# Need advice from Big four auditing or consulting companies



## happy111 (Apr 1, 2014)

Dear professionals from big four and consulting firm, please help and advice me whether i have a chance to enter advisory service.

Currently i am a finance director of an international company's ME subsidiary. the company is a Chinese listed company and field leading mainly in software, with side business of medical equipment, and education. I have over 8 years experience in accounting/finance especially in budget planning, financial analysis area. the foundation experience including AP, AR, consolidate financial report, reimbursement and bookkeeping.

My drawback is I don't have internal audit experience, and I look much younger than my age, not easy to acquire client's trust. 

I wish to join in consulting practice because I wish to have a chance to transfer back to China. 
I have some conflict with our deputy CFO of corporation in China, therefore I am quite worried about my career once i complete my designation in Dubai and work under her.

If possible please help to guide me what finance area I need improve myself to be attractive by consulting companies. Cheers.

Thanks in advance


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## Fat Bhoy Tim (Feb 28, 2013)

At senior levels, the real concern is what consulting skills you have that are specific to the industry; general business development, account management, managing clients & stakeholders, identifying areas for improvement and also having the discussion for a sale.

Quite honestly, technical skills matter for little at higher levels, and it's all focused on client, account and engagement management.


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## Zexotic (Sep 3, 2011)

It would be very difficult to join advisory in the big 4 mainly because either people grow in the firm (Join as an associate and work their way up), or the firms employ people with relevant advisory experience on higher levels from other firms (From the same firm in other countries, or from different firms here in the UAE). 

I've personally not seen someone directly joining advisory at a higher level from the Industry without relevant advisory experience. Unless you bring huge revenue generating clients, I believe your chances are slim in the big 4.

I would personally advise you to find another chinese company here for which you have the relevant experience, who employs you here and you have the chance of eventually getting transferred back to China.


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## Fat Bhoy Tim (Feb 28, 2013)

Zexotic said:


> I've personally not seen someone directly joining advisory at a higher level from the Industry without relevant advisory experience. Unless you bring huge revenue generating clients, I believe your chances are slim in the big 4.


The few we've had join are often disasters, even if they come bearing gifts.


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## CHFIII (Mar 21, 2014)

First things First...

1. The "Big 4" generally consider 1 year of consulting experience equivalent to 3 years of industry experience. You would translate into perhaps a Senior Consultant level if they had a slot for you.

2. Your experience is in things that a consultancy would generally consider internal back office processes. In order to make that experience more applicable to advisory services you would need to frame it properly. It is one thing to say "I was in charge of the expense reimbursement process." and another to say "Redesigned the expense reimbursement process resulting in a 27% reduction in processing time and a 34% reduction in manual tasks". 

3. In order to perform strategic advisory services your deliverables have to be perfect (unlike this note I am typing at light speed and not proofing at all!). If you are planning to do work in Chinese it is one thing, if your deliverables will be in English then you have some work to do. Please do not take that as an insult. The managing consultant I use as my 'Quality Gate' to review and approve work before my review has a reputation for being brutal. When he had a dozen engagement leads - Manager/Sr. Manager experienced consultants complain that he was too harsh he pulled up one of his deliverables that I had marked up and the complaining stopped. The strategic advisory side of the house is not for everyone. The pace is brutal and though the expectation is that you will not have the requisite skills when you join, you will be expected to master them quickly. I am generally regarded as being very laid back and very devoted to helping my consultants develop their skills and improve so that their careers can progress. That said, new consultants are warned that if something is not 'client ready' to my standards they can expect to sit up all night with me fixing it until I am satisfied. That is not fun for them but it is very effective. I never raise my voice or get 'personal' when correcting work and that is very rare in the industry. Few people excel in this field by being patient and kind.

4. Understand the pace. You project to a Senior Consultant job band with your experience. The Senior Consultant has three major roles: Bill, Bill, Bill. It is the Analysts and Consultants who must bill many hours for the pyramid structure of a typical consultancy to run properly. Even though my bill rate to the client is many times that of a consultant, they do the heavy lifting and I do not scale. The 60 analysts and consultants below me are the key to my ability to hit my profitability targets, the more hours they bill, the bigger my bonus is. I can't keep them billing unless their work is of acceptable quality. The definition of acceptable varies from firm to firm but really from practice leader to practice leader. In my practice the standard is "When it looks like it would look if I did it and every data point is correct". You will be expected to bill at least 40 hours and that means you must produce 40 hours worth of work in the mind of the client. That does not include travel, training, internal meetings, email etcetera. You should plan on 60-70 hours and the occasional weekend. Late nights are common. You will be given more work until you say "Stop!". There is a right way and a wrong way to say that. The right way is to show your manager what work you have on your list and ask him/her to help you prioritize the task they just tried to give you. Your advancement depends on several factors but the short version is that everyone at the same level as you is assessed as a group. The top 10% get a big raise and fast-tracked for a leadership role so they may skip a level or two and be given more responsibility. The next 30% go up one band and get a decent raise. The next 30% (30-60) are warned that they need to do better and are given an improvement plan. The bottom 30% in a good consultancy are 'managed out' or simply dropped. It's a Darwinian environment because anyone at your level has an incentive to make certain they finish ahead of you. Help comes from above if you find a mentor who is willing to invest time in you. That decision tends to be based on their assessment of your potential and desire to achieve.

That should talk you out of pursuing a career in advisory consulting if you are not well suited to it. If that did not scare you then here is the good news. My first year in a Big 4 firm I learned more about consulting and business than I had in the prior four years at a second tier consultancy. You are surrounded by very smart, very dedicated people and if you apply yourself and pace yourself that ratio of one year in consulting to three years anywhere else is probably not accurate. 1:4 or 1:5 is more accurate IF you have the right mentors and they invest in you. Your salary doesn't grow quite as quickly as your experience but pay is good and results in much higher compensation for the remainder of your career. Companies like to hire executives out of the Big 4. 

There is a second career track in Consulting. The technical architect track is for those who are very technical and do not wish to sell or manage large accounts. This track does not have the same level of compensation but it is substantial and you can make the jump from a technology track to an advisory track. Based on very little information in your first post my suggestion would be that you investigate this track. It will allow you to focus on work you already know how to do while you work on your written and verbal skills in English. Again, that is not an insult, your English is excellent compared to my Mandarin but for advisory services you need to write and communicate like a native English speaker who does marketing for a living.

If you do go the advisory route. A leadership role breaks down to about 50% business development (sales and customer relationship management), 25% delivery oversight (quality assurance) and 25% management, offering development, skills development, admin. I spent the last year building a new practice from the ground up so the 80-100 hours each week was unusual but in my role as a practice director of an established practice prior to that 70-80 hours was typical not including the 100K air miles in travel time. It is not for everyone but I'd encourage anyone to try it for a couple years if they are willing to commit the time and effort because it is a graduate education in business and after two years you will be performing at a level you never thought possible on the beginning. It's just human nature that we raise or lower our level of performance to match those around us and in the Big 4 you will have to work very hard to catch up to people your age who have spent the past 3-4 years in that world.

Sorry for the long answer  I type at the same speed I think when I am not being careful and proofing what I write and out pops a novel instead of a blurb ;-) My favorite part of the job these days is that I get to work with young consultants like you and help them figure out where their gifts are and then work with them to develop them into a top gun consultant so this sort of question is fun for me. Feel free to PM me if I can be of assistance. As tough and demanding as consulting executives can be the successful ones tend to be very good mentors who truly have a servant mentality and a willingness to invest a great deal in promising consultants who have the raw ability and a strong desire to learn. As long as you show them that you did your homework before asking them and then listened to their counsel and tried to do what they told you to then they will continue to invest in you. 

Good luck and keep in mind that despite my 'warnings' I continue to do this job and I'm not sure whether a 'normal' job would keep my attention ;-)


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## Fat Bhoy Tim (Feb 28, 2013)

CHFIII said:


> First things First...
> 
> 1. The "Big 4" generally consider 1 year of consulting experience equivalent to 3 years of industry experience. You would translate into perhaps a Senior Consultant level if they had a slot for you.
> 
> ...


You've perfectly described my 5 years as an Analyst and Senior, averaging a good 60-65 hours a week and more than a few all-nights. I had a one friend who was at one point was working on 3 "full-time" engagements spending 20 hours a day working, only for a partner to come along and add a fourth saying, "you'll manage". As a Senior I got a reputation for being brutal with the red pen; directors and even partners would hand me deliverables, sometimes even client email correspondence, so I could brutally savage it before it went out to them. 

Your talk of billing and hours however made me smirk, the last two years I've gone in-house and now manage the deployment of around non-executive 170/180 odd personnel across the MENA region. It's one long battle against engagement managers who have their people on a project full-time but rarely if ever have them charging it. 

The one area I'd disagree with is that our technical/non-partner track generally pays better than the partner track, if only because it's accepted that you top out on that grade parking lot on the delivery/technical side.



> Good luck and keep in mind that despite my 'warnings' I continue to do this job and I'm not sure whether a 'normal' job would keep my attention ;-)


I regularly battle with, "f**k this ****, that last offer I got was amazing, I'm outta here"; and "Meh, I'd probably get bored real quick if I left".


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## happy111 (Apr 1, 2014)

CHFIII said:


> First things First...
> 
> 1. The "Big 4" generally consider 1 year of consulting experience equivalent to 3 years of industry experience. You would translate into perhaps a Senior Consultant level if they had a slot for you.
> 
> ...


thanks for your sincerely advice.
1. I totally agree with you and willing to have 2 years consultant experience to get familiar with this area. like Fat Bhoy Tim said, I do not want to be a disaster neither my staff nor my supervisor.
2. very valuable point, and I will keep it in mind.
3. English improvement is a big problem for us due to domestic protection policy in china. I have to combine several points to conclude this. 1. one child policy. both my wife and me are the only child of our parents 2. culture revolution effects, during 1970's not allowed to study at all, therefore, our parents do not speak english, and not able to come with us moving abroad. 3. we strongly feel the domestic companies are replacing international players these years. about 10 years ago, I used google, MSN, ebay, but now I shift to domestic companies like the others. and all these domestic company founders have the same experience because culture revolution, as a result, the business language is Mandarin. although these companies expand internationally, but they only need 1 or 2 person who is trusted and able to communicate in english, then this person will monitor the oversea subsidiaries and report back to HQ like what i am doing here. to conclude, I cannot leave my parents as they r getting old, in china it is hard to have the environment to remain high standard english. if the chance to enter consulting service is slim, I will try to improve my english but not invest huge time.

4. the workload seems terribly heavy. I worked under this pressure when I started my career for the first 2-3 years. but I believe my dream car and new field could motivate me and release my potential abilities. I can accept 60 hours during busy seasons.

thanks again, thank you for your clear guidance of consultant career path and this is the time for me to consider whether this is the lifestyle i expect.
maybe knock out my deputy CFO is an easier task:fencing:

hope you will not bill me a 4000AED/hour for consulting this topic. lol

Thanks Fat Bhoy Tim and Zexotic. your advise also helps me a lot. and sorry for reply late.


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## CHFIII (Mar 21, 2014)

Fat Bhoy Tim said:


> I regularly battle with, "f**k this ****, that last offer I got was amazing, I'm outta here"; and "Meh, I'd probably get bored real quick if I left".


That's the problem, isn't it? If I take a corporate role it has to be a disaster when I come in or I'd be bored to death. Working 40 is fine but I wouldn't know what to do the rest of the week. Guess I could ask what's her name if she has any hobby ideas or teach that short kid who keeps calling me dad how to fish?

Let me know if you know anybody who's looking for an infosec & GRC gray hair out there. My guess is it is heating up.


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## Fat Bhoy Tim (Feb 28, 2013)

CHFIII said:


> Let me know if you know anybody who's looking for an infosec & GRC gray hair out there. My guess is it is heating up.


I'm not from the Risk/GRC side of the business myself, but that's the part I'm helping to resource at present. It is indeed fairly busy, and continuing to get even busier - particularly in KSA.

Not sure if we're looking to add at senior levels, but possibly on the IT risk side of things.


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## Canuck_Sens (Nov 16, 2010)

happy111 said:


> Dear professionals from big four and consulting firm, please help and advice me whether i have a chance to enter advisory service.
> 
> My drawback is I don't have internal audit experience, and I look much younger than my age, not easy to acquire client's trust.
> 
> ...


Listen, I am not sure why you are so concerned with consulting. Do you see this as the only way to get back to China ? 

I agree with the comments that if you are not brought up within the consulting group is difficult although they do hire people from other industries to offer services in the same industry. I can also understand your predicament.
If you know someone that thinks you are good (you gotta be really) then they can refer you.

You will need to work out your finance qualifications and that takes time. Dont think that consultancy is a bed of roses. It is not. Long hours. Dont think either that all consultancies are good.

We had 1 big four (not saying the same) that was supposed to deliver a BC. It was awful. I and another guy from different departments destroyed the BC. Mostly because they don't master the business as some do in my company (myself). 

We also had one of the top dogs recently and they presented their findings to the "CEO" and he was disappointed yes disappointed with the consulting group because the findings were silly at best. I saw the presentation and I " laughed" because if I were paid the money they had been paid when I joined in 2010, I would have been retired in 3 months.


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