Open and honest communication my butt!!! - Advisory Manager KPMG Employee Review

2.0
Aug 26, 2008
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

KPMG looks great on a resume, and at least initially you learn quite a bit from working with clients in various industries.

Cons

As a KPMG employee you will get a constant barrage of propaganda about the firm's Employer of Choice initiatives, which you will find to be a huge annoyance once you discover that all of this is just lip service. A lot of the work-life balance initiatives look great on paper, but in reality they usually only work for the support staff. For the majority who are in client service roles, these initiatives are often ignored in the name of client need and most often in the name of partner greed. You'll find that you are paid well below what you could earn outside the firm, and the benefits for the most part suck. There is a pension and a 401k, however the 401k has a five year match on firm contributions which means that most employees will not realize that full match because they get run out of the firm much before that. Of course if you don't leave voluntarily and get laid off you are still held to the 5 year vesting schedule, which for me meant I lost 40% of my firm match to the plan. What the leadership truly sucks at is communication. They are quick to share what they think is positive news, but will absolutely avoid discussing difficult topics at all costs. Through several rounds of layoffs this year not a single word had come from anyone in leadership about what is going on. Even last year they disappointed nearly everyone in our group when they slashed or completely eliminated performance bonuses at year end. The excuse was that our financial results weren't as good as expected, although national leadership posted only a couple of months prior that the firm was meeting its targets and that 90% should expect to receive a bonus near the level of prior years.

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5.0
Apr 30, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

The people are the best to work with

Cons

The hours are long and lots of meetings depending where you sit in the org

4.0
May 7, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Great general benefits however not as good as it was when I first started at the firm 11 years ago. Firm used to provide better employee incentives but no longer provides. Employee experience all depends on who you report to and work with. Some have great experiences, while others are completely over-worked.

Cons

Let go during RIF. When I started with the firm back in 2015, RIF's didn't occur much but now has become the normal once a year at minimum at KPMG. You must be on top of you game now (high performance culture) otherwise can be let go at any moments notice. Unfortunately if you do amazing on your engagement work, doesn’t mean anything to leadership and can still be let go, especially at manager level and requires you to put many additional hours per week doing extra curricular (Business Proposals, Certifications, etc.).

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