Vault’s Verdict

Eide Bailly is looking for smart, personable, positive, professional candidates with integrity who work well in teams. Involvement in school clubs, volunteer activities, and previous internship experience are all pluses. For students, Eide Bailly runs a valuable internship program, offering interns great access to partners and managers, excellent hands-on experience, and exposure to a variety of industries. For its full-time staff, the firm offers extensive career opportunities, including internal mobility options, valuable trainings, and work experience in many different areas.

Although hours can be long during the busy tax season, a healthy work/life balance can be achieved in the off-season. And even during the busy season, the firm provides occasional office outings and activities, which helps with work/life balance. Also helping are the hybrid work schedules, which insiders greatly appreciate. Meanwhile, salaries and benefits are very competitive, with the profit-sharing plan, lifestyle spending accounts, and flexible work arrangements getting especially rave reviews. While some insiders say the medical benefits could be better, most agree that the wellness offerings are excellent. Eide Bailly offers subscriptions to the Calm app, access to free counseling sessions, firmwide meetings regarding wellness, and lifestyle reimbursement benefits that can be used for anything supporting wellness, including at-home gym equipment.

Diversity, equity, and inclusion has long been a focus at the firm. Eide Bailly has had a women's initiative for over a decade to promote retention of female employees and regularly conducts surveys to improve DEI. And the firm has employee resource groups for all types of identities, including LGBTQ+ and allies, POC and allies, women, and veterans. However, given that the pool of accounting graduates in its Midwest markets is less diverse than in other areas of the county, bringing in diverse individuals out of college can be a challenge. As for the firm’s business outlook, it is very bright. Employee morale is strong. Staff have a lot of confidence in the firm’s new CEO. And Eide Bailly is continuing to acquire other firms, focusing more on culture and client fit than location, broadening its footprint and its resources.

Hiring Process

“We conduct thorough, but cordial interviews. We aim to make decisions as quickly as possible. The firm is looking for someone who is smart, personable, professional, has integrity, and wants to be part of a team that supports each other and the growth of the firm.”

“A candidate goes through an initial screening based on their resume. Then, they are interviewed in office by three separate interviewers and get a tour of the office. They are also given an overview from our office manager about Eide Bailly and our specific office. We usually look for candidates who are involved in clubs in school, participate in volunteer activities, have work/internship experience, and are personable during the interview. It is also important that the candidate either already has or will be pursuing their CPA license. The candidates usually hear back in one to two weeks, just depending on the rest of the interview schedules.”

“The ideal candidate comes down to culture fit and candidate attitude. Candidates who are coachable, receptive to feedback, positive, and good team players are ideal.”

“We are very communicative and the process goes very quickly. You get to meet most of our team during the interview, and it's all about finding out if you are a good fit for us and vice versa.”

Interview Questions

“What was your most challenging role or project in your career? What was your worst mistake? What did you learn from this project or mistake that has helped your career the most?”

“(1) Why are you interested in a position with EB? (2) Tell me about a time when you caused a breakdown in communication (verbal or written). How did you resolve the situation? (3) What role do you like to play in team projects? Tell me about a time when you held that role? Tell me about a time when you held a different role. (4) Customer service and public accounting go hand in hand. What does customer service mean to you and how do you feel it relates to public accounting? (5) Tell me about a situation where your supervisor gave you something to do and you weren’t sure how to do it? How did you solve the situation? (6) What do you think of our culture? How do you see yourself contributing to that culture?”

“1) Describe a scenario where you overcame a problem within the work place? 2) Please share three examples of when you worked in a stressful environment and were able to overcome the stress to work effectively.”

“Tell me about a time where you had several projects due in the near future. How did you manage your time to get them all completed? Tell me about group work where a team member was not contributing. How did you handle that situation?’

Internship Experience

“The people I worked with were always willing to help answer questions. I thought the training was very good and prepared us well for the internship.”

“I had great access to partners and managers to better understand the profession. I had the ability to experience many different industries and was made to feel like a valued member of the team. I truly enjoyed coming to work each day.”

“I loved the people and the work and learned a lot. If you do a busy season internship, you have a lot of work, which is good, but everyone else is really busy too, so sometimes it’s hard to learn a lot of new things or get good feedback.”

“I learned a lot, felt very welcomed, and felt that I had all of the resources I needed to be successful. I interned during a slower part of the year, so there wasn't as much to do, and there were only two interns at the time, but everyone kept us as busy as possible.”

Career Development

“Immense opportunities for young staff. While you do have to initially choose tax or audit, there are opportunities to do exchanges (mini internal internships) with specialty groups, and, in some cases, staff can move to other departments. With a regional firm, you can transfer offices, you can be part of firmwide trainings and other committees, and you can get experience in a lot of different subject matters. Paths for upper-level managers seem to cap out if you don't have partner aspirations.”

“The opportunities are pretty endless if you’re a high performer. I’m in audit but have been able to gain experience through our internal exchange program in mergers and acquisitions. And I’ve been able to assist in kickstarting our non-profit consulting/bookkeeping practice. I feel like I've been able to move through the ranks pretty smoothly as I gain more experience.”

“We have a Learning Center that allows us access to an incredible amount of CPE on a wide variety of subjects, available in a variety of formats. Onboarding is highly guided and detailed. There is a wide variety of firmwide training that keeps everyone apprised of the most recent changes. There is a formal mentoring program that provides individualized career guidance which can be tailored to each person's specific needs. As in all public accounting firms, accounting departments are triangular. There may not be space for you to promote up to the next level if the department does not yet need it.”

“The best aspect would be their EB Xchange program. This program allows employees who have been with the firm for at least two years to spend some time working on one of Eide Bailly's specialty services: data analytics, forensic accounting, financial services, wealth transition, and many more. Another positive aspect, for me, is they have the resources of a large firm, but have smaller offices that have the hometown/community firm environment. Similar to any other accounting firm or any company outside of the accounting industry, there will always be a limitation as to how high a person's career can go due to the fact that there are fewer positions at the top than at the bottom.”

Quality of Life

“The firm’s culture allows its employees to feel that it’s important to have a good work/life balance and encourages us to take time off to recharge ourselves. The fact that partners get to take a month-long sabbatical every five years is a top-down message to encourage people to take necessary time off from work to have a good work/life balance.”

“Quality of life is excellent in the off-season. The busy season is a lot of hours, but Eide Bailly does a lot to try to make it easier to get through it, providing occasional office outings and activities.”

“We are offered a hybrid work schedule if we want, three days in and two days out. Everyone in our office is incredibly nice and supportive. There is a lot of freedom for personal appointments without having to use PTO for ‘every little thing.’ As with all public accounting firms, workload can be very demanding during busier times. I'd love to see greater opportunity to ‘make up’ for that time during less busy times. It would also be nice if we could overdraw our PTO to a certain extent since our availability during the year is limited, but we’re unable to use it before we earn it.”

“The nature of public accounting makes it very hard to have work/life balance year-round, but Eide Bailly does promote it as much as they can. It is genuinely important to the people I work with to be able to go home at a decent time, even during busy season. I started my career at a different public accounting firm, and I worked 75+ hours for multiple weeks in busy season. The most I have worked at Eide Bailly has been 67 hours, and that was one week, not multiple in a row. That being said, the number of weeks you are expected to work over 45 hours is more than in some other firms. For example, Eide Bailly starts requiring 45 minimum charge hours in mid-January, but at the other firm I worked for I didn't start working overtime hours until mid-February.”

Salary and Benefits

“The firm offers profit sharing, a few more holidays than other firms in the same industry, up to $800 gym/lifestyle reimbursements, up to $500 matching for HSA, free parking, a casual dress policy. flexible work hours, remote or hybrid work arrangements, access to an online wellness app, access to travel management, and more.”

“Salary and benefits are competitive with the market, but medical benefits could be better. 401(k) profit-sharing plan is very good. They could do a better job at showing value towards employees with better raises.”

"Eide Bailly is a regional firm, so people are compensated slightly less than bigger firms, especially as you advance. However, they still remain as competitive with comp as they can, and give out bonuses and salary market adjustments as they are able to. Also, Eide Bailly is growing, so they will be able to compensate more as growth continues. They also offer a lot of perks such as free meals during busy season, free snacks year-round, surprise gift cards, etc. Additionally, the benefits package is great and includes low-cost vision, free dental, and multiple health care coverage options to choose from (HSA, FSA, etc.).”

“The best aspects of the salary, benefits, and perks would be the profit sharing plan, the lifestyle spending account, and the flexible work arrangements. Eide Bailly will contribute 4 percent of an employee's gross pay to a qualified account, whether or not the employee contributes to the company plan or not. This can be beneficial as an employee could invest in an IRA, which has more investment options and potentially lower fees than the company plan. The lifestyle spending account ranges from $500 to $800, depending on years of experience. This account can be used on anything from gym memberships and equipment to utilities used for a home-office and student loans, and many expenses in between. The flexible work arrangements are also a great perk. Staff can choose to be 100 percent remote, hybrid, or 100 percent in the office. Staff can also work with their managers to have flexible hours. For example, I work 100 percent remote from mid-May to the end of July since I coach high school baseball. I also work different hours during that time to accommodate for baseball practice and games.”

Wellness Efforts

“We have benefits that are specifically geared towards our wellness. We have free subscriptions to the Calm app. We have access to free counseling sessions. We have firmwide meetings regarding maintaining our wellness and finding balance. We have lifestyle benefits that can be used to reimburse us for anything that supports our wellness, including gym equipment. There is also a firm health app with that includes collective health competitions.”

“Our benefit package includes some free counseling and other services as well as the lifestyle reimbursement that can be used towards wellness items. We’re constantly trying to create a healthy and sustainable environment for everyone, be that mentally or physically.”

“Each associate is allocated money to use for wellness efforts of their choice, such as gym memberships, fitness equipment, etc. We subscribe to the Calm app. Counseling support is available.”

“Our office has yoga every week in office as well as competitions for exercising. Our wellness benefit allows staff to purchase anything fitness/wellness/health-related to help staff stay motivated in that realm.”

Diversity, Philanthropy, and Green Initiatives

“The firm has been doing as much as possible to improve this part of our culture. We have had a women's initiative for over a decade to promote retention of female employees, and they have a DEI initiative/committee and regularly conduct surveys to improve. Our firm has a large presence in the Midwest, where the majority of accounting graduates are white. This makes it hard to bring in diverse individuals out of college, but the firm recognizes this challenge, and I've never seen discrimination/bias since being with the firm.”

“We have Employee Resource Groups for a variety of subsets within the firm, including LGBTQ+, women, and people of color. There is a large focus on diversity, with top-down and firmwide focus. We have annual summits to discuss updates in this area, which features the firm’s efforts, specialized speakers, and spans an entire day. Diversity is discussed as part of onboarding as well.”

“I love that EB has employee resource groups for women, POC and allies, LGBTQIA+ and allies, and veterans. I also love that we have a yearly DEI forum with keynote speakers that speak on topics of DEI. I find DEI topics extremely important, and I love the strides EB is taking to support DEI ideas. As for philanthropic practices, I am proud of EB's relationship with United Way and the encouragement to donate your time and money to the community. EB supports philanthropic practices by matching up to $200 of your donations and providing eight hours paid volunteer time.”

“There has been a significant push to be more openly inclusive of all individuals in the last few years. There is an annual firmwide diversity forum that all staff is required to attend, as well as many employee resource groups for all types of identities: LGBTQ+ and allies, POC and allies, women, veterans, etc. The groups typically start for those who identify with the group (i.e. POC, LGBTQ+, or women) and then have the option of opening the group up to allies or just keeping it closed, depending on the comfortability of the staff members involved. Every office has a philanthropic committee that is responsible for organizing volunteering events that support their specific communities. Every staff member received eight hours of volunteer time to be used at their discretion for any cause they wish, allowing them to give their time without using PTO.”

Business Outlook

“We are focusing on a one-firm approach, which is strengthening the firm as a whole and helping each office be stronger. We are growing at a fast rate. As with all accounting firms, talent acquisition can be difficult. Sometimes we go faster than we can increase staffing. The one-firm approach has helped with this as well.”

“Our firm continues to see strong growth and opportunities. The clients we work with continue to see good results in their own business as well. New CEO this year seems very optimistic and confident, helps keep company morale up.”

“We have undergone some internal management shifts, with our CEO retiring and new leadership taking place. The firm is growing in many areas, including service lines and locations, which is exciting and new. There has also been a shift from management within locations to a more industry focus, allowing clients across the firm to always have access to the best internal resources, regardless of location. The firm is continuing to acquire other firms across the nation, with less regard to location and more regard to culture and client fit, broadening our footprint and resources.”

“The business outlook for Eide Bailly is positive. The firm is continuing to grow. Eide Bailly is a wholesome accounting firm that can satisfy many of our clients' needs in-house. This is a great strength as clients realize the more integrated they become with Eide Bailly, the more profitable they can become (because Eide Bailly knows the entire situation of the client rather than having to communicate with other parties to figure out the best course of action). The biggest weakness would be an industry problem. A large part of the accounting community is over the age of 50, and they are going to be retiring. The number of accounting students coming out of college is declining. The industry is going to be losing many of its practitioners while not having a large pool to replace them. Due to this, we become very selective with our clients. This is a good problem to have as it is wise to work with more of the firm's ideal clients. However, there are a lot of prospects we do not have the capacity to take on as clients.”