BDO reviews

Although I spent much more time and gained much more "resume big ticket" skills with BDO than I did @ a Big 4, I still get more "street cred" for my Big 4 heritage; the Big 4 stint is all people want to talk about. Collectively, the Big 4 push out much more bodies than the Nationals/Regionals, so they're probably the ones doing the hiring, and sadly, some can still be a little snobby when it comes to assuming that someone from a National/Regional is less equiped than someone from Big 4, and dare I say it...forget about it if you come from a local firm. Understandably, it's a reputation and perception thing, and while I don't agree with it, it's just that way it is. So while I feel my current success is more attributable to BDO, I would advise people to really think about the perception that comes with a National/Regional and how that plays into your future plans; you may want to consider going to a Big 4 just for the name eventhough your experiences might not be as diverse, or even better, doing both Big 4 and National/Regional. It's kind of like, the Big 4 name gets me the interviews, but my BDO experiences enable me to back it up when I get there.

Politics, nepotism, favoritism, long hours of over 80 hours per week and weekend work, understaffed (low staff to management ratio), no work life balance, over 50% travel, lack of respect & fairness towards staff level employees, sexist environment (fewer women in management and partner levels), lack of diversity in workforce (mostly caucasian employees), inconsistent management across offices (no central firm-wide management), partner and management in-fighting, partners are unsupervised and there is no accountability for their actions.