Ernst and Young Risk Advisory Position vs Financial Analyst at JPM

Due to some changes, I have to ask this question again...

Which position better helps for a top MBA schools?

  • Risk advisory position at E&Y
  • Middle-office financial analyst position at JPMorgan in a non-NYC location

Are neither of these good positions? You can tell me that too I guess...

OP continued at end

How to Choose a Job if Aiming for Top 10 MBA Program?

Getting into a top business school relies on many factors: GMAT, work experience, networking, extracurriculars, strength of your overall application, etc.

As Certified WSO user @djfiii" says, “Any of these options will get you into Top 15, exclusive of maybe the top 5-7 where it might be more hit or miss (but still possible for those).

  • Deloitte is more prestigious than all of the others when it comes to strategy consulting
  • For everything else, Deloitte and PwC are even, and they have tiny edge on EY, which has a tiny edge on KPMG
  • I would pick the one where you liked the people the best

Certified Consulting Professional @lifeofpurpose" reminds applicants that it’s important to know exactly which group and role you are applying for. You need to understand what that group does in order to interview well and to understand what your career path could look like.

From @lifeofpurpose"

I am a manager at E&Y. For which division is the position?, IT risk is called ITRA, i dont think you meant that division. I work at Risk, FSO (advisory) and it has nothing to do with IT. It is at a much higher level, we talking about capital management, risk models, regulation, etc. Having said that, you really should know the exact team you getting in and the partner. The quality of the work will depend on your manager, or the partner in case you are in a pool for various managers.

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OP continued
My undergrad GPA is a 3.8 and I can get a 750 on the GMAT - so those aren't issues for me (I got a 700 as an 18 year old).

I would ideally like to get into a corporate finance or strategy position at a big company or else a consulting position at MBB - I know they're very different but I want to keep my options open.

 
aikomidori:
How easy is it to switch divisions? To go from IT Audit to TAS?

If you're awesome, not hard at all. After you've been there for 4-5 years, and are recognized as on of the top performers in your office, like top 10%, you can probably have your pick of groups, TAS included. Otherwise, you're just another cog in the wheel and you have no shot at all. They will abuse you as long as they can, and then you'll leave. Every wanna be banker that couldn't get there with pedigree tries to back door it through Big4 TAS, so you're up against a lot of other people that are trying to do the same thing.

 
djfiii:
aikomidori:
How easy is it to switch divisions? To go from IT Audit to TAS?

If you're awesome, not hard at all. After you've been there for 4-5 years, and are recognized as on of the top performers in your office, like top 10%, you can probably have your pick of groups, TAS included. Otherwise, you're just another cog in the wheel and you have no shot at all. They will abuse you as long as they can, and then you'll leave. Every wanna be banker that couldn't get there with pedigree tries to back door it through Big4 TAS, so you're up against a lot of other people that are trying to do the same thing.

Are you sure about this? I know that external audit --> TAS is very common since TAS is basically advanced auditing, but from IT? From what I understand, IT Audit doesn't deal with the financial statements at all. All they do is test automated controls. I can't imagine any of those skills sets be transferable to TAS. I was under the impression the due diligence group only hires from external audit.

 

The TAS group, at least in EY, is a bit more difficult than other Big 4 form my understanding. They only take experienced-staff in the aduit field. When I spoke with them about it, all the TAS employees were Senior associates who put in 2-3 years in adult before being accepted into the group. Im assuming it would be harder trying to transfer in from their advisory group, cuz they seem to focus more in their assurance group.

Hugo
 
Hugo Stiglitz:
The TAS group, at least in EY, is a bit more difficult than other Big 4 form my understanding. They only take experienced-staff in the aduit field. When I spoke with them about it, all the TAS employees were Senior associates who put in 2-3 years in adult before being accepted into the group. Im assuming it would be harder trying to transfer in from their advisory group, cuz they seem to focus more in their assurance group.

Assuming you're taking about due diligence group, this is actually the same for all Big 4. Within TAS, there's usually valuations and due diligence. Valuations hires out of undergrad if you're a top candidate. DD only hires experienced staff with at least 2 years of experiences, although you have a much better shot as a senior associate. That's of course assuming you have a senior managers/partners backing you up, there's a need, and the right timing.

 
Best Response

Ugh, so many of these threads.

Each of the Big4 have: - Financial Statement Audits - Tax - Advisory

Advisory at the Big4 is basically anything that isn't Financial Statement Audit or Tax. That means Strategy, InfoSec, Systems Implementations, whatever. You name it, if they can make money at it, they will try it and call it some form of Advisory.

Transaction Advisory (TAS) at most Big4 is a very specialized group within the larger Advisory umbrella that focuses on M&A, valuation, due diligence for acquisitions, etc. That is NOT the group you are talking about at EY. Risk Advisory is IT Audit / Internal Control testing. So, the Financial Auditors are testing financial cycles that rely on large scale ERPs, and they need certain system and operational controls controls to be in place in order rely on the data that comes out of those systems, etc. So, Risk Advisory basically does a bunch of testing to ensure the reliability and accuracy of data flowing through the enterprise.

 

Thanks for the comments djfiii!

I do not want to be a banker or go into investment banking. I just want to maximize my chances of getting into a top MBA program so that I can get into corporate finance in a non-wallstreet related company.

 

But isn't Deloitte a bit more prestigious than EY? I plan on switching to the corporate finance consulting group at Deloitte if I can.

Yes ERS does stand for that.

I think if I chose JPM I'd be in a real dead-end place...

Thank you so much for all of your help! :D Also by top MBA program, I don't mean just top 5 but also the top 15 schools as well.

 

Any of these 3 options will get you into Top 15, exclusive of maybe the top 5-7 where it might be more hit or miss (but still possible for those).

Deloitte is more prestigious than all of the others when it comes to strategy consulting. For everything else, Deloitte and PwC are even, and they have tiny edge on EY, which has a tiny edge on KPMG.

If you're leaning against JPM, go for EY or Deloitte. Those are great options, and I wouldn't pick one over the other for any prestige factor because there isn't one for this particular role (negligible). I would pick the one where you liked the people the best. FWIW, EY is known to have a slightly better culture, i.e. it's still super demanding and a lot of hours, but people tend to like it a little better than Deloitte in my experience, which just grinds you into the floor with no mercy.

 

The mention of Risk Advisory and IT Risk being the same is an incorrect assumption. Another section under the Advisory service line that might interest you in the Financial Services Advisory group. Even though it's still the risk management role you will be working with financial sector issues which could add some bullets for your MBA application.

Did you fly over my helmet?
 

I am a manager at E&Y. For which division is the position?, IT risk is called ITRA, i dont think you meant that division. I work at Risk, FSO (advisory) and it has nothing to do with IT. It is at a much higher level, we talking about capital management, risk models, regulation, etc. Having said that, you really should know the exact team you getting in and the partner. The quality of the work will depend on your manager, or the partner in case you are in a pool for various managers.

The other managers in my team do really different work from mine and their teams are much less motivated than mine.

 

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