Offer Help - Big 4 Manager or IB Associate?

As the son of a Big 4 lifer, and survived at one for precisely 15 months myself before I wanted to slash any tube in my body associated with blood transport, i'm in mixed views here.

Big 4 is a slow and steady progression, but at the same time awesome experience in terms of seeing business and meeting connections. Hours are significantly nicer compared to IB, but you can forget a bonus of anything meaningful.

Are your future intentions to go partner or to hit industry?

It sounds like your IB offer is HLHZ FAS, which will be very similar to Big 4 valuation/corp fin in terms of work, with more hours and better comp.

Go for IB if your not afraid of working long hours, you'll be better off in the future.

According to Harvard: Big 4= Work for 60 years then retire IB= Work for 45 years then retire

The Manager position within Big4 is considerably higher than the Associate position within an IB from what I gather. (Where I am, it's Business Analyst -> Consultant -> Senior Consultant -> Manager -> Senior Manager -> Partner), whereas Associate is the second level in an IBD, not the fourth. Plus the pay is decent and the hours are probably half of IB. The Managers in my group are making about 140K base, and all in it's about 160. It's good money, but pales in comparison with IB. You may also want to consider the fact that within the company, you will probably be given more resposibility and more respect if you go with the Big4 gig. But externally, there's a lot more respect/prestige associated with IB. More bragging rights I think.

Why would you want to do any compliance work? :/

Interesting question. I interned at an accounting firm before moving on to IB.

You'll definitely get more experience in IB, but it won't be a walk in the park. On top of that, you'll be someone's bitch for the next three years. I'd only go Investment Banking if you're positive you want to be an MD. If not, I think you'll have similar chances jumping to corporate as a manager/senior manager at a big four.

To me this seems like a work-culture question. I think the pay and hours will be close enough for you to take into account more what the daily experience is like. Big 4 talk constantly about life-work balance, but in reality, for people that care about their career, it is complete and utter bullshit (bitter much?). I can't speak for FAS groups in IB, but at Big 4, it's a partnership and thus, completely hit or miss. If the partner running your group is awful, your job will be awful and the opposite. If you can feel out who you'll be working for, I'd go with your gut.

1) I'll disagree with Everything Sucks that manager at Big 4>IB associate (even MM Boutique like HLHZ) if you have ANY interest in finance.

2) I'll agree with Apprentice that if you're not committed to banking Big 4's name recognition is very good (better than a HLHZ level bank).

The problem with the "Manager" title in Big 4 vs. "Associate" title is that there is less transparency or recognition if you will to what "level of competency" a Manager at Big 4's really have. From what I've seen, there are some managers at Big 4's that really know their shit (because they are either quite smart, and/or they happen to have benefited from being exposed to a good number of large or interesting mandates). And then there's managers that are... not so impressive.

I have seen managers at Big 4s go to banks as associates... and I've seen at least one where they became 'senior analysts' at a bank. I have yet to see a manager --> VP, for example. Whereas, I think if you were to go to a big 4 as an associate, you're more likely to go in as a 1st yr manager. In any case, comparing the track analyst --> associate --> manager --> sr. mgr. --> partner (big 4) VS. analyst --> assoc. --> VP --> director --> MD (banking) isn't an apples to apples comparison.

I'm not telling you to go one way or another, but just an observation.

Just to echo what several people have said already, go to Big 4 at the Manager level if you want to get into industry. You will place into industry just as well if not better than FAS as a Manager in Big4. If you want more money for the short term and don't mind the worse lifestyle than FAS is your answer, but it sounds like you want to have a semi-normal life outside of work.

Got it, thanks for clarifying. I misunderstood your meaning.

I think there are reasons to do Big4 over IB associate...lifestyle being the biggest one

I already have Big 4 background, so don't know if adding IB experience makes my resume look better long term. But I agree at the end of the day it's a life style choice. Seems people are saying if future intention is to go to industry, it's not worth going to IB then? Is there nobody in IB going to Industry as an exit opportunity?

I have to say that if it's a Big 4 valuation gig the hours are not going to be "good" by any stretch of the imagination and the pay is going to be significantly below HLHZ, so I'm not sure I would consider the lifestyle enough "better" to make that my deciding factor.

As far as big4 goes, I thought corporate finance was about the same as consulting in terms of hours. And consulting hours here aren't horrible. The average week is about 55 hours, and so far I've had to put in one 85 hour week since I started. So it does sound like it's a lot lighter than IB.

When I worked in valuation at the Big 4 I regularly worked 65-75 hour weeks including most every weekend and occasional all-nighters.

Edited to add: This was more or less standard for my hire class and the people within a few years ahead of us, managers had marginally fewer hours but then sr mgrs and directors worked long hours trying to make partner.

Echoing what previous posters have said, every big 4 employee I know works near-banking hour (~70 per week) with significantly lower pay. From your post, I gather you haven't gotten a MBA yet? If that's the case, IB would open a lot more doors post-MBA than accounting. It would also make you more attractive to MBA programs.

I would only consider accounting if you want to go the big 4 -> CFO route.

You need to be v careful, I don't know what you've been sold about work/life balance at big 4 but in a lot of cases CF at big 4 = almost the same hours as IB for a LOT less pay. Of course the value of those marginal extra free hours will be different to everyone else but imo you as well go the IB route and make a lot more money.

As said above it's very partner dependent so if you know the department you're joining has a decent attitude to work life balance and you want to end up industry it sounds like big4 would be the right choice.

In a nutshell - do your homework on the big4 team so you're not in the office for the umpteenth saturday night in a row at 1am working for accountancy pay doing banking hours.

When I interviewed for a Big 4 position, I was flat-out lied to about hours by an associate two years older than me. When I was working on a project with him at midnight about two months after starting, I asked if hours had gotten worse since he had spoken to us interviewees. He just laughed and said the recruiting organizers told him to tell us he worked normal hours.

People I knew form valuation went to a) corp fin of various types-for example capital markets at a major pharma co. b) internal valuation at PE firms c) treasury groups at financial services cos. d) corp dev for a global consumer products co.

These are only a few examples based on my direct experience.