[Anonymous]

Hi everyone,

I’m currently an auditor in public and starting to look for other opportunities. To those of you who have left, did you include your clients on your resume, or is this something that is typically not done? If not, can you mention the clients you’ve worked on during interviews?

Thanks in advance for any advice.

[mw798]

As an auditor, do not put client names on a resume as it's generally frowned upon. I know the Big 4 prohibits this if you read their code of conduct. Be sure to read your firm's policy on this. And your prospective firm may have a policy against this as well so you don't want to be breaking it even before you've set foot inside.

If you want to list clients you have to do it in way that is ambiguous. Something like “Large manufacturing company with annual revenues in excess of $100mm.” Make it too obvious and it's generally frowned upon and may break your current firm's policy.

[Anonymous]

Personally I think it is sort of tacky so I wouldn't. But Yes, recruiters/companies will ask about your clients. If your clients are public, tell away. If they are not, keep it general (ie large private health insurance company).

[fuzyfro89]

The issue is if you reveal any non-public information or company confidential information during the interview process. It's highly unlikely to make a difference, since the company you are interviewing with is not likely to out you to the feds or anything for telling them something, but it's prudent to be careful anyway. You may be violating some of your current firm's policies.

With that said, it's really not necessary to talk specifically about a client by revealing the name. It's generally easy enough to describe like another comment above “Large food manufacturer, NY metro, 100m+ revenues”, “mid-market private equity firm, Boston metro, 3b+ AUM”, etc. The clients themselves don't really matter anyway, since what you do is what matters.

[ruggercpa2b]

I always generalized it by saying the industry. I would say I worked in manufacturing so I didn't have to say the client name. Because when they start saying tell me about a time I could just talk in general and not necessarily have them know I was talking about a specific client.

AUD - 73, 72 retake 7/2/2016
BEC - 8/20/2016
REG - TBD
FAR - TBD

I am so ready for this nightmare to be over. Been at this way too long.

[Mayo]

I worked at a Big 4, and I put my pertinent clients on my resume. I even spoke specifically to some of the areas I worked on. Like fuzyfro89 mentioned, just make sure you don't disclose confidential information. As long as it's publicly available, it's ok to talk about it to a certain extent.

If there's a difficult situation you want to highlight on your experience, just don't mention the client name and leave out enough details where they can't guess the client.

Anyhow, it worked for me, and I didn't get any weird responses. But reading some of the responses here, maybe it's a case of YMMV?

EDIT: Actually, when I think about it…it's much easier to do what I mentioned when you have a variety of clients. Obviously, if you have one real estate client, it's much harder to mention these types of things.

Mayo, BBA, Macc

[EuroAddict]

List the types of industries you worked on.

More likely than not they will ask you how large of companies you worked on and what type of industry. I really don't think they care what clients.

-----------------------------
BEC - 77, 03/2015 (first try)
FAR - 79, 05/2015 (second try)
REG - 83, 12/2015 (first try)
AUD - 84, 03/2015 (first try)

I got 99 problems but the CPA ain't one.

[Author]

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