Vault’s Verdict

One of the prestigious Big 4 professional services firms, EY is ideally looking for intelligent, motivated, hardworking candidates with strong critical thinking and problem-solving skills. For students, the firm runs valuable internship programs during the summer and winter months. Interns get hands-on experience and access to many networking opportunities; interns during the winter months also get an accurate look at what the busy tax season is like. Meanwhile, career development, training, mentoring, and learning opportunities for full-time professionals are extensive, and promotion paths are clear.

Although hours can be long and deadlines plentiful during the busy season, a good work/life balance can be achieved. The firm offers an unlimited vacation policy and hybrid and remote-work options. As for compensation, insiders are split—some are satisfied with their compensation packages, while others say that pay is inadequate for the number of hours worked. Benefits also get mixed reviews, with some insiders saying the 401(k) and health insurance could be better. However, most insiders agree that the firm has extensive wellness benefits and offerings, including free counseling sessions, various wellness reimbursements, subsidized gym memberships, and free mental health apps. 

Inclusion is another strong suit at EY. The firm has a diverse mix of people at all levels, and it is committed to creating a culture of belonging. With respect to EY’s business outlook, the future looks bright. Business is strong and growing. Employees have confidence in the firm’s new CEO (and excited for the change and female leadership. And the firm is making significant investments in areas like AI and climate change, as well as in its people.

EMPLOYEE REVIEWS 

Hiring Process 

“The ideal candidate has strong critical thinking skills, a desire to ask questions and learn, and is committed to working as part of a larger engagement team.” 

“The firm uses an application, virtual interview, and two live interviews when recruiting candidates. I think the ideal candidate is someone who is intelligent, uses critical thinking skills, is a problem solver, and is able to get along with a wide variety of people.” 

“EY has a very strong interview and callback process and moves very quickly on good candidates. Our recruiting team is very strong and quite active on all college campuses in my local area. The ideal candidate is a go-getter, cares about the quality of their work and strives for excellence in all that they do, is self-aware enough to recognize when they need help and humble enough to ask for it and wants to work hard and continue to grow as a tax professional.”

“Looking for dedicated, hard workers willing to put in time and effort to learning technology and processes. Tax technical knowledge will come with time and is not expected of an entry-level new hire.”

Interview Questions

“Tell me a bit about yourself. What makes you interested in this position? What industries are you interested in? Tell me about a time you received constructive feedback—how did you respond? We ask many questions around how people overcome challenges/solved problems, how they worked within a team, how they dealt with difficult team members, etc.”

“Tell me about your strengths/weaknesses. Describe a time you showed great leadership. Tell me about a time you struggled with something. Why EY? What sets you apart from other candidates?” 

“What is your career trajectory in future? Why did you choose the geographical location of the office you applied to? How would you approach implementing data governance and privacy policies in your data pipelines? I see that you’re studying [course name], can you briefly explain what it is about?” 

“When I interview, I ask about a person’s ability to multitask, collaborate, and adapt to challenges by asking them about recent experiences working on a team, times they worked on multiple projects, and what setbacks they experienced on projects. I’m looking for the ways they handled problems, how much of a team player they are, and how they adapt to having to learn something new, pivot in the moment, and still reach a solution by a deadline.”

Internship Experience

“I was an intern in the audit practice. Doing a ‘winter/busy season’ internship provided a great change to observe and contribute to a year-end audit. It was a very accurate experience of public accounting busy season and what to expect. I got a better sense of the firm and office culture and had an opportunity to meet and interact with team members at various stages in their careers. It was a wonderful introduction.” 

“I appreciated that my teams taught me quite a bit about the audit cycle and gave great advice about how to be successful in my internship. I had great opportunities to experience real job aspects and network with professionals (who continue to make up my network).”

“My internship offered a great real-world experience. The team was absolutely fantastic, and they treated me as if I were a full-time employee. At times there was almost too much information being conveyed that it was often hard to keep everything straight.” 

“One of the best aspects of my internship experience was being able to network with other interns and many leaders at the firm, which was helpful for learning more about the various tax groups. I wish I had more exposure to the day-to-day work, as I was interning during a downtime in the summer.”

Career Development

“I love the fast pace of public accounting, continuous learning opportunities, and structure for promotions. The firm has also started offering mini-learning days, which is helpful. There are also a lot of smart people that work at EY that can be great mentors and help you learn a lot. However, people can be busy so sometimes it’s difficult to get the time to either coach someone else or receive coaching. Also, there have been a lot of new trainings implemented to keep up with inspection results, but billable hour goals have not been reduced as a result.” 

“I feel very fortunate that career development is a big focus in my firm. In addition to virtual learning sessions, you get hands-on experience during different rotations, giving you insight into different areas of tax. Also, you’re assigned an experience manager you can reach out to with questions about your career development. You can also share your goals and get help reaching those goals.”

“There are many opportunities to for development through training and mentoring programs, but it can be hard to find the time to perform these activities without eating into your personal time.” 

“EY encourages teamwork, and our people are smart and motivated and enjoy teaching and learning from one another. This gives everyone an opportunity to develop and work on challenging projects. And there is a very set path for promotion, so it’s easy to see what you should be doing to progress in your career.”

Quality of Life

“It's a tough job at times. Deadlines can be fluid, and we’re in the business of client service. Sometimes, that means accelerating deadlines and work, which can mean more hours in condensed time frames. However, the firm currently has an unlimited vacation policy and numerous firm holidays. I’ve never had an issue taking that unlimited vacation around my filing deadlines, and as long as you work hard, the firm is happy to give you time off to recharge. The flexibility of being able to work from home a couple of days a week is great too.” 

“The firm does promote quality of life, but it’s often difficult to maintain based on the necessary time and efforts to complete procedures timely, based on both internal and external deadlines. The vacation policy is great, and as long as you plan in advance, it’s usually flexible. However, you have to be very strategic about when to take vacation; each year it seems like deadlines move, making it harder and harder to plan accordingly.”

“Best part is the flexible WFH/hybrid policy. You can generally work from home or the office based on your needs. Most challenging part is the increased number of deadlines and fewer people, making it seem like it’s busy season year-round, which makes it hard to take vacation.” 

“You can have an excellent work/life balance and an associated quality of life if you’re proactive and an average or above-average performer. Sometimes, I see younger members of the firm struggle to find a balance, either because they underperform and therefore take longer than average to complete work or, more frequently, simply don't understand how to create boundaries and communicate needs.”

Salaries and Benefits

“Overall, I’m very satisfied with my salary, benefits, and perks at the firm. It only gets better as you’re promoted through the firm. While it can be frustrating as a staff-senior when you feel less compensated for the longer hours/efforts you're putting in for clients, that’s the expectation coming to an entry-level position in public accounting.” 

“Compensation is competitive, but benefits are average. The 401(k) match could be better, and meal allowances should go up.”

“Base salary is outstanding, but bonuses could be better, and benefits are quite expensive, especially for partners.” 

“Compensation is low relative to the market, especially in a high cost of living location. There is not a great correlation between performance, hours worked, location, and engagement with the compensation, and little room for variation.”

Wellness Efforts

“I take advantage of many wellness efforts, including reimbursement opportunities and Lyra mental health coaching, which I greatly benefit from. I think there is still a way to go in discussing mental health in high stress environments and removing the stigma around that, but each year I strongly feel we make progress.” 

“The firm offers several tools to help with health and wellness of employees, and I believe in recent years there has been a great push to promote those tools. I personally benefit from multiple programs they offer, which have changed both my personal and professional outlooks.”

“The firm offers wellness funds to support purchases related to wellness, firm-paid gym memberships, different apps for mental health, including Lyra for therapy and life coaching. I believe the firm is really making an attempt to have a suite of wellness benefits available.” 

“The firm provides 25 free counseling sessions per year to help with stress or other issues, along with a fund dedicated to items that enhance a person’s wellbeing. Additionally, the firm provides access to a gym network subscription, and our teams typically participate in an exercise challenge during busy season as well.”

Community Engagement

“I think EY does a great job at hiring people from all walks of life, which is really exciting as it means you get to work on teams that have a lot of diversity. They also have some great community outreach programs to try to get people involved in various charities.”

“The firm truly does put an effort into welcoming individuals from all kinds of backgrounds and cultures. Recently, I attended and spoke on a panel for their program EY Unplugged, which brings together staff from diverse ethnicities to empower them and help them get a better sense of belonging and knowledge that they are not alone and that their differences are a strength. 

“EY appears to be extremely forward thinking in diversity, and I would say there is a good mix of people and cultures within the office (as you would expect based on general population mix within my area).”

“As a woman LGBTQ+ member of my firm, I feel both well respected and that my identities are reflected within the firm. I really enjoy the LGBTQ+ network that is well established with monthly calls and fun events both nationally and locally. I also like being part of the LGBTQ+ steering committee where we coordinate with local non-profits to better connect with the local community.”

Business Outlook

“There was a recent change in leadership, and Janet Truncale became EY’s new Global CEO. My overall sentiments are excited for the change and woman leadership. Seems like as of now EY also offers the best starting salary for staffs in audit along with perks that other firms arere not offering. EY has been the pioneer in these avenues, which has set us apart from some of the other Big 4 firms.”

“The firm has recently undergone several leadership changes. The business outlook is strong, but there is a level of uncertainty given expected economic and geopolitical changes. In my opinion, the firm has done a great job making a multibillion investment in the profession by raising starting salaries for campus hires and the related increases in salaries for employees to prevent compression issues. These investments in talent have made public accounting a more attractive career choice and the firm a more attractive firm compared to others. This has improved employee morale by attracting and retaining top talent.”

“The industry continues to change rapidly, but EY is poised to lead through such changes with our investment in AI and scalable delivery models. We recruit and retain the best and brightest from a diverse pool of backgrounds and skillsets. We have world-class professionals and expertise in all areas of our practice.” 

“The most significant challenge to the business outlook is the uncertainty surrounding the impact of the election on the U.S. economy and whether market activity such as mergers and acquisitions and IPOs return in the near term. But I think with our new CEO that the company outlook is positive. Overall, the business is strong and the firm has invested in areas of growth such as artificial intelligence and climate change-related services. It has also invested significantly in transforming existing businesses such as audit and tax, improving technology, service delivery, and standardization. This will fuel growth in the long term.”