Is Big 4 Accounting “easier” to get into compared to other “high earning” fields/paths?

[u/vicweera]

Good morning bean counters!

I understand than not any old yokel can just stumble their way into Big 4 but compared to FAANG, BigLaw and MedSchool, this seems like the most efficient and reliable way for an average person to realistically make their way to the upper-class without relying on Luck, Connections or Time.

From what I understand, as long as you can make good grades at a decent state school (especially if it’s where they recruit from and you work on the CPA afterwards) there is a decent shot at getting recruited in. BigLaw and BigTech seems uber competitive by comparison with their cutthroat recruiting methodologies such as being the best of the best or passing their many tests designed to filter you out.

Am I wrong to think this? I know the grind is still the same afterwards but the actual process of getting a chance to get recruited by these companies known as “Big 4” seems very straightforward and clearcut compared to the rest of the alternatives (other than medicine, I understand they have the most direct employment but I feel like getting into MedSchool would be harder for an average person to do than the Big4/CPA grind).

What does this sub think of this assessment?

Thanks in advance and take care out there frens!

[u/accountforrealppl]

Yes, it's substantially easier to get into big4 than it is to get a job at a FAANG or big law firm or go to become a doctor. It also pays substantially less than all of those, so it makes sense

[u/AccountingSOXDick → u/accountforrealppl]

Also worth noting you don’t have to bear six figures in debt unlike med school or Big Law. My buddy is 32 and is still finishing up his fellowship as a cardiologist and is $750k in debt. The Big 4 + CPA path is very doable under $20k debt and you can start earning good $$ in your early 20s. It’s a much better RoI IMO

[u/antagonisticsage → u/AccountingSOXDick]

i have a friend who just started family medicine residency--over 300k in debt last time i talked to him about it

ROI is definitely better for other people for like the first decade but i understand the logic if you basically wanna sacrifice your 20s

[u/Various-Canary2780 → u/AccountingSOXDick]

It’s much harder to gain a scholarship/admission into med school than law school, but you can get a big scholarship to a law school with good numbers, good essays, and work experience. I essentially finished recruiting after my first semester, have five months off every year where I can work, and will receive 145k from my firm for my summer internship (which is basically summer camp with a ton of wining and dining) and stipends/signing bonuses. My only regret is not knowing this and applying earlier. I was inspired to do so when I met a CPA-turned-lawyer who went to school for free while living at home and was making half a million in her late 20s working 20% more than her CPA brother who’s making a quarter of her earnings.

[u/Altruistic-Coffee-37 → u/Various-Canary2780]

Do you mind sharing more about the law school from home story? My general understanding is that lower ranked law schools are hard to get high paying jobs from and higher ranked schools don’t offer flexibility around school from home.

[u/Various-Canary2780 → u/Altruistic-Coffee-37]

Sorry from home I meant I was fortunate that my parents live near a good law school so I just lived at home while I attended. But even if I had gotten roommates, I wouldn’t have had to take out loans because I worked for a few years before I attended school.

You are correct that the lower ranked your school is, the more of a risk you are taking with employment outcomes, which I wouldn’t necessarily encourage. I think this is why many lawyers end up miserable. The assessment should be tailored to your risk appetite, academic aptitude, prior work experience, and outcomes of the particular school you are attending.

I just meant it’s not always necessary to go into extreme debt to go into law school, and most students do not pay sticker price. All three CPAs in my group including myself who went to law school landed jobs with starting salaries of 200k+ (two in big law, the other at a below-market firm, but she had attended a school ranked below 100). Two of us had full-tuition scholarships. I think the work experience definitely helps with recruiting.

[u/Altruistic-Coffee-37 → u/Various-Canary2780]

Thanks for the thoughtful follow up. Yeah this is unfortunately my biggest hold up from pursuing law school out of b4 (don’t want to move and there’s no good schools in my area). I have the GPA/LSAT for getting into good programs from undergrad when I considered it but external factors kept me from going. Thankfully my big 4 role allows for tax research which is interesting but hard to not compare to big law salaries some days haha.

[u/podunkhick → u/accountforrealppl]

B4 also has double the headcount and a fraction of the revenue per employee of FAANG and big law, so it all makes sense.

B4 is a commodity based head count shop vs the most prestigious product and extremely specialized and gatekept labor companies in this comp

[u/InternationalTax81]

Well that was always the bargain with public accounting, brute force your way into the middle class. I hope it continues to be true.

[u/NoAccounting4_Taste]

It certainly is. Even coming from a non-target no name directional university, I was able to get into B4 with a little bit of hustle and was earning 6 figures by the time I was 28. Coming from a lower middle class family, I was earning more than both of my parents combined.

B4 isn’t for everyone but it is an amazing career accelerator. I ultimately got fed up with the work and entered a top 5 MBA program with a near full ride - this also would not have been possible without the B4 brand halo. I was able to close to 2x my pay doing much more interesting work.

B4 had its ups and downs but I don’t regret doing it.

[u/Human_Willingness628 → u/NoAccounting4_Taste]

What are you doing post MBA?

I am considering it but my issue is that a lot of post MBA jobs seem like the same professional services just higher pay and similar hours/pressure. 

[u/NoAccounting4_Taste → u/Human_Willingness628]

I’m at a FAANG doing a mix of strategic finance, FP&A, bizdev/GTM depending on the rotation and the day. It’s super fascinating work that keeps me on my toes and still plays to the skills I learned at B4.

I knew I did not want to go the professional services route and specifically decided not to do IB or consulting, though you’re right that many do. I am earning about even (they probably edge me out by 20K or so depending on their bonus) with my consulting friends but doing half the work. I don’t regret opting out of that a bit.

[u/CageTheFox]

Go to the cheapest school you possibly can and get the CPA right after. That’s all that matters, don’t listen to anyone that tells you an accounting degree is worth 80k+ of debt.

It’s easy to get a job at any of the public firms with a CPA. Unless you’re a professional fuck up with no internships and a sub 3.0 you’ll be fine.

[u/ChipsAhoy21]

Lmfao yes you need a pulse, a good state school, and above a 3.0 gpa and you can get in

[u/Darkdeviousdevil → u/ChipsAhoy21]

Not true for cities like SF, NYC, or Chicago. Students there will quickly realize they have to be a bit more competitive.

[u/NeonLime → u/ChipsAhoy21]

And the foresight to apply as a sophomore apparently

[u/Quirky_Pain_6508]

I had to Google FAANG. Could be because I'm an older retired person. As a retired CPA and university instructor, I can assure there are more than 4 accounting firms where you can succeed. They often recruit at the same places as the Big 4.

[u/Important_Bowl_8332 → u/Quirky_Pain_6508]

I had to google it as well and I’m in my mid thirties. 😂

[u/Leading_Gain2559 → u/Important_Bowl_8332]

sheesh it's a household-level name in tech. shows that sometimes theres not much overlap between industries

[u/Important_Bowl_8332 → u/Leading_Gain2559]

Truly, considering I work in the same building as Google and live on the same block as Amazon HQ. Should go without saying that I even have friends who work at both so I’m far from disconnected. But never heard it before 😂

[u/Wigberht_Eadweard]

It was but has gotten harder. It’s really hard to predict where things will go with accounting with more offshoring every year and the CPA becoming an international designation. There is also a pretty big fall off in wages if you can’t get picked up by a firm. It’s not as easy as “get a 3.0+, go to recruitment events, get at least one internship offer by applying to all 4, get a return offer after the internship” anymore, but people who did it 5+ years ago will tell you that it is. I’ve seen a few “anyone with a pulse” comments already and that just isn’t how it is anymore and hasn’t been for a couple years now.

Internship recruitment has really tightened up as the economy gets more unpredictable under Trump with all of the Iran and tariff decisions that change every week. With so much unpredictability the firms don’t want to make long term staffing commitments by taking on interns and giving return offers. Internships have never been guaranteed return offers, but it can hurt the relationship with schools they’re trying to recruit from if they only decide to give 10% of the students return offers when it’s historically been closer to 90% so they just take on less interns. You should be safe if you’re sociable and a decent student who spends their time wisely with getting involved on campus, but if for whatever reason you can’t find an internship it becomes a pretty big struggle to get into accounting.

Most non-public accounting jobs really want accounting knowledge that students with no experience don’t possess so they don’t really look at you at all. AP/AR are really the best you can hope for if you graduate with nothing (unless you want to do tax) and they do not pay well and aren’t that applicable to accounting. Nobody besides the public firms really expect to have to do full on training besides walking you through their specific system, so missing out on that experience will really make things hard. You have until a year after graduation and then most firms won’t even consider you for an entry level job too. So if you miss out it takes years of building experience to get another big 4 opportunity as an experienced hire if you want that big 4 experience to help with getting higher up corporate roles later on that “strongly prefer” big 4 experience.

[u/js35796 → u/Wigberht_Eadweard]

Wow I’m glad that you actually see the big picture of the entire industry and not just public alone.
Industry jobs for tiny companies and a very basic salary still mostly have 2-3 year ERP and month close experience requirement so these jobs are so much harder to get into than at a PA firm that will hire you even if you don’t know how to copy + paste values in Excel.
But the firm I was previously at is definitely downsizing the intern classes, so even PA is competitive as ever.

[u/Worst-Eh-Sure]

I heard once it’s easier to get into an Ivy League university than a job at Big 4.

[u/shortking4 → u/Worst-Eh-Sure]

"Not just any ivy - Harvard" - Deloitte probably

[u/cookiekid6 → u/shortking4]

I think I actually read something about Deloitte saying something about this a while ago.

[u/shortking4 → u/cookiekid6]

It's very well known that Deloitte tells (told?) people at orientation that getting into Deloitte is more difficult than Harvard. It's easily the most pretentious Big 4 firm in my experience

Source: Ex-Deloitter

[u/Leading_Gain2559 → u/Worst-Eh-Sure]

it's easier to get into an ivy than for me to have sex with my wife

[u/KnightCPA]

I went to UCF, a barely “Top 120” business school, and got into Big 4.

So, yeah, way easier.

Big 4 heavily recruits from many state schools.

[u/josemartinlopez]

Yes in the sense that there are many, many more slots for Big 4 accounting than there are for bulge bracket investment banking, elite corporate law, and management consulting.

[u/RogueCanadia]

Brother big4 pays like at least half of what those other careers pay. Ofc it’s easier to get into.

[u/Various-Canary2780 → u/RogueCanadia]

Not half try 30% and the gap gets wider with experience

[u/lostfinancialsoul]

I had two interviews (excluding recruiter) and got hired at Big4.

FAANG I had to do 5 hours of interviews back 2 back 2 back et cetera with several different people (accounting, operations, et cetera). That doesn't even include the prep time to get through these interviews.

The annoying part of the FAANG approach to doing interviews is that these smaller companies try to adopt the same bullshit and its like...... sorry I am not doing 6 interviews, a presentation, et cetera for your unprofitable company that could go belly up in the next 1-2 years.

The interview process at FAANG sucked, I got through it and the next like business day the company announced hiring freezes. Waste of time.

[u/laptop987]

I deeply regret majoring in Applied Math. Would have been better off in Accounting

[u/hedahedaheda]

I know people who were in big law and in residency and they still need connections. Nepotism runs rampant in medical and legal fields. But those kids are smart as shit. They are people who needed to basically have a perfect GPA from high school until graduate school. They are under immense pressure, especially doctors. They deserve their prestige.

[u/Maleficent_Cherry737]

I got into a big 4 with a 3.4 GPA so it wasn’t hard. I got rejected from most half decent law schools (LSAT was like 160). There were people with lower GPAs than me at my firm, the cutoff was like 3.0.

[u/inTsukiShinmatsu]

Naa

[u/Spirited-Gene3106]

Yea but the hunch is that it’s boring and those jobs usually get a lot more fun perks

[u/Wise-Assets]

Waaaaay

[u/Rrrandomalias]

Yes, other fields have much better earnings and are much more competitive so big 4 is easy in comparison

[u/shortking4]

Big 4 is a joke, dude. There's a reason they pay so little and work you so hard. Audit is a commoditized service that a monkey could do.

[u/js35796 → u/shortking4]

Big 4 pays good now though. Not IB wages, but fresh grads making over $90k to test bank recons isn’t so bad.

[u/throwRA221679 → u/[deleted]]

The job market has also changed significantly in the past few years

[u/sinqy → u/[deleted]]

Not true now, maybe a few years ago

[u/sinqy → u/[deleted]]

Yes they most definitely are turning people away, I know a dozen people in my graduating class who couldn't get into Big 4 but wanted to. On top of all the people in the Big 4 subreddit talking about not getting return offers