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The Big 4 Continue to Impress College Students, Dominate Latest Universum List

Posted on by Caleb Newquist

It’s been far too long since we had a Big 4 dominated list to share with you. The last that we can dig up was PwC’s three-peat for Training 125. We were starting to get the shakes…

Thankfully the drought has ended with the latest list from Universum, who we last hear from in the fall with their 50 Most Attractive Employers.

This time around, it’s the Top 100 IDEAL Employers, that is described as “annual employer image survey…based on more than 163,246 employer evaluations, reflecting the opinions of approximately 56,900 Undergraduate students.” In the “Business” field of study, the Big 4 have, once again, landed high on the list:


Ernst & Young – #2
PricewaterhouseCoopers – #3
Deloitte – #4
KPMG – #6

Big 4 domination on a college student list is nothing new. Their recruiting strategy is aggressive and any company getting bested by Google in anything is exactly a surprise. Some other notables:

FBI – #11
IRS – #23 (IRS 2, Sarah Palin 0)
Grant Thornton – #30
Accenture – #66

Frankly, the number beside the firm name is irrelevant. The firms will boast the latest ranking in press releases and on campus visits per standard operating procedure. This continues to demonstrate that the firms are impressing college recruits effectively. They are presenting the image they want to present and they are doing so with an ever increasing online presence. We will continue to see them high on these lists.

The Universum American Student Survey [Universum]
Universum USA Presents the 2010 Top IDEAL Employers [Press Release]

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Thumbnail image for moritz_becks.jpgNow we’re talking! Nothing like calling your shot.

Moritz did his best Joe Namath today on PwC’s firm wide webcast today (is it over?) so all that speculation of P. Dubs phoning in 2010 can be put to rest. WRITE. IT. DOWN.

If you’ve got other thoughts or details on the web cast, get in touch and discuss in the comments.

If KPMG Had Just Made Her Feel Like a Prostitute, They Would Have Gotten Off Way Cheaper

8ball.jpgKPMG has been ordered to pay £45,000 to a former employee who failed The Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales’s (ICAEW) computerized qualifying exams due to her dyslexia.
According to Accountancy Age, “[Dhrupa] Bid failed her first exam and was given permission by the firm to defer her retake so that a dyslexia assessment could be obtained from the ICAEW. She was warned by the firm if she failed she would have to be dismissed.”
More, after the jump


Previously, Ms. Bid had taken paper exams scoring in the 80s before taking the computerized exam and scoring 40% lower. She only found out that she had dyslexia until after she had failed the exam the second time. Her condition warranted her to an extension of time and to be given a paper exam.
It seems a little odd that she would take the exam again and fail, before finding out she had dyslexia since she was allowed to defer her re-take of the exam to determine if she had dyslexia.
Maybe the ICAEW was dragging on the assessment or KPMG didn’t have the patience to wait for the results but since Ms. Bid failed the second time she has had to return to Kenya since she no longer held a work visa.
KPMG issued the following statement:

“KPMG believes it acted properly and fairly at all times and did what was required of a responsible employer in supporting Ms Bid once the probability of her having dyslexia was made known to us.”

What’s not clear is whether the Radio Station would have preferred paying out less in damages and ended up being perceived as a pimp. Pretty tough call but it looks as though shelling out the additional £45,000 was worth it to the Firm.
The bright side for Ms. Bid is that she wasn’t made to feel like a prostie and she got paid way better than one too. Silver lining people. Silver lining.
KPMG forced to pay £45,000 in discrimination case [Accountancy Age]

Court Finds That PwC Might Have a ‘Macho Culture’ But It Didn’t Discriminate Against a Former Partner Who Was Basically Having a Nervous Breakdown

Last year we told you about Colin Tenner who was suing PwC on the grounds of disability discrimination. If you remember, back in 2009 Tenner was told his services were no longer needed after he took some sick time due to depression and severe stress that was a result of a client he was serving and his bosses inside P. Dubs. Tenner’s fellow partners allegedly weren’t impressed by this pansyness, as one partner said “real partners don’t get sick.”

While the judge in the tribunal said that some of these partners “were clearly at the end of the queue when tact and sensitivity were being handed out,” it wasn’t enough to constitute discrimination and Tenner’s suit was thrown out.

An industrial tribunal found that while there may have been a “macho culture within the firm”, it did not accept Mr Tenner had been discriminated against. […] [T]he tribunal said there was no evidence that any of the witnesses for PWC “showed any animosity, prejudice, or intolerance to disabled persons”.

In other words, they weren’t saying “that skitzo retard shouldn’t be calling in sick.” Apparently that’s what was needed here.

PWC partner’s discrimination case is dismissed [BBC]