Dixon Hughes Goodman Reviews

Pros

Better work life balance than a Big 4 Firm. Good benefits. Good clients in offices in larger cities. Overall the partners care about their employees.

Cons

Company is growing fast through mergers and aquisitions and not all offices are up to par with the rest of the firm. Training could be better.

Advice to Senior Management

Some offices need a better leverage model to push work down from partners to managers to staff as this would help employees advance quicker and add more value to clients.

Pros

Great Opportunities to see large and small clients, good opportunity to advance in the company, lots of training and learnig experiences.

Cons

There seems to be a lot of travel for audit staff, but not as much as the larger firms. Very budget oriented

Advice to Senior Management

Continue to offer competive salaries, recruit good talent, consider reevualting the 401K profit sharing concept as opposed to a matching contribution.

Pros

I think the office is, overall, filled with some people that are interesting to talk to outside of work. And there is a definite interest in firm growth.

Cons

When you are in the office, it is fairly competitive when it comes to salaries and promotions. There is also little first year training provided

Advice to Senior Management

Offer some more assistance to new hires. I know it's impossible to take away promotions, but at least try and make it more fair.

Pros

Management is intelligent and available for help when needed. Benefits package was excellent, as was time off policy. Coworkers also had a decent sense of humor (especially for accountants)

Cons

Like every accounting job, there is a demanding busy season that cuts into the work-life balance. There is also little opoprtunity to work with both audit and tax.

Advice to Senior Management

Continue to provide valuable feedback to employees. For employees interested in learning more about audit and tax, offer opportunities for them to learn both.

Pros

Good work/life balance. However, this is because their work is not in high demand like Big 4.

Cons

The firm operates as a group of individual offices, rather than one large company. The engagements are small and not challenging. Management lacks expertise that you find at Big 4. Lack of name recognition does not contribute to career progression if you leave. Billable hours is the only metric that matters for performance reviews, but the company does not have enough backlog to keep staff busy.

Advice to Senior Management

Have enough respect for people to communicate all the way down. You say the company is people-oriented and that each office is a "family." But management does not hesitate to cut people. There is more to a career than short term low chargability.

Pros

There are a lot of opportunities at Dixon Hughes because the company is growing quickly. Overall, they do a great job in the recruiting and hiring process so the co-workers are great. The benefits are fantastic - the associates all start off with 4 weeks of vacation and great insurance! The management generally values a work/life balance and is willing to work with everyone on achieving it.

Cons

Sometimes it seems that recruiting new people is more important than retaining current employees. Because the company is growing so quickly, it does lose some of the individual attention and small firm atmosphere.

Advice to Senior Management

Better communication would go a long way and be greatly appreciated.

Pros

There is a good work/life balance. I have never had a problem with taking time off or going on vacation. The ability to move ahead with a good work ethic is also there. They make every effort to help you pass the CPA exam including a nice reimbursement package that was recently updated for 2008.

Cons

There may be some periods of boredom. Another downside is that it may be harder to progress at the same rate as some of the people in big 4. The work isn't as concentrated into one particular niche -and that may be good or bad. You most likely will work on a variety of things, and maybe specialize later on down the line.

Advice to Senior Management

Find a way to distribute work more evenly and incorporate new people into the mix more efficiently.