Vault’s Verdict

Aprio is looking for collaborative, adaptable, intelligent, ambitious candidates who demonstrate strong analytical thinking along with a genuine interest in building long-term client relationships. For students, the firm has a valuable internship program, offering interns excellent hands-on experience, networking opportunities, and a very supportive environment that helps strengthen technical skills. Interns are treated like full-time staff, and while the learning curve can be steep, internships are incredibly rewarding.

For its fill-time staff, Aprio offers extensive career development opportunities, including early responsibility, exposure to a wide range of clients and technical areas, access to approachable managers and partners willing to mentor and answer questions, and certification opportunities. While hours can be long during the busy season (like they are at most accounting firms), Aprio offers flexible schedules, remote work, generous PTO, and significant health and well-being resources, all of which help staff to have a good work-life balance. Meanwhile, compensation, benefits, and perks are very competitive. Some insiders say the salaries could be a little higher, given the number of hours worked, and others lament the lack of 401(k) match, but in general, insiders are more than satisfied with their level of comp.

Inclusion is another strong suit. Aprio has made efforts to foster an inclusive environment, supporting diverse hiring, mentoring, and engagement initiatives across many groups. Insiders add that all professionals have equal access to interesting, high-quality work and promotion opportunities. With respect to the firm’s business outlook, Aprio is growing fast and forward-thinking. Despite some growing pains, insiders say it’s an exciting time to work for the firm, as it has clear plan of what to do with its recent private equity investment and is rapidly expanding into new markets and services.

Employee Reviews

Quality of Life

• “Aprio is very flexible and understanding of personal time commitments. The firm provides significant health and well-being resources as part of our benefits package. When time off is taken, others pitch in to cover. There is a family feel, where we all help and are supportive of one another.”
• “The firm provides a supportive environment with flexibility and a strong sense of teamwork, which positively impacts overall quality of life. However, peak busy season demands can make work-life balance challenging to maintain consistently.”
• “The flexibility is great. Everyone understands that we all have lives and families but at the same time need to be available when needed and during important times. The worst part has nothing to do with the firm; it’s just the tax accounting nature of being a tax accountant, which comes with crazy deadlines.”
• “Workload seasonality remains a challenge. During busy season, hours can be intense and sustained, making work-life balance difficult despite the firm’s flexibility policies. However, Aprio offers a generally supportive and flexible work environment, particularly outside of busy season. Generous time off, remote work options, and flexible scheduling make it easier to manage personal responsibilities, and leadership is often understanding as long as communication is strong and work is getting done. The firm also places a genuine emphasis on employee wellness, offering robust benefits, mental health resources, and wellness programs that positively impact overall quality of life.”

Compensation

• “The firm offers competitive compensation along with solid benefits and useful perks that support employees both professionally and personally. The downside is that certain aspects of the salary structure and perk offerings can feel less competitive during high-demand periods, when the workload outweighs the incentives.”
• “The bonus is nice as well as the raise, but we should get paid more given the number of hours we’re required to work annually.”
• “Positive: Great insurance; good salary, which is above the average; great bonuses; awesome HSA bonus of 750 if you have your annual physical. Negative: No 401(k) match, which is really unusual for public accounting, most have a match of 2 to 3 percent.”
• “As a new hire straight out of college, I felt that my compensation was great. My team is fully remote, and I still have access to all of the events in the office. Our health insurance plans are great.”

Career Development

• “Aprio offers strong career development opportunities, driven by the firm’s rapid growth and breadth of services. Staff are given early responsibility, exposure to a wide range of clients and technical areas, and access to approachable managers and partners who are genuinely willing to mentor and answer questions. There are many formal and informal avenues for development, and motivated self-starters can progress quickly by taking advantage of the opportunities available.”
• “Our firm actively promotes the concept that each person has full say in their own career path, and there are people and processes in place to help employees achieve their goals. There really are no bad aspects to our program. Everyone is involved and wants each of our people to succeed and find passion and excitement along their chosen path.”
• “Aprio has so much opportunity! Aprio also has a wide base and depth of knowledge across a large number of areas. Literally, there are subject matter experts everywhere. Lots of opportunity to learn and the firm is not content with status quo, always reaching and doing new things, very innovative for accounting. This provides lots of learning opportunities, exposure, and a creative thinking mindset that is unique to accounting. My personal team has been very forthright with promotion opportunities and process. And as a firm, we offer a lot of development in education, National Tax Office training, and additional certification opportunities. I have worked at another public accounting firm and the career development at Aprio is far superior. They are trying to offer Big 4 level training and it shows.”
• “Managers (performance coaches) are super involved from day one. What I really love about Aprio is that leadership goes above and beyond to train those junior to them and help us grow and develop in our careers. Being able to problem solve and be resourceful is an expectation: if you show what you’ve tried, what worked, and what didn't work, they are there to guide and support you. My new hire buddy was a super helpful peer mentor; I can confidently say I would not be where I am at now in my career without his guidance and support.”

Inclusion Efforts

• “The firm has made meaningful efforts to foster an inclusive environment, with visible support for diverse hiring, mentoring, and engagement initiatives across many groups.”
• “We have a policy of tolerance, including formal training programs on workplace safety and inclusiveness. We value diversity and want people from all walks of life as learning about different perspectives makes us all better not just at our firm but in relating to others generally.”
• “I feel that all professionals have equal access to interesting, high-quality work and promotion opportunities; however, I wish there were more initiative to promote greater diversity and to bring in younger talent from specific groups in order to create a more diverse workforce.”
• “Inclusion efforts were halted after the Executive Order was issued. But the firm itself is diverse compared to other public accounting firms.”

Business Outlook

• “The firm outlook is strong. I definitely think Aprio is growing and leadership is dedicated to growth. I do think there are growing pains—adapting to change is hard for a lot of groups.”
• “I think the firm is one of the best positioned for expansion. Took PE money pretty thoughtfully with a clear approach of what to do with it and has executed on numerous acquisitions and is rapidly expanding into new markets and services.”
• “We are very forward thinking, using AI to determine where we can leverage across firm opportunities to better serve our clients to help them consolidate services in one place (legal, accounting, estate, wealth management, business services, advisory, etc.). This is awesome and a game-changer in accounting. We are being realistic about what it is going to take to survive and thrive in public accounting, which is changing rapidly (technology, staffing, offshoring, etc.). So, as we get larger, we still need to give the clients that small-firm feel, making sure that we not only think of the client in terms of size of engagement and revenue but also make sure to know the other parts of the client—a personal knowledge of the client, who they are, what matters to them, what resonates with them.”
• “Aprio’s business outlook is generally viewed as strong and exciting. The firm is growing rapidly through both organic expansion and acquisitions, which creates meaningful opportunities for career advancement, exposure to new industries and clients, and continued investment in technology and service offerings. Many employees appreciate the firm’s entrepreneurial mindset and the ability to maintain a relatively small-firm feel while benefiting from the resources of a larger organization.”

Intern Experience

• “The hands-on exposure to the work I’d be performing as a full-time associate was incredible. I felt very supported during my internship.”
• “The best aspect of my internship experience was the strong sense of support and collaboration within the team. Everyone consistently demonstrated caring and enthusiasm, making it easy to ask questions and grow confidently in my role. I appreciated how team members took the time to explain processes in detail, encouraged curiosity, and trusted me with meaningful responsibilities. This environment really helped me strengthen my technical skills and feel like a valued part of the team. If I had to identify a challenging aspect, it would simply be the learning curve that comes with stepping into a new area of work. However, even this challenge became a positive experience because of the team’s integrity and accountability—they provided guidance, constructive feedback, and space to learn from my mistakes. What could have been overwhelming instead became an empowering part of my growth. Overall, the internship was incredibly rewarding, and I’m grateful for the culture and fundamentals that shaped the experience.”
• “I was treated as a regular staff; there was no real differentiation between us and associates. There is a great culture at Aprio, and I was able to network at every level. There was a lot of training, but it was not all relevant to the projects I actually worked on.”
• “Best: I was treated like a true staff, getting to do real work and traveling to clients for real experiences. Also the people and culture were awesome! Worst: At times, I was not kept busy, but it was the summer, which is a slower time.”

Hiring Process

• “The firm’s interview and callback process is structured, professional, and focused on understanding both technical abilities and communication skills. The ideal candidate is someone who is collaborative, adaptable, and demonstrates strong analytical thinking along with genuine interest in building long-term client relationships.”
• “The interview process is simple and effective. Two interviews with partners you would be working with closely and an HR interview. It is fast but effective and allows talented, culturally aware hires to join our team.”
• “Our firm is seeking warm, intelligent, and ambitious candidates. The candidate applies, gets an interview, then the interviewer fills out a survey about the candidate. The recruiter then considers the survey and moves the candidate to the next step if they want.”
• “Interview process was going through multiple rounds with different levels of staff members. Callback process was smooth and timely—it happened shortly after the final round interview was completed. The ideal candidate the firm is seeking is someone who has the foundational knowledge to excel in this profession, someone who works well with others, and someone who is passionate in learning more.”

Interview Questions

• “Tell me about yourself and why you chose accounting. What are you looking for in a firm, and why Aprio? Where do you see yourself in five years, and how does this role fit into that? Describe a time you had to manage competing priorities across multiple projects or deadlines. Give an example of a mistake you made and how you addressed it. If you’re behind on an assignment and unsure how to proceed, what steps would you take? Describe a process you’ve identified that could be improved and how you would go about improving it. How comfortable are you interacting directly with clients, and can you give an example?””
• “What do you do for fun on the weekend? Do you avoid conflict? What types of ‘fun’ activities do you want your new team to do?”
• “The firm typically asks a mix of behavioral questions—such as describing a challenging client situation or how you prioritize competing deadlines—and technical questions relevant to tax and accounting concepts.”
• “They usually ask questions regarding your knowledge in Excel and different software used, your accounting background, and also they try to get to know more about your personality. They want to know if you work well with teams in different environments.”

UPPERS

• “Great culture and wonderful people.”
• “Flexibility and ability to work remotely.”
• “Growth potential is unmatched.”

DOWNERS

• “Tax season workload, but that isn't just an Aprio problem.”
• “Stress and deadlines.”
• “Rapid change.”