Client Name vs Experience Gained

crapmanjoe

In a Big 4 auditing department which is more important

The varied level of experience gained

or

the prestige of client worked on

NB - Planning to complete my 3 1/2 contract and get the hell out of here

Basically a situation has arisen where I can either

move to a partner who has a prestige client basis (but because the audits are so big i'll prob get stuck on them virtually year round and probably only cover a few sections)

or move to a partner whose client portfolio isnt great at all but the clients are alot smaller so would probably be involved in all sections (planning all the way through)

Cheers

Newaglish

I'd go for the smaller clients - being one of a giant team of people adding stuff up in a bank isn't going to be good experience, no matter how much "prestige" is attached.

Jivin Turkey

100% prestige client base. Absolutely no doubt about it.

Your preconceptions about what you'll be doing there are just that, preconceptions. You will get incredible experience as each year passes doing different things every year, getting exposure to large multinational/public company environments. You'll end up senior on the job, managing a large team of people.

While a large part of each year will be related to large clients, you'll still get plenty of other experience on other jobs. Life would be a lot easier if you just had to worry about one or two clients, but believe me this isn't how life is in a large accountancy practice! Large clients also give you massive project management experience, planning through to completion stage is about seven or eight months in some cases!

If your intention is to leave after your contract, which will look better on your CV? AIB/CRH/Diageo? Or XYZ Limited? You can dress up the experience you got with each anyway you like, but it's the names of the companies that you worked on that will get you the interview in the first place.

notlongleft

just a quick word on what a few people have written here - under no circumstances when you are doing up ur cv do you put the names of teh clients on it. You say what industry the client u worked on was in and the turnover of the client but for professional purposes you do not detail what the name of the client is.

As for experience - depends on what you are hoping for small clients are brilliant for techinical experience of debits and credits cause those are the ones that you will have loads of mistakes in that you have to correct. The big clients are great for seeing how things should work and are brilliant experience aswell. If possible work one or two big clients over your 3 years but depending on what you see yourself doing the small clients are great 'accounting' experience!!

Jivin Turkey

notlongleft wrote: »

just a quick word on what a few people have written here - under no circumstances when you are doing up ur cv do you put the names of teh clients on it. You say what industry the client u worked on was in and the turnover of the client but for professional purposes you do not detail what the name of the client is.

When the clients you work on publically issue their accounts you have no ethical concerns when citing their names on your CV.

notlongleft wrote: »

As for experience - depends on what you are hoping for small clients are brilliant for techinical experience of debits and credits cause those are the ones that you will have loads of mistakes in that you have to correct. The big clients are great for seeing how things should work and are brilliant experience aswell. If possible work one or two big clients over your 3 years but depending on what you see yourself doing the small clients are great 'accounting' experience!!

Large clients are much better technical experience. End of story.

Personally, I'd rank dealing with financial instruments, accounting for joint ventures, dealing with subsidiaries denominated in foreign currencies far better technical experience than correcting someones misposting to their wages control account.

Not everything that happens in big organisations happens without error, quite the opposite in fact. Small business offer nothing over big businesses unless your wish is to operate in small business for your entire career.

notlongleft

i agree with the fact people will know who u audit anyway but anybody doing up a CV will tell u you do not name names of companies- that s just the way it is.

And as i said depends on waht kind of experience you want if u want to work in MN then go for the big clients - most stuff will be done right (dont know what companies you ve been in but teh vast majority i ve dealt with are bang on with everytjing apart from a few accruals) and it will be very techincal jnls that u will learn from them none of which will be applicable anywhere else!!! anywway up to the OP if i were u i d go for a mix of big and small clients - this is what i ve done for last 3 years and its worked out very well !

crapmanjoe

Cheers for that lads

Ended up going with the bigger client portfolio, working on the big clients during busy season and (hopefully) doing the smaller clients during the quiet season

Happy days alround so

Thanks for all the advice

Legend100

"When the clients you work on publically issue their accounts you have no ethical concerns when citing their names on your CV." (Apologies, I tried the quote button but wasn't really sure how to do it so typed it instead)


Well I'm not sure what institute you are with but if you are ACA then you should know that mentioning a client to an external party directly is in breach of the ethical guidelines. Even if your firm report publicly, an auditor may not discuss previous client history even by name so the previous poster was correct. You should only discuss what industry the client was in as a guideline response on a cv or interview.

Jivin Turkey

Legend100 wrote: »

Well I'm not sure what institute you are with but if you are ACA then you should know that mentioning a client to an external party directly is in breach of the ethical guidelines. Even if your firm report publicly, an auditor may not discuss previous client history even by name so the previous poster was correct. You should only discuss what industry the client was in as a guideline response on a cv or interview.

Which ethical guideline is this? If you can produce a link to the ethical guideline I'll happily retract my statement.

Being an auditor isn't as 007 as some people obviously think.

I've seen plenty of CVs quoting what clients people have worked on. Why do people think that it's so secretive? Yet think it's ok for you to just say "I've experience with Irish PLCs in the construction sector, turnover about €20bn, wink wink."

Legend100

Don't have a link on the net but look up your institute Handbook number one under section B confidentiality and it will outline that you cannot disclose information (a name included) unless required to do so for 1) public use or 2) with consent of audited company

Jivin Turkey

I think it is more related to specific company information. If it were specific to company names you'd be obliged not to say anything to a colleague if asked "what job are you working on"?

There is lots of ethical guidelines governing auditors, but as I said, it's not 007 secrecy with some things. I've seen close to 50 CVs with names of clients listed on it, so if you aren't doing it maybe you should. It could be the difference between you getting an interview or not.

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2.5 Information acquired by members, firms, affiliates or students in the course of their professional work will not be disclosed except where:
a. consent has been obtained from the client, employer or other proper source; or
b. there is a public duty to disclose; or
c. there is a legal, professional or regulatory requirement to disclose.

2.6 Members, firms, affiliates or students acquiring information in the course of their professional work will neither use nor appear to use that information for their personal advantage or for the advantage of a third party.