KPMG Reviews in Houston, TX Area

Pros

Definitely a great company to work for. Plenty of opportunity to move up within the company or get experience in an industry and move on.

Cons

During busy season you will definitely work alot. However, that is not really any different from any other accounting position, it comes with the territory

Pros

Name recognition
Good thing to have on your resume

Cons

-There is no structure for promotion. If you bring in the money, you're in. If not, you're passed on.
- I've been begging my manager to pull me off the project I'm on right now as it's not helping my career, but there is no one to take your side or stand up for you.
- You will get promoted if you suck but know how to suck up to management. If you're a hard working individual and rely on your work to show your competence and desire to get promoted, you're out of luck.

Advice to Senior Management

Stop focusing on $$$ and start focusing on people. Do you ever wonder why people leave in droves?? rhetorical question of course. You know but you just don't care.

Pros

It is a fine work place. THe people are talented and the envoronment is conducive to growth. I am very happy.

Cons

I would say that KPMG is not as advanced as the other big 4 audit and/ or consulting firms in terms of technology.

Pros

The people at lower levels are typically great. The trouble is they typically leave quite soon. Much better coporate culture than the other big four firms.

Cons

They own you, force you to eat time, understaffed, promotions given based on time with company not ability, Good staff overworked more than less capable workers

Advice to Senior Management

Management should focus on compensating and rewarding the stand out, lower level performers in order to retain them. The current structure advocates mediocrity in order to have any sort of work life balance.

Pros

The technology is awsome such as the e work papers, online trainings, dual monitors, and etc. The annual firm wide training is a great learning and networking experience. You get to meet people from all different offices and people from different school. Chicago training was awsome. Nice new building.

Cons

The people there can be very clicky/high school like. Also, the promotions are often unfair and so that leads to having unqualified supervisors who throw their staff under the bus if something goes wrong.
Unfair distribution of work. People tend to hoard work which leads to half the staff working long hours and the other half left twiddling their dumbs.

CYA enviroment.

Pros

community involvement, 5 weeks paid time off each year, it is the Big 4 - resume booster, the people are great

Cons

very client oriented so client demands can get overwhelming, dealing with multiple managers/partners can be overwhelming, because it is such a huge organization, to get things done can be an administrative nightmare

Advice to Senior Management

less administrative tasks, limit the number of email updates throughout the day,

Pros

name recognition, training . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Cons

poor management, no compensation, sob stories from partners - informing you how thankful you should be you didn't have to take a pay cut... and then expecting you to continue the 8- hour work weeks....

Advice to Senior Management

focus on employee satisfaction - salaries, bonuses, praise, various other things which any effective manager would be able to figure out if they thought about it

Pros

Great place to work with largely young and highly motivated workforce. Training is first class. KPMG provides opportunities to see different industries, within reason. If you are a very headstrong, driven person you can work on just about any job your would like. Opportunities to travel and work in other offices are plentiful.

Cons

There is a quite a bit of "good ole boy" mentality at play. This is definitely a place where the squeaky wheel gets the grease and where if you are staffed on one of the high profile clients, you earn preferential treatment. Work life balance is given a quite a bit of lip service, but is nonexistent.

Advice to Senior Management

Respect your employees and put some action behind all the lip service given to work/life balance. Realize the assets you have in your female employees and really work to establish an environment that makes them feel like they can have a career at KPMG and a family.

Pros

I found the audit practice to be a good way to gain experience across differing industries and to see many specific business functions through the course of audit work. It helped me see firsthand which types of jobs and what companies I might consider working for the in the future. Definitely improved my communication and presentation skills.

Cons

Excessive work hours (that were not justified based on how much audit work needed to be done). Boredom and lack of work outside of the busy season time frame. Hire and fire assembly line atmosphere. Fake corporate environment.

Advice to Senior Management

Overall, I find the positives outweighed the negatives and that my experience enhanced my career overall. I find it tough to offer up advice on a career path that I am no longer pursuing with interest.

Pros

Definitely a great name to add to your resume. You get a lot of responsibility immediately and are surrounded by pretty sharp people. Everyone is very sociable and laid back. And the best part is getting 5 weeks of PTO. You won't get that anywhere else.

Cons

Medical benefits and 401k are average at best. Minimal say in your travel schedule unless you are a mother. If you are in the IT Advisory practice, it's nearly impossible to rotate to another department because everything else is Accounting related. Some managers are extremely anal about hours. KPMG is also the worst when it comes to technology out of all the Big 4. They aren't even on electronic WPs yet. Long way to go for them on that.

Advice to Senior Management

Appreciate your employees and people will stick around for longer. Don't promote people just because they have been there a long time but are obviously incompetent.