How To Get Hired By the Big 4: The Hiring Process

The Big 4 hire only the best and the brightest. This is only a partial truth at best. To get hired by a Big 4 you don’t need to have a 4.0 GPA (grade point average) with a double major in Business Administration .

In fact, people receives offers from all of the Big 4 firms with a slightly-above-average GPA, while some of them who are definitely are more intelligent and had a 4.0 GPA could not even land an interview.

What was the secret behind the success? Simple, coaching.

Get information from friends already working at the various Big 4 firms. Talk to them extensively, and find out exactly what the Big 4 want in a candidate. Then use this information to scrupulously morph urself into an ideal candidate.

Below there is a pretty simple path that will maximize your chances of getting hired by the Big 4.

About Big Four Audit Firms

Big Four (audit firms) 

The Big Four are the four largest international professional services networks in accountancy and professional services, offering audit, assurance, tax, consulting, advisory, actuarial, corporate finance and legal services. They handle the vast majority of audits for publicly traded companies as well as many private companies, creating an oligopoly in auditing large companies.The Big Four firms are shown below, with their latest publicly available data.

This group was once known as the "Big Eight", and was reduced to the "Big Six" and then "Big Five" by a series of mergers. The Big Five became the Big Four after the demise of Arthur Andersen in 2002, following its involvement in the Enron scandal.

Internship at the Big Four

The easiest way to get a full-time job at one of the Big Four accounting firms is through the internship process. Each of the public accounting firms hires a large class of interns from all of the top schools and from many regional schools each year. A majority of these interns will receive full-time offers at their internship firms.

If you want a job at one of the Big Four firms, remember you have only four chances to get a job. These opportunities are each precious, so prepare thoroughly ahead of time. Know all the answers to the typical questions (discussed later in this chapter). No matter what your goal is, in order to succeed in getting a good internship, you need to be well prepared for all of your interviews.



This year, Vault also asked respondents to provide us with actual interview questions that hiring managers asked during interviews. And below are a few handfuls of questions that Big 4 accounting firms—Deloitte, Ernst & Young, PricewaterhouseCoopers, and KPMG—asked candidates during the internship or full-time interview process. And so, if you're planning to interview with one of the four largest accounting firms in the world, you better have answers prepared for these 21:

Top 10 Universities in the World in 2013

#1 Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)

Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private research university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. MIT has five schools and one college, containing a total of 32 academic departments, with a strong emphasis on scientific, engineering, and technological education and research.

Founded in 1861 in response to the increasing industrialization of the United States, the institute used a polytechnic university model and stressed laboratory instruction. MIT's early emphasis on applied technology at the undergraduate and graduate levels led to close cooperation with industry. Curricular reforms under Karl Compton and Vannevar Bush in the 1930s re-emphasized basic scientific research. MIT was elected to the Association of American Universities in 1934. Researchers worked on computers, radar, and inertial guidance during World War II and the Cold War. Post-war defense research contributed to the rapid expansion of the faculty and campus under James Killian.

The current 168-acre (68.0 ha) campus opened in 1916 and extends over 1 mile (1.6 km)along the northern bank of the Charles River basin. In the past 60 years, MIT's educational disciplines have expanded beyond the physical sciences and engineering into fields such as biology, economics,linguistics, and management.

MIT enrolled 4,384 undergraduates and 6,510 graduate students for the 2011–2012 school year. MIT received 18,109 undergraduate applicants for the class of 2016, with only 1,620 offered admittance, an acceptance rate of 8.9%. It employs around 1,000 faculty members. Seventy-eight Nobel laureates, 52 National Medal of Science recipients, 45 Rhodes Scholars, and 38 MacArthur Fellows are currently or have previously been affiliated with the university. MIT has a strong entrepreneurial culture. The aggregated revenues of companies founded by MIT alumni would rank as the eleventh-largest economy in the world.

The "Engineers" sponsor 33 sports, most teams of which compete in the NCAA Division III's New England Women's and Men's Athletic Conference; the Division I rowing programs compete as part of the EARC and EAWRC.

#2 University of Cambridge

The University of Cambridge (informally known as Cambridge University or simply as Cambridge) is a public research university located in Cambridge, England, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest university in the English-speaking world (after the University of Oxford), and the third-oldest surviving university in the world. In post-nominals the university's name is abbreviated as Cantab, a shortened form of Cantabrigiensis (an adjective derived from Cantabrigia, the Latinised form of Cambridge). The university is considered to be one of the most prestigious institutions of higher learning in the United Kingdom and the world.

The university grew out of an association of scholars that was formed in 1209, early records suggest, by scholars leaving Oxford after a dispute with townsfolk. The two "ancient universities" have many common features and are often jointly referred to as Oxbridge. In addition to cultural and practical associations as a historic part of British society, they have a long history of rivalry with each other. Today, Cambridge is a collegiate university with a student population in excess of 18,000. Its faculties, departments and 31 colleges occupy different locations in town including purposely-built sites and the student life thrives with numerous opportunities in the arts, sport clubs and societies.

Cambridge has performed consistently in various league tables over the years, achieving the top spot in the world according to the QS World University Rankings in both 2010 and 2011; in 2012, the same editors ranked Cambridge second. Other results include a sixth place in the world in the 2011 Times Higher Education World University Rankings, and a fifth position in the world (and first in Europe) in the 2011 Academic Ranking of World Universities. Furthermore, Cambridge regularly contends with Oxford for first place in UK league tables. In 2011, Cambridge ranked third, after Harvard and MIT, in the Times Higher Education World Reputation Rankings. Graduates of the university have won a total of 65 Nobel Prizes, the most of any university in the world.

Cambridge is a member of the Coimbra Group, the G5, the International Alliance of Research Universities, the League of European Research Universities and the Russell Group of research-led British universities. It forms part of the 'golden triangle' of British universities