[Spock]

Hello all. As the title reads, I am a soon to be intern at one of the Big 4 this summer. I am pretty psyched up that I got the offer. It is for an audit position in financial services and is located in a major city on the east coast (think NYC, Boston, Philly). I have been researching the various boards and forums, and speaking to some people about the experience of public accounting, specifically Big 4 audit. However, I keep getting varying answers depending on where the sources come from.

For instance, I spoke to a few former interns from my university who all had really excellent experiences and had nothing but good things to say about the firm; they all accepted ft offers for when they graduate. I spoke to my first round interviewer, a senior manager at the firm, and he gave me a very honest and straight forward opinion which was, that while it is definitely not a typical 9-5 job, it is a great place to learn a lot in a short period of time and your experience is basically what you make of it. Lastly, I read endless posts on here and other boards that big 4 is hell on earth, with hours comparable to a sweatshop, and that I should turn around and never look back.

So what exactly am I looking at for the summer ahead in terms of hours, travel, actual work to do, intern events, and the like?

[Anonymous]

Hey! Interns honestly get the best experience as it is not all that common to get assigned to a June 30th year-end client so you're most likely not going to be seeing anything busy season related. Overall, your internship is likely to be very calm and a typical 9-5 job because the Big 4 truly do want to entice candidates in. It's great because as an intern you also make overtime pay, which once you accept a FT position no longer exists. I think the Big 4 is one of those jobs that you find strenuous while you're in the position, but looking back retrospectively becomes a building block of your career and your actual hands on knowledge in accounting.

[Spock]

Thanks for the reply. Judging by your tag, I assume you work at one of the big 4; which service line do you work? I am really trying to find out as much as I can about financial services audit and how it compares to other industry clients. From what I have heard there is usually much less travel if you are in a major metro area like NYC, is this the case? Also, some tell me the hours can be much worse in the financial services sector due to tight deadlines, SOX compliance and the like.

[SeePeeAyy]

I just did my audit internship at a big 4 firm (boston) this summer. It was awesome. Im not sure which firm you are at but mine certainly spoils the hell out of the interns.

Hours depend on the client you are on. I always got an hour for lunch, some clients I had to be there at 8am and left at 5, others 9-6 etc. It was usually only 8 hours because you are hourly. I did work about 5 hours OT for a week though so that was definitely very nice addition to your paycheck. The winter interns are on busy season clients so they get like 20 hours OT a week…

The work is actual work too, dont expect to get coffee or anything like that. All of my colleagues were awesome, helped me with any questions, walked me through some issues and even let me try stuff on my own and trusted me with important documents.

We had intern events every Friday, so we really only worked a 4 day work week. We did duck tours, scavenger hunts and all that fun stuff for intern bonding. We also had a weekend trip paid for us.

Overall though its pretty awesome, really good pay, learn a lot, see what the industry is like, meet a lot of awesome people. I accepted my offer obviously. 97% of my intern class got offers.

Enjoy it, back to CPA studying for me.

[Anonymous]

I'm Big 4, East Coast, audit, insurance practice. Honestly there isn't usually too much going on during the summer. Our winter interns work like crazy with the rest of the audit team, but the summer interns typically work 8:30-5:30 working with whichever part of the audit team needs help. Typically summer interns don't get any OT, so don't count on that. Unless you get put on a 6/30 year-end client, which is not common in financial services.

Keep in mind that while you do get some experience, a summer internship doesn't usually give you the best view of what the job is like year-round. You should, however, be able to meet a lot of people and get some experience.

It's hard work the rest of the year, but if you want to start your career Big 4 don't let anyone scare you away. No one is going to tell you that busy season hours are fun, but depending on your clients the rest of the year isn't too bad.

And as long as you work hard and get along with the other engagement team members, you should be all set getting a job offer. In our office we've only had 1-2 interns (summer and winter) that did not get offers.

[Anonymous]

I was a winter intern last year for one of the big 4 in Chicago… and I was working ~70 hour weeks and driving about ~10 hours a week on top of that!

But from what I gathered from talking to summer interns, they worked closer to 40-50 hour weeks over the internship. This left more time for intern activities (which, honestly, we didn't have much of during the winter internship).

As for what you'll be doing, it will really depend on your client, what your team needs done, and the level at which they think you can perform.

Stay positive and be eager to help and you'll have a good experience!

[Author]

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