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Big 4 to Mid-Tier Audit to Equity Research Advice

Hi Everyone,I wanted to get your input on my next career move. After university I worked for the Big 4 in London for 2 years, and I've unfortunately been dismissed due to exam failure. After a lot of interviews, I'm quite confident that I'll get 2 offers - one from a top 10-15 firm in Scotland (Smith & Williamson/RSM) and one from a top 30 (Menzies/Buzzacott/Price Bailey) firm in London.My goal ever since joining the Big 4 has been to go into equity research after qualification. My question to you guys is: which of these 2 offers would be seen as more "prestigious" by banks with ER divisions in London? Finally, do you feel that it would be necessary to *gulp* get back into the big 4 and do audit for another year after qualifying before applying to ER due to the increased prestige of coming from the Big 4? Would my 2 years at the Big 4 negate the need for that? Thanks in advance.
(edited 2 years ago)
As you've rightly suspected, it's almost definitely going to be necessary to go back to big 4 before you can make the jump to ER. Pretty much no one breaks into ER from a non-Big 4 professional services firm. Someone I worked under worked at one of the firm's you mentioned and they had to go to Big 4 before making the jump to ER.

Not sure that your 2 years at Big 4 negates that especially as you were dismissed but I cannot say for sure.

In regards to the prestige, well, the question you should really be asking is which firm is easiest to jump to big 4 from. I don't think the ER recruiter is going to care either way as long as you ultimately end up at B4. To find that out, I recommend going on LinkedIn and doing a little creative searching to try to check how easy it has been for firm alumni to get into big 4.

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