You are pressured to advance your career whether you want it or not. - Tax Senior Manager EY Employee Review

3.0
Aug 10, 2009
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Good salary, flexible work arrangement available which is great for working moms (but read the cons), programs in place for encouraging advancement for women and minorities, strong culture for measurable goals and career advancement, good benefits (401k matching, medical plans (no vision plan though) pension after 5 years). In our group, everyone is friendly, if not slightly competitive, but no backstabbers that I've seen in the last 5 years. Great place for those starting out, have no kids, can work long hours, and you'll be able to get your feet with and have an excellent experience learning accounting, and work toward your cpa license. Very supportive of providing education credits, and has an annual EY University where they fly you out for a week long training to get your credits.

Cons

Extreme pressure to advance career even if you don't want to, work load is enormous and never lessens and always feel like there is no end, at best you'll be rewarded with more work; always feel like you have to keep up with everyone else where the culture is to work all the time, early in the morning to late at night; at the manager level and above, they highly encourage you (read: pressure you) have to participate and promote national committees whether you want to or not. All of this is great if you want to because you want to make partner one day because they want you to succeed and generate lots of money for the firm, but all of this is not great if you just want to do a good job but don't want to work a bazillion hours of overtime and want to be able to pick up your kid by 5pm without having to tuck him in at 8pm and join a call at 10:30pm--this is what they mean by flex work arrangement. I've seen coworkers on "flex work arrangement" work nearly 40 hours every week but only getting paid 60% because they have to "keep up" with their workload because there is no one else to do it and the demands to complete work and remain profitable are great. Not my idea of flex work arrangement, it's almost like bait and switch. After doing taxes for 15+ years, and grueling tax seasons year after year, I'm tired of it. The processes are extremely bureaucratic and what should only take in essence 5-7 hours to do all aspects of a return, takes 20 hours because of all the admin, billing and coordination involved to comply with national processes. People I work with are great, but the pressures to advance and the stress from nonstop work culture of this place will make any work/life balance difficult.

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5.0
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CEO approval
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Pros

Great work environment in the office

Cons

Long hours and can get stuck on multiple busy seasons

5.0
Feb 21, 2018
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

1. You will have a very hard time not falling in love with every single person you meet there. 2. Seriously, you will meet your soul mate(s) there. 3. Prestigious and looks great on the resume. 4. Your brain will grow a thousand times more powerful. 5. Forces you to conquer your fear of public speaking. 6. Fun team bonding and lifelong friends. 7. Stepping stone to high paying jobs. 8. Helps you work on perfecting your charm. You will learn from the most charming people how to really get people to like you. 9. HR really cares. 10. Big support network (IT, creative services, etc.). 11. Teaches you to be calm and in control.

Cons

OK, I'm going to be discussing all the taboo things, and there are a lot of them. In spite of these cons, I still admit it's worth a five star rating. 1. High performers are "designated" (you have very little control over your rating) by the partner group (can be a pro if you get selected. Seriously, I have worked with some of the supposed "fives" and they are not any different than my threes and fours. 2. Quality is extremely low. Sometimes I felt like I was working at McDonalds and not a professional services firm. The emphasis is on getting through work as fast as possible and expectations for quality are not realistic. 3. EY has a very hard time firing bad employees. If you get stuck with one it can be a nightmare. 4. EY has a heavy emphasis on wasting time. For example, there are lots and lots of checklists which have no value that you have to fill out. Also, they wasted money and time on creating "Canvas" which is literally slower and more awkward than the previous workspace tool, GAMX. There is a heavy emphasis on "reinventing the wheel" and fixing problems that aren't broken with even worse solutions. Instead of wasting money on useless tools, that money could have been spent on your employees in the form of compensation. Like I said, EY is really focused on attempting to look as though value is being created when in fact it is not. 5. Lots of meetings. Appearances are very important. 6. Employees on global 360 accounts get better treatment. 7. Some employees (executives mostly) tend to overemphasize how important this work is. Let's face it, if it was really glorious work then we would have action figures. 8. Looks are very important. Seriously, if you are a girl, you will get promoted based on how hot you are (the quality of your work is largely unimportant). If you are a guy, you are treated a little better but there is still a sexist undercurrent in the environment. This is advice you won't get from HR obviously, but that doesn't mean it isn't true. 8. You will be forced to eat hours. 9. Your ethical compass will start to get weaker. 10. You will get a little cynical. 11. Lots of driving and travel. 12. "Family men" and married couples with children are more likely to be promoted. If you want to be a partner, you have to be married (few exceptions). 13. You will work on vacations. 14. Loss of relationships with family and friends. 15. Some backstabbing and credit-stealing (but not very common). 16. Comp is below market but that's to be expected. 17. Employee retention is not something management is interested in. This makes you replaceable and expendable (yes even as a manager, unless you have been "designated" as a high performer by the partner group).

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