaction, PwC still came out on top as best accounting employer to work for. This leads us to believe that "prestige" really does count for something:
And PwC rated higher than its Big 4 competitors (Ernst & Young, Deloitte, and KPMG) in nearly of our Quality of Life Rankings, which are typically (and were again this year) dominated by midsize accounting firms. PwC ranked No. 2 in formal training, No. 4 in business outlook, No. 13 in firm culture (it jumped four spots in this category), No. 15 in work/life balance (also up four spots), No. 13 in compensation (up two spots), and No. 18 in overall satisfaction (which might seem like a less than impressive ranking but it was better than the rest of the Big 4 firms fared in this category).
As we said, we'll get to the rest of the rankings here shortly but figured PwC would want their own little pat on the back. It's the least we can do since they've been beat up so sad in headlines lately…
