Ernst & Young Reviews in Atlanta, GA Area

Pros

Competitive Salary,Growth opportunity to manager,Great benefits

Cons

Difficult to get past senior manager level

Pros

EY is a fantastic place to start and grow your career. The mentoring culture is ideal and the Partners truly care about developing the people. The brand sells well in the marketplace, so, there is never a shortage of work to be done.

Cons

In recent years, growth has become more challenging, and, the Firm has not done a good job of managing "onesmanship". Unfortunately this has lead to backbiting and infighting rather than a focus on clients.

Advice to Senior Management

Enhance the collaboration amongst the teams. Our clients want to see 1 Ernst & Young, not three. If the Firm can figure out how to get harmony, then, the Firm will be successful.

Pros

Positive environment, great coworkers, awesome managers, and top-shelf clients. Huge emphasis on learning and growth. Great attention to the development of all employees. Structured training and on-the-job coaching. Great benefits package.

Cons

Work-life balance is hard to maintain. Deadline-driven business lends itself to high-pressure situations. Delayed correlation between performance and rewards can be frustrating.

Advice to Senior Management

More resources should be devoted to technology hardware infrastructure (faster laptops and server banks). Too much productivity is lost due to maxed out computer loadsets. Compensation reviews should be accelerated for top performing employees.

Pros

Comraderie, great stepping stone for career advancement

Cons

work life balance, rough busy season due to layoffs

Advice to Senior Management

Better work life balance

Pros

Flexible work arrangement and benefits

Cons

Bureaucracy, politics. Very slow to get things done.

Advice to Senior Management

Provide a clearer path to career advancement for CBS folks

Pros

Great employees and managers. Also, great opportunities to work in many different industries and meet a lot of people without having to travel too much.

Cons

Work hours expectation is high, but that is a given in public accounting. Also, there was no compensation increase last year, but slight economy growth may reverse this.

Advice to Senior Management

N/A

Pros

If you are looking to work for one of the Big 4 in Atlanta, Ernst & Young is the place to be. E&Y Atlanta has the market share and the majority of the high profile clients. There is great opportunity to gain exposure to multiple clients and industries. If you know what you are getting into and are willing to "pay your dues," this place is for you. E&Y looks great on your resume and will help when attempting to move out of public.

Cons

Compensation is a huge issue here. Employees are over-worked and under-paid. Turnover is high at the Senior level, as clients or other private companies tend to have better overall compensation and more work/life balance, especially after having 3-4 years of experience. Work/life balance can be a struggle for a lot of people at the firm if they happen to work with the wrong people or the wrong industry. Overall, people, on average, tend to work more than their counterparts outside of public accounting and this is something that probably will never go away until you make partner. Incentives to be better than peers are non-existent (until you reach the soon-to-be-partner level), aside from a pat on the back.

Advice to Senior Management

Live up to your "People First" motto.

Pros

Good clients, Great co-workers, Hours not too demanding

Cons

Extensive travel, mundane repetitive work

Advice to Senior Management

Better utilize the talents of its employees to offer more services to the clients

Pros

Plenty of freedom - not much micro-managing. This is a pro and a con, though. People are, on the whole, very competent. Not a lot of time wasted in meetings, which is nice. Focus is on revenue and utilization.

Cons

Laissez faire leadership seems to be a cultural norm throughout the practice. Freedom is nice, but without strong centralized leadership, different groups often do their own thing. The firm seems averse to imposing rules that would require interaction (e.g., mandating review of returns by specialists if dollar amount exceeded certain threshold). Could have stronger quality controls over tax preparation process.

Advice to Senior Management

Move away from geographic profit centers to a more centralized approach.

Pros

There are flexible work arrangements allowed for certain employees for maternity leave, paternity leave, jury duty, secondments, sabbaticals, global travel, medical leave, and other personal days. In addition, some chosen few employees are allowed to work from home when they feel the need. In fact there is one case where an employee is allowed to come into the office a few times a month if they feel up for it.

Cons

When the heretofore mentioned employee works from home the preferred method of communication is to phone in a few times a day, talk more, listen less, focus on the perceived shortcomings of everyone else who is in the office that day, and complain about why those that actually show up for work are 'always' late to the office. Contrast this to other managers that are required to work around everyone elses' schedules and still required to be in the office early every day of the week with few exceptions.

Advice to Senior Management

It's a great place for special needs employees at the expense of others who simply want to put in honest time and output quality work.