Vault’s Verdict

Moss Adams is ideally looking for personable, open-minded, kind, honest, detail-oriented, inquisitive team players who have a growth mindset and are eager to learn. The firm offers valuable internship to students, providing interns with hands-on experience, training and networking opportunities, and a clear sense of what a full-time position looks like. For its full-time staff, Moss Adams offers extensive career development and growth opportunities, including an excellent mentoring program, great on-the-job training, and the ability to advance at an accelerated rate.

While hours can be long and demanding during the busy season, the firm focuses on providing its staff with a healthy work/life balance and good quality of life. There are many work/life initiatives that make busy seasons more manageable, and hours outside of the traditional busy season are much less demanding. Meanwhile, salaries, bonuses, benefits, and perks are competitive, with the firm’s flexible scheduling and hybrid model getting especially rave reviews from staff. In addition, wellness offerings are extensive, and include counseling programs, weekly activity challenges, meditation programs, no-meeting Fridays, and generous PTO accrual.

DEI initiatives are also extensive. The firm has many Business Resource Groups that actively promote diversity and help with recruiting. In particular, LGBTQ+ diversity is a strong suit, as people feel comfortable disclosing pronouns and disclosing that they’re LGBTQ+, and there are many LGBTQ+ leaders in the firm. However, there’s room for improvement when it comes to racial and ethnic diversity. As for Moss Adams’ business outlook, the firm has been growing and bringing in new clients, its leadership team is strong, and it is well positioned to continue to succeed in the foreseeable future.

Hiring Process

“Overall, a candidate that is client facing seems to be in high demand. It is great to have technical skills, but so much of what we do is in front of the client. Our interview and callback process is pretty swift. There are four interviews, some technical, some behavioral, and then you know within the next two weeks if you are hired. It is also just a great place to start too because there are so many opportunities.”

“The firm is great about the interviews and following up. The process is really quick. You are not wondering where you are in the process. The ideal candidate the firm is seeking is concerned about fellow man (their coworkers). Everyone helps everyone here. It’s really a team concept. The ideal candidate will be knowledgeable about the work they are hired to do and to see how else they can assist the firm in moving forward.”

“My first interview was with the recruiting team who were just asking the basic questions to ensure we were qualified for the position. The second interview was with a couple of people in the firm at the senior/manager level who gave us some more information about the firm and asked questions to see if we had the right success skills to be a part of the team. The final interview was with two of the tax partners from my desired office location. During this interview, they both asked me some questions about why I wanted to work here and generally just tried to get to know my character. The whole process was not too stressful, and the recruiting team was very good about communicating throughout the process. The ideal candidate that the firm is seeking would be someone who has a growth mindset, interacts well with people, and is open-minded, kind, honest, and detail-oriented.”

“The interview process is pretty standard for public accounting and rather laid-back. The firm seems to seek out individuals who are team players, work well with others, are willing to learn and ask questions, and are inquisitive, optimistic individuals. We spent time discussing the company culture and daily life experience, which opens plenty of opportunity for candidates to express themselves.”

Interview Questions

“Why do you like accounting? Where do you see yourself in five years? Do you like client interaction? Are you okay with working 55 hours per week during busy season? Are you okay with travelling for work?”

“What do you do if you discover you have made a mistake? Do you love to win or hate to lose? What gets you up in the morning? What are some of your favorite hobbies? What got you into accounting?”

“Tell me a time you took on a leadership role, or your team informally looked to you for leadership. Tell me a time you allowed someone else to lead and how you reacted to not being the team leader. Can you talk about your greatest work strength and your greatest work weakness? Why Moss Adams? Why have you chosen the accounting profession? How do you handle negative feedback? How do you handle multiple priorities? How do you keep track of your daily workload?”

“Definitely expect behavioral questions (how you would handle certain situations), but it can vary based on the conversation you’re having with the interviewer. Really one of the main goals is to get to know you as a person and expose you to the firm's culture.”

Internship Experience

“My internship experience at Moss was excellent. I was given an ample amount of actual tax work and training that provided me with an inside peak to what working at Moss would be like. Everyone I came in contact with was exceptionally helpful and welcoming. I felt really supported and included in the firm even though I was just an intern. Moss provided a lot of opportunity to connect with others.”

“It was great getting to do the same work as staff while being an intern. Moss Adams was super flexible with remote work and accommodating my school schedule even during busy season. During my summer internship, I enjoyed getting to network with all different people, ranging from interns to partners. Everyone at the firm is extremely welcoming and eager to talk with you, regardless of their position.”

“I had a summer internship, and it was a great experience. There was a trip to California for training and networking with interns from different offices. There was a lot of hands-on learning and really great mentors at the office I worked at. The recruiting team had a significant positive impact on how smooth the onboarding experience was. The perks such as expense reimbursement for being an intern was something new and fun to experience. Unfortunately, during the summer there was not much client work to be done, but luckily the senior manager I worked with the entire internship kept me busy. Not only did we learn about our clients but we also were able to take a lot of client field trips, which changed the pace of being in the office every day.”

“I completed an internship at our headquarters in Seattle and then transferred to the office in Portland, Oregon. I rolled my internship into an associate position and later a full-time staff position. Throughout that experience, I worked alongside not only other staff, seniors, managers, senior managers, and partners but also CFOs and Controllers of companies with annual revenues ranging from $10 million to $2 billion. At Moss Adams, the expectation of an intern is similar to that of a staff: asking clients questions, working through your sections, and focusing on a cradle-to-grave mentality, meaning seeing how you can help from planning through issuance.”

Career Development

“The firm has a great program where people at all levels (staff, intern, senior, etc.) are assigned a buddy and a career advisor who are go-to people to discuss career advancement and development with. We are also assigned a co-career advisor who is one of the firm's partners who are an added point of contact to discuss career development. Moss Adams also has a great Learning & Development team that helps us set goals and seek out professional development opportunities.”

“Moss has a lot of opportunities if you are vocal about what you want to do. They work their hardest to make sure you are exposed to the type of work, industry, and role that you want to see yourself in.”

“We have a great mentorship program. I think that the formal trainings could use some work; they are very helpful, but this industry is truly an apprentice industry. On-the-job training is the only way that I have learned how to do my job.”

“Career development opportunities at Moss Adams are very much merit-based and consistently avoid the political and bureaucratic nature of the promotion path and career development at the Big 4 accounting firms at which I’ve worked previously. People who demonstrate commitment to their personal development, who focus on providing high quality service, and who demonstrate an entrepreneurial approach find Moss Adams to be a place where they can learn and advance at an accelerated rate compared to other employers.”

Quality of Life

“Outside of our busiest time of year, vacation and personal time comes first. During our busiest time of year, we understand life happens and we remain flexible within the bounds of client commitment. Public accounting is tough in patches but provides incredible flexibility as to work location, work hours, and type of work.”

“The firm truly does want their employees to have a work/life balance and does a better job than Big 4s at pushing this. But it's public accounting, employees will work long hours.”

“During busy season, the expectation is to work 55 billable hours per week. It's expected that an employee won't take personal time off during that time. Most people try to work 11 hours per day and have their weekends off, but it rarely works out that way. It feels like you're working all the time. On the other hand, the pay is good, and summer through winter is usually pretty easy and less demanding and seems to offset busy season.”

“My quality of life since starting at Moss has been exceptional. Coming into this work and industry, I knew that long hours should be expected during tax season. What I didn't expect is how many extra benefits the firm would offer to balance out the long work hours. For example, free lunch, access to physical therapy and mental health therapists via app programs, lunch reimbursement for working more than 10 hours in a day, flexible work hours, and hybrid work options. All in all, Moss's efforts to support my work/life-balance has been pretty amazing.”

Salary and Benefits

“The best aspect is that (pending any grand economic conditions) you can expect a very sizeable annual compensation adjustment. These annual raises far exceed other professions and sometimes even national raises. I've always felt these adjustments to be fair and rewarding. The worst aspect is that at lower levels (staff/senior) it sometimes feels as if the compensation lags behind the amount of work being done. This is not unique to my firm, but it seems to be an overall industry practice in public accounting.”

“Moss has great work schedule flexibility. They also offer medical, dental, and vision coverage as well as HSAs and FSAs. They also have a wide variety of retirement plan options, including 401(k) with matching, Roth IRA setup, and more. I think the compensation is pretty good. We also get annual performance bonuses and a timing dependent bonus for completing our CPA exams.”

“Salary ranges appear to be average for less experienced positions or newly promoted positions. The relative salaries appear to improve to above average the longer you are in the same role. As for benefits, I wish we had a firm contribution to our 401(k) and maternity/parental leave was more comprehensive and longer. We have flexible working options, but I'd like to see those more widely used and promoted.”

“The best aspect of Moss's compensation and benefits is that the firm is continually monitoring and evaluating market conditions to ensure that they are compensating everyone in conjunction with economic conditions. Prior to starting at Moss, I wasn't expecting any salary adjustments because I thought that's only what companies say they will do, but not actually follow through unless you push for it. I was pleasantly surprised that from the time I received my offer of employment and started, my wage had been adjusted upward three times to align with the market conditions. This really made me feel comfortable that I was joining a firm that actually cares about their employees.”

Wellness Efforts

“The firm offers access to various apps and websites promoting physical, mental, and emotional health. These apps offer a variety of counseling, therapy, health and wellness resources that are easy to access and navigate and/or often either free or at very large discounts. These have been helpful not just for myself but also for my spouse.”

“In response to feedback, the firm now provides a behavioral health benefit that directly connects employees and their dependents with therapists without the common several months waiting period. They pay for 10 sessions and then the remaining are covered by our health insurance. The program also provides medication management.”

“In addition to regular health care, the firm offers mindfulness resources and outside counseling resources. Also, at the office I am attached to, there is a fitness group. The firm is supportive of what the people want, so if they make themselves heard, the firm supports the plan.”

“Counseling programs (Spring Health), weekly activity challenges (tracked on Strava), meditation programs (Headspace), no-meeting Fridays, flexible work schedules, and many other support services. Generous vacation accrual is also helpful for wellness.”

Diversity, Philanthropy, and Green Initiatives

“The firm has several Business Resource Groups that support various areas of diversity (women, Black, Hispanic, Asian, LGBTQ+, veterans, and disabled individuals). The BRGs are very active both in promoting diversity and outside recruiting. Also, the firm matches charitable donations.”

“The firm encourages an environment where diversity is welcome and has a good strategy and plan for DEI initiatives. People feel comfortable disclosing pronouns and disclosing that they are LGBTQ+. There is, however, room for improvement, particularly for race/ethnicity. The firm understands the need for improvement and has committed significant programs and resources to improve in this area.”

“The firm is very receptive to hearing LGBTQ+ voices. It really values our perspectives. There are many LGBTQ+ leaders in the firm, including me. Even if you are starting out your career there are so many leadership opportunities for queer folks. Our business resource groups are front and center. There is genuine buy-in from the firm.”

“We have an Inclusivity and Diversity team that communicates with the employees about the importance of I&D, how to address I&D challenges, even how to communicate with inclusive language. They run statistics of the firm based on (optionally supplied) demographics to look for trends that can be improved on. For example: Why is the percentage of this demographic in the lower levels of employment so much higher than the percentage in the higher levels? Then they will seek answers to: Why is this the case? What variables are involved? How do we change this trend so that they are more even? We also have Business Resource Groups that are like school clubs, where people of a specific demographic and allies can meet at an activity or educational event.”

Business Outlook

“Moss Adams has been gaining traction, and I believe Moss Adams has great potential to bring in well-qualified individuals and can continue to differentiate itself from the Big 4 firms. There is a lot of emphasis on employee wellbeing rather than competition to become the best firm.”

“Moss Adams’ leadership has been impressive to me. The superiors I've had the pleasure with working with so far have lived true to Moss's core values, one of which is leading by example. So far, my perception is that my leaders are right alongside me and guiding me, rather than way ahead and leaving me to fend on my own. It's not to say that my hand is being held, but I feel that the leaders at Moss have been supportive of guiding the way.”

“Strong growth in the last couple of years. Leadership continues to bring in new clients. However, business is growing faster than the resources we need to sustain the growth.”

“With continued changes in legislation, there continues to be opportunities for our clients that we are advising. The firm also has a strong consulting practice, continually adding services that we see clients needing such as governance, diversity, workforce retention, and industry-specific services. With that, we are able to be business advisors to our clients and not just a one-stop service provider.”