The Student Room Group

Baker Tilly

Heyhey, reading over a few of the threads in here I know you guys must be sick of the same old questions, but I just thought I'd ask in case there's anyone here who works at/has applied to Baker Tilly. I got through the assessment day and next week I have an interview with a manager and then a case study, for which I have 45 mins to prepare and then present to a partner.

The first interview will be competency-based I assume, no worries there (hopefully). But I was wondering if anyone knew what the case study involved? If it's just a general assurance scenario then that's fine, but it's all a bit vague and I was hoping to find out if it involves a lot of calculation or it's all research-based...or whatever.

Anyway, cheers. I've got PwC final stage as well soon, but I'm actually thinking I'll choose Baker Tilly if I get offers from both.
Because they didn't seem to work over Christmas. At all. I call this a valid career choice.

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Reply 1
I also have a final interview with Baker Tilly, but I had no idea whatsoever that it would include a case study? They've been so vague. Have PwC and Deloitte final rounds this month too. And also lots of degree work... Oh the stress haha..
Reply 2
Congrats! You mentioned you would take Baker Tilly even if you had an offer from PWC, why is that? Just out of interest! Is it the whole "getting lost in a big firm" reason?
I call it a lack of ambition.
Reply 4
Ah yes, that'll be it.
Reply 5
Congratulations. So you went from Law to Accountancy?
Reply 6
You will work as many hours at Baker Tilly as you would at PWC, therefore, PWC would be the obvious choice. I've heard bad things about Baker Tilly, and they're also stuck in the 4-10 accountancy firm rut. By that I mean its big enough so that you won't get much more autonomy or breadth of knowledge than you would get at a big4 but you won't get the same quality of clients either. Either go small or go to the biggest, forget about the BT/BDO/GT's of the world unless you absolutely have to.
bdo and gt are for the big4 rejects, baker tilly are for the bdo gt rejects. or.....those with a career crippling lack of ambition
Reply 8
I can't wait to see what'll happen to your ambition when you're stuck as an assistant manager ticking boxes on audit at a big 4 firm. Who wants to bet the first place you'll end up is as a lateral higher at GT/BDO/Baker Tilly?
Not gonna work in audit....audit really is the most menial mindless work. Corporate finance is far more interesting. Only working at big4 as a career stepping stone, as a last resort if I cant get something better. Dont want to be an accountant the rest of my life, cant think of anything worse. And if that is how I regard the big4, you can imagine what i think about ending up at a midtier acc firm.

also...hire?
Reply 10
Corporate Finance at a big4 is for unambitious losers who aren't good enough for Investment Banking.
I agree...only unambitious if you choose it over banking though. As second choice and a stepping stone its not bad if you dont get into IB first time round. Or if you want the security of having a qualification so next time the markets **** themselves and you find yourself out of a job you have a backup plan.
Reply 12
tbh I'd think you were pretty mad choosing somewhere like Baker Tilly/BDO etc over a big four firm.

Pros of a big four firm:
Work on the biggest clients, which whilst having its drawbacks is also pretty interesting.
Still get to work on smaller clients where you can gain lots of responsibility quite quickly. A lot of FTSE 100 clients have large numbers of small subsidiarys which are still audited by the big four firm. I have one client where there are just three of us, therefore I have to do one third of the work on the audit which equals large amounts of responsibility.
The quality of fellow workers. Everyone at a big four firm could have gotten into a smaller firm. The same isn't true the other way around.
Far better on your CV
More money (all the way along the chain)
If you stay in the firm after your three years you can actually start to do really important work on FTSE 100 companies.

Cons of a big four firm
Work slightly longer hours.
As a first year working on a FTSE 100 client you can do a lot of admin work.

Pros of a small firm
Will get small clients all the time which equals more responsibility. Maybe.

Cons of a small client
Mainly the fact that just one FTSE 350 company is audited by a non big four firm. This means you get no exposure to household names/large clients.
Reply 13
You've given a very incomplete and biased comparison, which is to be expected, as you've never worked for a smaller firm.

There is no doubt you get more responsibility, I don't know how many managing directors/finance directors you've spoken to, but I spoke to dozens in just my first three months at a mid-tier firm. Fair enough, managing directors of companies turning over 250k-1mil, but MD's none the less. In 3 years you're expected to be offering business advice(rather than just accountancy advice) to these clients, advice that is value added and that makes a real and noticeable difference. Improving business function of a client turning over 100k saving them 10k makes a far bigger difference than doing the same for a client turning over 1mil.

The variety of work is also just not on the same level, I was expected to do corporation tax comps, prepare accounts, auditing, other ad-hoc duties such as drafting important letters, the odd bit of corporate finance etc. Thats not the case with a big 4 firm. Preparing accounts is also very different to auditing, you have to have a real eye for detail and a very broad knowledge of accounting and tax to do a good job.

As for "The quality of fellow workers. Everyone at a big four firm could have gotten into a smaller firm. The same isn't true the other way around." I don't think you could be very much more wrong. Hiring for smaller firms is actually far more selective due to the fact that there is a small workforce and you're not part of a machine, as such. Hiring is done directly by the partner of the firm and it is his values that are important, HR don't exist, and there are no recruitment policies other than those decided by that partner.

The partner of my firm only recruited trainee accountants with AAA+ in arts subjects or AAB+ in science subjects for a-levels, and he only recruited graduates if they graduated in maths/languages/sciences. Why? No reason, thats just his personal preferences, which already makes it far more selective than somewhere like a big 4 firm. So all of your colleagues who got BBC and did Business Studies at the University of Essex wouldn't have even been given a second glance, where as there is definitely a large amount of those sorts of people working in the big 4.

I don't know why auditing FTSE350 companies is important to you, or anyone, for that matter. How about making a real difference and having some real input into the way somebody's business is run? How about being a business advisor rather than just an auditor? These are options you have at a small firm which you just don't at a large one, at least not for a very long time.

And your comment about pay is incorrect, again, because the firms are small pay is solely performance related(market rates were irrelevant at my firm), and often this is an arbitrary figure calculated by perceived value added. There were newly qualifieds being paid £50k at my firm and the newest partner(who'd only been at the firm for 6 years, incidently) was paid 100k. You do not get that sort of money in that timescale at big 4 firms. If you are good you will almost undoubtedly rise to the top much quicker in a smaller firm, as there is much less beurocracy and your contribution is much more visible.

Lastly, don't kid yourself into thinking the big 4 is a selective organisation to work for. A quick search of their "experienced vacancies" page will show you that they are literally DESPERATE for qualified/part-qualified candidates. You are not a cut above everybody else working in accountancy, despite what you may think. Selection for graduates is only perceived to be competitive because of the very large amounts of rubbish applicants that apply. Having a 10-1 applicant/offer ratio means nothing if 9 of those applicants are trash. As an aside point, if working for the big 4 is that great, why is the turnover almost a shocking 20%, and why do you find many big 4 workers flocking to smaller firms in the hope of more responsibility and variety, and a better work life balance?
Simple fact is though, unless you want to become a career accountant (in which case some of the points made by barny are valid), it is madness not to have a big4 name on your cv if you have the choice. You have a much stronger name on your cv, rather than some no-name accountancy firm with 3 partners. Ceteris paribus, big industry companies or any other type of job is going to choose someone with a big4 name on their cv.

Training is also better at a big4. If you want to do anything other than audit or tax, big4 has more opportunities in corporate finance etc. More chance for international secondments as well...

Basically, unless you absolutely know for sure you want to be an accountant working in a small firm as a career, do your training in the big4. from there you can go anywhere you want.
Reply 15
Hi chaps, just on a similar theme,

How long did Baker Tilly take to respond to your application? Been nearly a week now and not heard anything.

CHeers. :smile:
Reply 16
First application? A few days, maximum.

Well, good points and all that. Cheers lads, it'll certainly help my decision...if I have one, of course, got to get the offer from PwC. That's in Forensics/Assurance, incidentally. I certainly don't want to be an accountant forever, and getting an ACA is going to be a great help wherever it's from in future. Again, I'll say I just got a better impression of the people at Baker Tilly than, say...KPMG. I'm fairly certain I'll get the PwC offer though (zing:smile:) so we'll see.

Good to see you're all so passionate about it. Go team.
Reply 17
I do understand your points about small firms Barny. However I think we are thinking about different levels of responsibility. Just a couple of weeks into my job I was placed in charge of auditing a £600m fixed assets balance. Now when fixed assets are that large there is certainly a lot of responsibility to make sure they're stated correctly. Your point about meeting FD's is kind of a mute one. I've already met a couple on my small clients and have worked with the FC on larger ones. 3 years into your job you will get real opportunity to work with FD's of large companies and FC's of multi-nationals. This to me is far more appealing than the FD of some small firm no one has heard of before. I have already had the oppourtunity to take minutes at a meeting which included the FC of a major multinational. Was absolutely fascinating.

The work life balance is hardly bad at a big four firm and in general the pay is going to be higher. I work from 35 hours a week to 50 absolute tops. You can argue that large numbers of newly qualifieds leave the big four firms for industry or a smaller firm. I would argue that the weaker candidates generally do. Those who stay in the firm are generally only those who have an eye on partnership. And whilst your pay is based firstly upon market rates performance can effect it by several thousand very early on and many thousand later on. Theres a senior manager in my department who took 4 years after qualifying to get there and is possibly on close to 100k.

I think we have a problem of both being quite biased to our type of firm. I apologise as I probably over generalised. But the likes of BDO, Baker Tilly etc will in general have a weaker intake than the big four.
Kirrin-

My opinion is that if you do not want to be an accountant for ever, then definitely big4 is the right choice. Many of the advantages and disadvantages of working for small firms vs big4 are entirely subjective, and different types of people like working in different types of firm.

however- in terms of career, the importance of having big4 on your cv should outweigh the other concerns you may have about the people at PwC. It is only a start to a career, three years or so for the aca. you will have far greater job prospects outside accountancy with big4 on your cv; indeed some vacancies specifically state big4 experience as a requirement.
Hey All,

Having read all the posts so far with interest I would now like to ask peoples' views on something. Studying for ACA at a top 20 firm - when qualified what are the career options? I mean I am interested in Management Consultancy and IB in some capacity. If you do you ACA at a mid-sized firm are you actually ruling out those options or just ruling out working at the very best/most prestigous firms?

Regards,

Thunder