I did. I started on a local firm with 45 employees. I was mainly doing Single Audits for Collegues and Community Health Centers, plus some Agreed Upon Procedures, Reviews and Compilation Engagements, and corporate tax preparation for the audit clients. Then I started to receive interview calls from different regional firms, other local firms and Big 4 firms. I went to about 5 different interviews with those firms, until I decided to jump ship to Big 4. Hours are a lot longer on Big 4 (right now I work from 8:30 to 11:00 pm, and its not even busy season). Nonetheless, the work done in smaller firms is more comprehensive, as you will be doing most of the audit engagements by yourself or just another auditor. This gives you an advantage when you jump to Big 4, as it takes a long time to work on all areas of an engagement on that environment, due to the client's size. The salary is obviously way higher on Big 4 and the boost on the resume should help later on the career. I have to say auditing at smaller firms is actually harder, since the typical clients don't have proper controls over their accounting / finances, which makes the audit engagement more difficult. This includes lots of Adjustment entries, lots of reconciliations and even training the clients on several matters. On big 4, most of the clients have formal accounting departments, internal auditors, financial consultants, compliance consultants….. etc, which makes the external audit that much easier to perform. Overall, I like the way I have done it, as it would have been much harder the other way around (being used to most accounts tying to GL, proper controls, most documentation ready and available,, and all that stuff, and then going to the reality of small firms engagements)
FAR 88 - BEC 86 - AUD 90 - REG 85
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