Grant Thornton Valuation. Is it any good?

Hey folks,

Its been 12 months since I started with a EY in southwest area (Houston, Dallas). I recently received an offer from GT in the same city for Valuation Service Group (VSG).

EY office is about 900 employees total, around half in audit. GT is 200 employees total, about 9 in valuation. Work is mostly 141, estate, and purchase valuation for wellsites.

I have been looking to make a transition from Audit to more finance related roles for a while because my career aspiration is in energy investment banking.

So far, this is the only offer I have and first round. I know that EY allow transfer from audit to TS after 3 years of audit experience. I am not sure if I can wait since I hope to do MBA around that timeframe.

Stick with EY Audit? or jump ship to Grant Thornton Valuation?

Thanks,

 
Best Response

Recently made a similiar move (big 4 audit to big 4 TAS) and I would advice against this move.

Im in UK where it appears Big 4 gets more respect than in the US. Over here there is a big jump in perception between Big 4 and next tier (somewhat unfairly) so with the added stigma in US I would imagine it is even worse.

Its rare for anybody to make the move from big 4 TAS to front office so I would imagine its near impossible from outside Big 4.

The way I see it you have two options:

  1. Be patient. Stay in audit and network hard for Big 4 TAS. Its more difficult a move than it seems but if your focused and motivated enough it can be done will just take a bit longer.

  2. Go to GT Valuations. Spend a couple of years there and then once qualified jump back to a Big 4 and after a while try move from there. Bear in mind its harder to make the move the longer you stay in Big 4 and you may have three accountancy firms on your CV by then which will prob look weird. Dont think that is a good option.

I had offers from smaller practices before I got the one from Big 4 and it took a lot of willpower to pass on them (I really despised audit).

One thing I will say though it that maybe you should lower your expectations a bit...top MBA after 3 years in big 4 would be tough and to get front office from Big 4 is a miracel never mind a specific department!!!

Best of luck anyway.

 

I've been with GT's valuation services group for the last two years (started right out of school). Although it's commonly referred to as one group, there's essentially no overlap between the forensic side and valuation side in regards to the type of work performed and types of projects. There may be some in rare circumstances but in the two years I've been there I've never seen both sides working on the same type of engagements. So, if you're interested in the forensics side I won't be much help.

As for the valuations group, is there anything specific you're wanting information on? I can try and offer some insight on comparisons if that's really what you're looking for but that's pretty subjective; different strokes for different folks sort of thing. And considering how active this thread has been you may not end up getting the number of differing viewpoints you were hoping for.

 

To DM5- Do you know where people tend to move from GT Valuation? I noticed that the group in Chicago, for example, is a relatively younger crowd, and I was curious why that is the case. Is the group just a younger service, or is there a lot of turnover?

 

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