Working at a Big 4

Many fresh graduates dream of starting their careers at a Big 4. Their main reasons to join such companies are the title, the money, and the gained experience from working with executives. In addition, the Big 4 companies provide exposure to diverse fields and sectors. Therefore, the work is highly dynamic and less repetitive when compared to the average company. In the following, I share my personal experience at a Big 4 and what to expect in general when working there.

You should read if

You are applying or looking to apply for a job at a big 4. Especially if the position is related to data analytics.

Who are the Big 4?

The Big four refers to the biggest four accounting firms and they are PwC (PricewaterhouseCoopers), KPMG (Klynveld Peat Marwick Goerdeler), and EY (Ernest & Young). They are also famous for their consulting departments which are the dream job for many fresh graduates from diverse fields (Business/Econ, STEM, Law...).

Interviewing Process

To get the internship, there were three interviews and they weren't too hard. However, this is a very subjective discussion. Some people might get very hard to please interviewers and others will get very nice ones. Therefore, do not consider the following as absolute truth.

Technical Interview

The technical interview consisted of a small business case, which anyone should be able to solve with a decent amount of common sense. The business case was not similar to the ones that are asked in consulting, which requires the structuring of a full business strategy (see Case In Point).

In addition, I got asked how would I approach extracting data from a database using SQL. It was an oral question to test my knowledge in SQL, I was not supposed to say exactly the lines of code that would work but something similar to "We should SELECT Y FROM TABLE X then JOIN Z ON the common key". Readers seeing this should not be surprised, you are not working as a data engineer, therefore, using SQL will be very minimal and limited to a few clients who would provide you with a database, which is not always the case.

Finally, I was asked a few STAT questions. The first question was about working with datasets containing outliers, using Python. For example: "what should we use when scaling datasets that contain weird values"... Other questions were about the difference between the mean and the median in skewed datasets. Also here, the purpose was not to put me under a tremendous amount of pressure, but more about checking if I know the basics and the commonly made mistakes in statistics. 

If I had to grade the interview, I would say it was fair. Comparing the questions that I was asked to what we used to do on the job, I can say that they were very well aligned and this is what I liked about the interview(er). In many other companies, the interviewer would start asking "smart" questions just to mess with the interviewee, for absolutely no reason.

In general, I am against such practices; if you're asking me hard questions about topics that you do not use at your company, just to make me fail, then you are an idiot with insecurities.

HR and Manager Interview

Both of these interviews are similar in some sense. The HR and the manager are looking to know who you are and why are you willing to work at their company. To prepare for those questions, first, you would need an honest reflection on why you applied for the position. Secondly, you need to do your own homework about the company.

• Learn how to tell your story
• You should not be reciting your CV! You will surely get yourself disqualified if you do that. You should tell a well-connected story, jumping from one idea to another with the right arguments on why you did this or that.
• Never lie about anything on your résumé unless you're a con artist.
• Tell behind-the-scenes stories that made you achieve what you have achieved so far, do not stick to the script (meaning do not talk about what is written on your CV only).
• Find videos that describe the position.
• The job description is not always complete, therefore, hearing from real employees what they do on their daily job is a huge plus to argue your motivations.
• Understand why your values are aligned with the company's core values.
• Most companies are trying to achieve a greater good, try to find what you like and mention why you do like those values.
• Highlight what you would expect to learn from working at the company.
• "I saw that you work on X and I would love if by the end of the internship I improve my skills in X" whatever that X is.

Preparing and acing the previously mentioned is not guaranteed to secure the position, however, it increases the chances tremendously. The reason why I say that is because maybe someone else has better qualifications than you do.

Day-to-day work

By now you'd be wondering what I was actually doing on my day-to-day job at a Big4. To make things clear, I was working in the "Data Analytics" team. In general, we focus on delivering insights to our clients. The way we do it is not so orthodox. Some clients would provide us with their databases and datasets. Others will just let us do what we know best. Creativity and brainstorming are much needed for the second type of client. However, the end-product would always be a great one in my opinion.

In the following, I will go through some of the projects I participated in and will discuss the learning throughout the internship.

The first week and the first project

In my first week, I was mainly focused on learning how to use Alteryx. The no-code software helps non-technical people to clean and manipulate their datasets. Alteryx helps in visualizing a data cleaning or a data manipulation workflow. In addition, it helps in understanding what is actually happening in each step. However, it is important to mention that Alteryx is not a software for newbies because it requires a deep understanding of what the tools do and you can do very advanced workflows using them. Once I got familiar with the tool, I started working on my first project.

Our client (RED) provided us with financial datasets about their projects. I had to clean the data and combine it in a way to facilitate the visualization. In addition, I was taught to create a data model that will improve the experience on PowerBI (our visualization/dashboarding tool).

Once the cleaning was done, we jumped to PowerBI and started creating some graphs to see where we can derive insights. 

The rest of the work on this project was the typical work of a consultant:

• Discuss the dashboard with managers
• Present the dashboard to the client

The second Project

The second project was about geospatial analysis. Our client was looking to acquire new stores to grow its chain. As a first step, we had to locate our stores before comparing them to our competitor's stores. Since we lacked structured datasets, we had to improvise. Therefore, we used web scraping with Google Maps API to extract all the needed information to create the map. The map was highly interactive (also created on PowerBI). We fixed our client's store on the map and our competitors' can be shown or removed based on proximity (minimum or maximum distance) conditions...

The two concepts (APIs and web scraping) were new to me, therefore, I learned a lot from this project. Furthermore, I had never cleaned very dirty JSON data before, however, now they are easier for me to digest. From a business point of view, I learned how the surroundings of a business and its positioning can affect it directly.

The third Project

The third project was about Computer Vision. Our client needed to create an automated identity-checking tool to reduce the workload on its employees. Therefore, I suggested that the best way to do it was using Computer Vision. The idea was to locate something that will always show on an identity card (the photo passport) and then offsetting in a certain direction to find the name of the person. Then, using OCR software, we can extract the names and store them for identification. The project was a huge success since it reduced the workload by a thousand man-hours for our client. In addition, it made me re-sharpen my computer vision skills.

The fourth Project

A new geospatial analysis project, however, a bit more advanced than the previous one. 

The fifth and final Project

The final project was about traffic analysis. It was a good experience in general, however, we were a bit limited with what we can do. I believe it would have been a huge project with the right datasets.

Note that I can't really tell more about this one because it was highly confidential.

Is working at a Big 4 stressful?

The work at a Big 4 can be stressful. Whenever there are tight deadlines, employees will have to spend some extra hours at the office. Since the work is considered "non-stop"; one should expect multiple days of overtime hours each month. However, from a positive perspective, all the extra time will translate into a better experience.

Is it possible to fail at a Big 4?

Yes, it is very possible for someone to fail at a Big 4. Many fresh graduates start their careers at a Big 4 with very high hopes but then they burn out very fast. This is due to their overestimation of their own ability to handle stress and manage their time. However, this is not a general rule for all the departments. Some departments can have less stressful work.

Are Big 4 salaries competitive?

Salaries at a Big 4 depend from one country to the other. However, in general, they are well paid. Personally, my daily compensation was negligible since I was doing a student internship. However, it was more than enough to cover my daily needs.

Average career length at a Big 4?

On average, people stay for two years at a Big 4 before changing into a different company. However, considering a two to five years career at a Big 4 has a huge weight on a CV or résumé. In my opinion, every year at a Big 4 can be counted as a year and a half or two years at an average company.

Is the culture good at a Big 4?

The culture at a Big 4 is great. All Big 4 core values are about inclusion and diversity. There is no one left out. The people are very nice and well behaved. The HR interviewing process is designed to find the right people which have values that are in line with the company's core values. No one should be ashamed of being themselves at a Big 4, in my opinion.

Thoughts...

To be fair with everyone, the team and my supervisor were the reason why I succeeded. Without them, it was nearly impossible to gain so much experience in such a small time (four months).

I am sure that the growth was exponential and it would take a few more months (up to a year) before it starts to stagnate. The diversity of the projects I got exposed to, grew my understanding of how businesses succeed. Therefore, I believe that when you leave from a Big 4 after a few years of experience, you leave as an entrepreneur.

Not everyone is fortunate to experience what it feels like to work at a Big 4. However, if you do, especially at a young age, then you have an edge over many of the people surrounding you.