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The Fortune 100 Best Companies to Work For: PwC #36 (2020)

Posted on by Jason Bramwell

Welcome back to our recap of the six public accounting firms that made the 2020 Fortune 100 Best Companies to Work For list. Last week we featured Plante Moran (#21), EY (#25), and KPMG (#32). We’ve got three more to give you this week, starting with a firm best known recently for its red pillows, robot helper, and shady audit engagement partners, as well as for turning a blind eye to poaching and keeping its lawyers busy—PwC.

All the P. Dubsteppers who bring their whole selves to work were #PwCProud for finishing #36 this year. Tim Ryan probably did an extra set of 75 push-ups and 600 sit-ups to celebrate this monumental achievement:

Previous ranking: #44. Here’s why PwC made this year’s ranking, according to Fortune:

Associates earn an average base pay of almost $65,000 with an average bonus of $5,300 at the professional services firm; all employees receive “unprescribed” sick time with no hard limits, an average of 34 paid days off each year, and a maximum of $10,000 in student-loan debt repayment for early-career associates. Employees who can take advantage of flexible work policies find they improve their working lives: “Since I am not client-facing, the ability to primarily work from home has transformed the way that I work and has increased my work/life balance,” notes one.

But is PwC still giving out bonuses of 20 grand to Elijah Watt Sells Award winners?

Stats of note:

  • Employees: 46,191
  • Number of job openings: 2,876 (as of February 2020)
  • Percentage of job growth: N/A
  • Number of new graduates hired: 5,416
  • Percentage of women: 45.6%
  • Percentage of minorities: 32.7%
  • Most common salaried job: Associate
  • PTO limit (days): 34
  • Number of sick days: Unlimited

Fun fact: Since Tim Ryan took over as PwC chairman in 2016, Papa Whiskey Charlie has had the worst average finish among the Big 4 firms in the F100BCTWF at 39.75 (2017 to 2020). The best? Believe it or not, KPMG at 27.25. Congrats again to KPMG for being better than Deloitte, EY, and PwC at something.

But dry those tears, PwCers. You only have to wait about eight more weeks before Vault will (probably) name PwC as the Most Prestigious Accounting Firm for the 12th year in a row.

Related articles:

The Fortune 100 Best Companies to Work For: Plante Moran #21 (2020)
The Fortune 100 Best Companies to Work For: EY #25 (2020)
The Fortune 100 Best Companies to Work For: KPMG #32 (2020)

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Will Defecting from E&Y to PwC Change Anything?

Today in makeshift accounting therapy, a fed up E&Y vet is contemplating a move to arch-rival PwC and wants to know if this is a suicide move.

Have a question about your career? Need advice on how to explain why your Fantasy Football league is always up on your laptop? Looking for advice on how to best flirt with recruits without being creepy? Send us an email with your query to [email protected] and will give you the best free advice you’ll ever get.

As for our potential E&Y Benedict Arnold:

I’m at EY, looking at a position one-level above where I am at PWC. Is this a frying-pan/fire situation?

EY as “more people friendly” is a concern, because EY is horrifically NOT people friendly.

I’ve know the guy I would be working for at PWC very well and I think I’m maxed out at EY.


Okay, so not a lot to go on here but we’ll take a stab at this. First off, if you’re maxed out at E&Y then looking for a new gig is the right move. The timing isn’t bad (assuming you’re not in the tax practice) and it sounds like you’ve got a decent lead at PwC. That said…

What makes you think PwC will be better than E&Y? Has the guy that you would be working for told you explicitly that he’s having the time of his life over there? That, besides the PwC Experience, you’ll be getting 40-50 hour weeks, happy hours devoid of assaults and access to professional oral sex providers on a regular basis?

More questions to consider: Does “the guy” stand to get a referral bonus for poaching you? Can you see yourself working for him? This could turn out to one hell of an epic mistake if he gets a few thousand bucks and you end up working for a whip-wielding taskmaster.

Now that we’ve planted the skepticism seed, if “a position one level above” is a legit promotion (title and salary bump), that might be worth considering. If it’s more of a lateral move, then we’d suggest passing unless there were perks like we described above.

Other important things to consider: 1) You will be torching many bridges at E&Y. Are you okay with that? 2) Is your potential new job really what you want to do. We’re making the assumption that you like your work but you’re over life at E&Y. If you don’t like your work then you’ve got a whole other problem. 3) Do you really, really, really, really want to stay in Big 4? Have you seriously asked yourself that question?

Ultimately, the opportunity may be a great one but you’re still taking a big risk assuming your life will be infinitely better working at PwC over E&Y. Proceed with caution.

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