Vault’s Verdict

Freed Maxick is looking for intelligent, driven, personable, adaptable candidates who ideally want to stay with the firm for the long term. The firm’s internship program offers students a chance to get hands-on experience in both audit and tax while working on real engagements. Interns also get to interact with senior staff and directors. For its full-time staff, Freed Maxick offers several career development opportunities, including helpful formal trainings, informal training from senior staff members, and CPA exam study materials reimbursements.

The firm goes to lengths to provide its staff with a healthy work/life balance, but client demands and deadlines can sometimes make it difficult to find balance. Compensation is competitive, flexible hours and vacation time receive good reviews, and the firm regularly promotes physical and mental health and wellness. However, health insurance and the 401(k) offerings could be improved.

Freed Maxick is very philanthropic and encourages employees to make donations, but the firm has a long way to go in terms of racial diversity and inclusion. As for the firm’s business outlook, Freed Maxick has navigated the pandemic well, without making layoffs, and is well positioned to continue to grow.

Hiring Process

• “The ideal candidate is someone smart, driven to succeed, nice, and personable.”
• “Freed is seeking a candidate who is willing to learn and adapt to the constantly changing regulations and guidance that come down frequently in each department. They are looking for someone who wants to make this their career and wants to grow with the firm.”
• “The firm was great in the interviewing and callback process. I received separate calls and interviews with directors and managers alike. The firm also made a competing offer and issued me a signing bonus to offset a competitors offer.”
• “The firm likes to retain interns from the summer prior whenever possible. I was not a summer intern, however. The process for getting hired out of college at the firm was competitive. The firm has a highly regarded reputation in Buffalo, and it is clear from the first interview to the last that they are not just looking for the smartest on paper, but rather those that will advance the firm’s culture and be a candidate that spends their career with the firm, not just a few years.”

Interview Questions

• “What motivates you? What does success look like to you in your career with the firm? Describe an experience you've had where you were forced to juggle competing priorities for a length of time, the challenges that created, how you handled yourself when those challenges presented themselves, and how you met the expectations of others.”
• “Are you good at multitasking? Do you like to be involved in the community? What do you like to do for fun? Do you prefer more or less client interaction? Do you mind traveling as part of your day-to-day workload?”
• “Where do you see yourself in the future? Do you plan on getting your CPA license? Do you meet the requirements for the CPA license? Are you open to traveling for a position if it required? What would you do if you worked in a group assignment with someone you did not agree with?”
• “Tell us about your past internship experiences and how they will contribute to your success at the firm. If X situation occurred, how would you handle this? What would you say your strongest quality is? What would you say is the quality about yourself that you could most improve on?”

Internship Experience

• “The best part of the internship is that we were able to work on actual client engagements and go into the field with the teams. This hands-on learning experience made it much easier when I started full time. Also, the internship was paid.”
• “The best aspect of my internship experience was that the company allowed the interns to rotate through the different departments of the firm so we could get a feel for where we would eventually want to work. They also sent us out on real engagements with full-time employees. I truly can't think of any bad aspects—it was a great experience.”
• “Best part was I gained experience in both audit and tax in order to determine which department I wanted to work in going forward.”
• “Six-week program, didn't take up entire summer. Paid well. Good face time with managers and directors.”

Career Development

• “Some managers will take an interest in you and spend time helping you understand certain things. This has helped me a lot. the trainings each year depending on level have been helpful, too.”
• “Your career is what you make of it. The firm recognizes, values, and rewards those that go above and beyond. However, in the past it has been very difficult to understand what it takes to make partner. I think the firm is providing more clarity and has a much better succession plan established.”
• “The firm offers great CPA studying materials at different costs. Freed Maxick allows me to study for my CPA exam on my computer during downtime, which is an amazing opportunity since the CPA is so important to my career development goals.”
• “I think the firm offers a lot of good resources, but our training isn't up to par with the national firms. This is something we've been working on over the years and now have a training and development specialist who will be focusing on improving our training programs. Our career profiles lay out the path to promotion and career development, but I'm not sure new staff or experienced hires are well trained in this.” 

Quality of Life

• “The firm does its best to make sure to support us in our work/life balance, but at the end of the day, we answer to our clients and their deadlines.”
• “They put family first and encourage a balanced lifestyle. They treat everyone well. The only bad part is when busy season hits and you have to work long hours.”
• “I think the best aspect is being able to work remotely. I think the worst aspect is sometimes when we are off we get dragged back online to do something and might not be able to separate from the job.”
• “The best aspect is the flexibility. We implemented a program this year where we can work whichever hours or days of the week we want, as long as we're communicating with our teams and meeting all client obligations. The most challenging part is that during different times of the year (outside of the normal busy season) our workloads are pretty heavy, and we still have to work above a 40-hour week.”

Salary and Benefits

• “Compensation is at market level, and with flex time you’re able to take even more time for yourself and your family without eating into your PTO time. For instance, outside of busy season, you can carve time out during the day to do certain things and do the rest that evening. Salary increases and bonuses are not really explained. Metrics and reasons for increases remain a mystery outside of the partner group.”
• “Flexible hours is the best perk offered by the firm. It is offered through the firm’s max flex program, which allows you to schedule your own hours any day of the week as long as you are able to service clients properly and are available for coworkers when needed. The firm also has a ‘jeans day everyday’ policy, allowing you to wear jeans to the office any day that you are not meeting with a client. Firm typically provides meals and other food regularly and has several social events to encourage interaction among coworkers.”
• “I think the firm is very competitive when it comes to monetary compensation, and provides adequate vacation time and flexibility. The health insurance options are not good, and there is no maternity or paternity policy other than what the state offers.”
• “The firm is extremely flexible, which is appreciated. I also feel the amount of vacation time given is fair. The worst aspects are having to pay for parking and our health insurance premiums are high. Although health insurance premiums have not gone up, employees still paying a significant amount out of pocket. I also don't think the match on the 401(k) plan is that great.”

Wellness Efforts

• “The firm sends out daily emails about ways to stay healthy, promotes activities like the 'maintain don't gain' program, and participates in an employee assistance program to promote mental health.”
• “The firm regularly promotes both physical and mental health and wellness. They do contests for all kinds of different wellness initiatives and offer prizes for participation. They have an employee assistance program that can help in a variety of ways when needed.”
• “Emails and notifications about wellness programs and offerings are almost excessive they’re so frequent. This is not necessarily a bad thing, just saying that they’re frequent. From encouraging exercising to mental health, it’s clear the firm values its people. No question. We just instituted a new program where employees get paid to volunteer, too, which is great—helping the wellness of our community.”
• “They have an employee assistance program to put you in touch with needed counselors, other. The firm sponsors workshops on different wellness initiatives. Wellness initiatives include walking challenges, maintaining healthy habits, mental health, etc. HR does a really good job with this.”

Diversity, Philanthropy, and Green Initiatives

• “The firm does a terrific job encouraging philanthropic activities. They offer a full day of PTO to volunteer in the community, and have several programs throughout the year to volunteer and donate money. There is not a lot of racial diversity within the firm, which may just be a result of there not being as much diversity in the public accounting industry.”
• “Diversity is challenging in our region. The ethnicity of accounting and technology graduates at the schools where we recruit is predominantly white, and many candidates don't stay around here either. The firm makes many donations to charitable causes and scholarships. The firm has gone out of the way to recognize our veterans.”
• “I think the firm does well with general philanthropy and encouraging employees to make donations. I think the firm has a long way to go in terms of racial diversity/outreach/inclusion. As far as gender diversity, the firm overall is decent, but not at the partner level. I think more support should be provided to women looking to have families, as public accounting is a difficult field to continue working in during that time. As far as racial/LGBTQ+/disability diversity, the firm is extremely lacking. There are few BIPOC working at the firm and even fewer LGBTQ+ individuals. I think the firm needs a major overhaul in terms of social awareness/inclusion. The diversity initiative announced at state of the firm was too little too late, and there has been no further information. The office would be extremely difficult for anyone with a disability to access. I am not aware of any green policies the firm has.”
• “The firm's charitable giving initiatives are extensive and very well received. They are always giving back to the communities that we serve. I feel as though we have continued to push for gender equality, and while it is still skewed at the top, I see a change throughout the entirety of the organization. The firm has never discriminated against anyone based on any aspect of diversity. That being said, I do not see a ton of diversity in the firm. We are making pointed efforts to continue discussions around diversity, inclusion, and equity so it is at the top of the firm's mind. I think as we continue to see more diversity within the organization it will be great. It may need to start at the high school level and creating programs to teach people of multiple different backgrounds the opportunities that come with an accounting career.”

Response to Anti-Racist Protests and BLM Movement

• “I am not sure our firm had a response, which is an issue in itself.”
• “The firm was silent about the events. It’s clear they don't condone such acts, but it’s also potentially damaging to the firm to outright state anything. Silence in this case was probably best.”
• “We didn't have any firm response, and I thought that was really unfortunate especially because we have people of color that work for us and they maybe could have used the support while all of that was happening. Recently (around November 2020), we announced a Diversity and Inclusion committee, and I'm excited to see that unfold, even though it wasn't a timely response to the protests and BLM.”
• “There was no response to this movement. However, I do believe our firm is very inclusive, and we have not had any issues.”

Response to Covid-19

• “Response was amazing. Very strong. The firm made sure our business continued, with no layoffs, and made sure employees were safe. This included technology investments to make sure employees could work remotely and procedures for engaging with others to minimize the risk of infecting others.”
• “We moved to a remote workforce timely and took the pandemic seriously. We were given a lot of tools we needed to work at home, and are able to get reimbursed for things like printer paper and ink. We were given a few stipends, geared towards setting up a home office, childcare, or other financial issues caused by the pandemic. I thought we did a good job with communication at first but that has trailed off over the past few months. I think the firm did a great job of preparing our office to reopen and making sure it was safe, while also not pressuring people to come back who didn't feel comfortable yet.”
• “The firm communicated right away to demonstrate that clients were in trouble and we would need to defer promotions and raises to help not raise fees. They did eventually provide promotions and raises at the end of 2020. IT systems were also very good for a remote work setup. Only issue has been employees working in areas with poor internet options.”
• “I can't say enough good things about how the firm has responded to the pandemic. They have been extremely flexible and understanding when it comes to scheduling and helping people deal with the issues they are having at home due to the pandemic. They have made it extremely easy to work remotely and are continuing to develop the technology required for everyone to work remotely who wants to. They have also taken all the necessary steps to allow employees to come back to the office if they want to. They put procedures in place to ensure a safe working environment when traveling to client sites as well.”

Business Outlook

• “The need for accounting and consulting services continues to grow. We were already doing some work in other parts of the New York State and throughout the country. With Covid making more work remote, business opportunities increase. No real issues noted with employee morale other than frustration with our IT support. There has been a noticeable downgrade in capabilities recently sapping productivity.”
• “It seems like our workload has been consistent if not greater. I think the challenge will come from fee pressure and collecting from clients who may have fallen on hard times during the pandemic. We didn't have any layoffs. We received raises and promotions even though they were delayed months, so that leads me to believe the outlook is good. We lost a lot of employees this year, but that's normal for our industry.”
• “There is a lot of uncertainty with the pandemic still going on, but the firm has not had any layoffs and does a good job communicating how it is doing on a regular basis. It is going to be a tough year for a lot of businesses, but the firm is committed to continuous growth, as they are still hiring and working towards growing the business.”
• “I think throughout the many years the firm has been in existence they have created strong relationships with the communities it serves. Therefore, in the toughest times, we are the ones that clients look to for advice and consulting to help them with their businesses. Seeing leadership’s response to the pandemic, I feel very strongly that we have a very positive outlook.”