If you love auditing, you'll love KPMG... - Audit Associate KPMG Employee Review

4.0
Oct 31, 2008
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Great people. Coworkers are (almost) always smart, interesting, fun and your (large) peer group is composed of people your age (with whom you likely share some common interests). Sexes up your resume. If you want a career in finance/accounting this is the place to start. A breeding ground for controllers. The partner/manager group is composed of good (actually pretty great) people who take time to know each member of their teams individually. Best Big 4 firm in Seattle.

Cons

The pay structure could be improved (pay relative to cost of living not 'market'). All your hard work gets the partners (not necessarily you) paid. While top talent is identified though a fair ratings process, it is subsequently exploited. In other words, if you get a high rating you will be subjected to a challenging, (i.e. crushing) workload because "you can handle it.' This is fine if you love auditing. However, if you don't take satisfaction from being treated like a cop by clients who don't respect you, then auditing may not be for you. Also, KPMG's technology lags behind the other Big 4 firms and, at times, is borderline mind-numbing.

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5.0
Jun 6, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Nice wlb but not shre

Cons

Changes in leadership very common

4.0
Jun 10, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

A lot of smart people to learn from

Cons

A lot of people leave. Utilization is also a dumb metric now with how much money they are dumping into their AI. Work is getting done quicker, hence less hours are being charged even when busy. Margins are consistently up despite hours being down so I don't get the need for higher utilzation KPI's anymore. On top of that, managers make you "eat" your chargeable hours to stay within their very small budgets now too, so utilzation does not really reflect anything meaningful anymore. Commercial consultants work 1.5-2x more than federal consultants but federal consultants are usually 100% utilzed because they must use the full budget despite the work not taking as long/as stressful of deadlines.

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