Negotiating Salary with BIG 4 TS

Hi all,

I received an offer from a BIG 4 for Transaction Services. I was wondering if I should negotiate for a larger sign on bonus, and larger salary. Would this make them rescind their offer? Am I taking a risk doing this? I am an undergrad, so I am not a big fan of negotiating at the entry level...But I do have to move for the position.

What is your take? Thanks everyone! Good Luck with your interviews!

7 Comments
 

you can always ask HR, but i am pretty sure you wont get anywhere. Big 4 pretty much has their choice of candidates, so they don't budge too much. I don't know about TS specifically, but you are unlikely to get anything in other departments.

 
Best Response

I did an internship in Big 4, and it led me to believe that arguing for salary/bonus increases at the entry level is not worth it. The most you're going to get is a couple thousand, but it's more likely you'll come up with nothing. And if you do get the couple thousand that you're begging for, you definitely didn't help your reputation (you may not have hurt it either, but its possible).

The only situation where I believe you can safely negotiate is if you have a competing offer for greater salary. So, for example if you like E&Y TS but KPMG TS offered you $5K more for a similiar position, you might go to HR and say, "I know I fit best at E&Y and I want to work here, but I am worried about the compensation I will be giving up by turning down the competing offer"... and see what they say. Good luck!

 

Last fall as a senior in undergrad I had an offer from KPMG EVS (Economic and Valuation Services) and also from Wachovia to IB. When I was trying to decide which offer to take up, the guy from KPMG told me that they are willing to up my salary if that would help me make a decision. I don't know how much they were going to up it by, but I ended up not taking either offer so I never did find out.

Hope that helps.

 

I don't think it'll hurt to negotiate, of course your results maybe more successful if you have a competing offer that you can leverage. I had a friend that recently signed on full-time with a Big 4 in a group similar to TS and he was able to negotiate a slightly hire base, and a much larger bonus that made the total comp closer in comparison to the other offer he had.

 

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