Comments on: #40 Internships

By: LuvOfAcctg

LuvOfAcctg — Thu, 30 Jun 2011 23:17:42 +0000

I’m interning now at a not-for-profit, while it is not a big4 and I do not always get free lunch (some lunch meetings are paid for), I do get money each month for my rent while I am here and they gave me $1000 for “moving expenses” even though I only had to move 60 miles!! Love being an intern.

By: PRITI

PRITI — Sun, 22 May 2011 18:32:42 +0000

Pwc portrays this amazingly fake image to interns and prospective hires. At our recruiting event and during on site interviews, they would have these super smart 1 % cream of the crop (young and good looking)senior associates addressing them. These “top guys” would go and on about how they get to try new stuff and travel around the globe in just 2-3 years on the job.
Few months into the job, you realize you are among the majority-the other 99%. Even within the tax dept, to switch from PCS to VC or Corp or SALT in like applying for a job!

However I must add, Big 4 internships are great and from at least what I saw, there was very little or virtually no admin duties.

By: Geoffrey

Geoffrey — Wed, 20 Oct 2010 17:32:49 +0000

“…the perfect excuse to blow the budget.” So true. I’ve done two internships, the first in corporate accounting and the second with a Big 4 firm. In my corporate internship I received subsidized housing, a daily maid, happy hour (free alcohol), free weekly cookout by the pool (more free alcohol), and I got paid to go golfing (and drink) on Monday afternoons to socialize/network. With all of that I still managed to work on meaningful projects and learn something. My public internship consisted of a lot of photo copying, coffee runs, and setting up printers! I also became very good at claiming expenses, and received a lot of free lunch. Its going to be a depressing to when I have to start working for real and give up all of those perks (plus the hourly pay).

By: Stuff Accountants Like » Blog Archive » Taking a Leave of Absence

Stuff Accountants Like » Blog Archive » Taking a Leave of Absence — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 08:03:43 +0000

[…] effectively work for less than minimum wage, interns excepted. When they aren’t working large hours, accountants are taking vacation in large […]

By: Gonowheresystems

Gonowheresystems — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 01:19:28 +0000

They gave interns better work assignments than they did a lot of the full-time associates at my office [a big 4]. I and a lot of the other associates were pretty peeved about it.

By: Chris

Chris — Sun, 09 Aug 2009 04:54:09 +0000

Yes J, I do go to UW. And yes Shannon, this does happen in real life. People are often hired right when they graduate as senior or “experienced” associates.

Apparently, how much experience you are getting in the brief work term depends entirely on where you end up. I heard of a guy at PwC who did his term there and was paid more or less to photocopy documents. Another upper year student I met, at PwC again (a different office), by contrast, was frantically hauled everyday from client to client with the rest of the team that he was assigned to. I suppose that it is just luck of the draw. Most of the smaller more local firms though seem to give real experience to their co-op/interns. Even so, everyone chases the big 4.

By: big4bound

big4bound — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 16:56:38 +0000

This is so true. So many people I know started working at firms thinking it would be exactly like how they thought it would be at recruiting events. Didn’t take that long to figure out how wrong they were.

Meh, I’d still do it.

By: Shannon

Shannon — Sun, 26 Jul 2009 16:49:55 +0000

Chris – they hire you in directly as a senior associate? that sounds like the cruelest prank I have ever heard! How can you go from being an intern (very little responsibility other than the all too necessary coffee) straight to being the senior with pretty much the opposite end of the spectrum responsibility wise?

By: PINK SLIP

PINK SLIP — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 21:50:33 +0000

PwC pretends to put a happy face on the current economic situation to the interns but it is all lies. They are providing these kids with completely false hopes. At the drop of a hat another program will be cut, another worker concession made, or employee fired. Don’t believe the hype at PwC.

STAMM LIED.

By: TaxSenior

TaxSenior — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 16:07:20 +0000

Being an intern was a great gig, until the cost cutting came into play. When I was an intern, we could get as much overtime as we wanted, we went to baseball games, elaborate happy hours, and we all got a trip to Disney World! No more of that, interns have to get overtime approved by partners. Which means no intern works overtime. HR (don’t even get me started on those people) told the interns to come in at 8:30 which means they have to leave at 5:30. Guess what interns we don’t work those hours. Most tax people arrive between 9:30 and 10AM and we don’t leave until after 7PM. So they just sit around charging G&A until we show up an hour later, and then they just drop their assignments at 5:30 to go home. Its similar to “The Flinstones” when Fred hears the whistle blow and immediately drops the boulder he is moving and runs to the car. Are other big fours making cuts to their intern programs? We don’t even have Disney World anymore. These poor kids got the shaft.