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Any insight into STB’s tax group?
Hi everyone!
I've been offered a job at Publicis Sapient as a front-end developer (React Js).
What kind of work culture, work load and tech stack exposure should I be expecting?
I'm having 1 year experience.
I've also got offers from IndiaMART InterMESH Limited, Amdocs, Verizon and Collegedunia.
All for the role of front-end web developer.
I'm very confused between all of them.
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Mentor
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Coach
Training at the analyst / associate levels is less structured than the B4 and there is less wiggle room due to the bonus structure
I had searched for the same negative reviews before I joined, and I had found that they were consistent with what the posters above noted. My personal experience is also consistent with what the posters above noted. I’m also in CMAA, which is within TAG.
The main differences boil down to the size, flatness, and culture, which are all related. People who have positive experiences here call it an entrepreneurial culture. People who have less positive experiences here call it a sink or swim culture. These really are two sides of the same coin. A&M is a business, and made very conscious business decisions/trade offs. A&M has fewer resources than the big four, including mostly the absence of leadership who only work on internal initiatives - the % of people who are client-facing is far higher. The % of people whose only job it is is to be an internal resource is far lower. This is why we’re able to have the comp structure that we do.
Not everyone likes these trade offs. But if you do like these trade offs, you end up with (based on my own experience) more autonomy, faster learning, and better comp. Knowing that we don’t have the resources to have someone hold my hand through new projects or challenges has forced me to become better faster, but it isn’t easy. I‘ve had great mentorship, but it’s the point-me-in-the-right-direction kind, not the detailed-to-do-list kind. There is no magic around A&M’s culture and comp - very real trade offs were made in order to be able to have this culture and comp. And different people prefer these trade offs to the ones offered by the big four or other firms.
Great summary and very true. We hire people who have untapped potential. This is why our TAG and CMAA practice is much stronger than the ones I’ve seen at big 4.
It’s a pretty great firm to be a part of. There are many areas that A&M can improve on to better the employee experience but I feel like I have better wlb and job satisfaction than I did at two other big 4 firms. Plus, I make a lot more money
In my experience, things are just easier at A&M. More competent people above and below me cuts out a lot of crap I dealt with in my big 4 days.
EY1 is right. If my utilization goes to shit, I will make less than I would at a big 4. There might be a year that I have bad luck with collections or utilization. However, I will still make significantly more money at A&M over a 2-4 year time horizon than I would at a big 4 with greeter wlb and job satisfaction
I think a downside of A&M is no full remote options, correct me if I am wrong A&M people.
Correct.
I turned down an offer from A&M to work at GT and could not be happier with my decision
We’re happy with your decision too
Mentor
To summarize on a reported basis A&M is the perfect place nothing bad at all.
Show us... Show us the adjusted basis 👀🤣
I work at A&M, happy to talk to you about the culture in more detail if you’d like to DM me. Like every company, it has its positives and negatives but definitely very different than KPMG/big 4 (I’ve worked in both). Very different positives and negatives but the culture here can be tough
No not TAS, different business unit
An ex-A&Mer at my firm told me they left because of the lack of mentorship there. Everyone was too focused on billing hours to drive up or just maintain their bonus.
I’m not sure what group they’re in, but I’ve found that I have a lot more mentorship in TAG than I did at my big 4. I had a mentor but they weren’t in my actual group, and while it was clear they cared about my development, I didn’t feel that they could properly mentor me due to not being in my group. I have a mentor here that regularly checks in on me to make sure I’m getting out on deals. In addition I’ve been assigned someone to shadow who has been staffing me on all of their deals and going out of their way to teach me.
I have a friend who worked at AM in their TAG group. The best part of A&M is also the worst part of A&M. Because of the bonus structure a lot of people higher up do not want to spend time mentoring you unless they really like you and want to see you grow and stick around at the firm. Also just know that the hours are about the same or worse than big 4 because they have no offshore team to do the grunt work. So analysts, seniors, and even managers are in the weeds building the analyses copying data etc. Also know that you WILL eat hours at A&M. They will create a budget for the project and many times they will budget say 80 hours of billable work for you but in actuality it will take you 100 hours or more to actually get it done. So you will be eating a lot of hours too. This really depends on the partner you work for and deals you get. Some of the shitty partners under bill work to win projects. You will also only work on middle market PE deals. PE firms SUCK to work for. It’s all ex bankers and they are a bunch of shit heads to work for. They want everything done yesterday and will expect you to work weekends and holidays to get deals done. 4th of July etc are all fair days to have to work. Also I think A&M picks up a lot of the shitty PE firm clients that the big 4 don’t want to work with anymore because these clients are demanding from a fee standpoint and bitched about big 4 fees so decide to go with a&m to save money.
This is funny to read. Almost nothing is true.
Mentor
I work in Global Transaction Tax and I’ll say this - your base comp will be higher than your B4 counterparts’ base comps as long as you’re not in NYC or SF.
If you have decent utilization, your total comp will exceed your counterparts’ total comps by a material amount
But agree with many of the other comments, if you’re experienced, this is a great place to work.
If you don’t have M&A experience, we’ll only take you if you’re an Associate (or at most a Senior Associate). The transition tends to be more difficult at higher levels so we usually don’t consider those candidates. A&M also isn’t great at training people new to the M&A space because we usually expect people to come in knowing the fundamentals.
Coach
It have seen it varies by line of service but I personally think TAG (FDD) is a great group. The culture is a focus and there are always a number of various initiatives.
May I know how the A&M interview process look like? Is there a case interview and how long does it take? Thanks!
Have heard from current A+M director that their deals kinda suck because they only focus MM and pay was mostly higher because they have no offshore resources so the staff basically do all the gruntwork that would be shipped away. Also other thing about their bonus structure is that if deal flow dries up...
Mentor
Yeah don’t get wrong, I’m too low on the totem pole to understand how that arbitraged, even without offshoring, would get divvied up even in our current model ha.
The main issue is the inability or the very long period of time to make MD. MDs don’t want to pass clients down. So limited and longer time to get promotions. 3/4 of their mds are external hires. So you can make more money, but the downside always being in the details and crunching. And it also set a bad culture as it’s everyone for themselves.
Not true. MDs are rewarded for making new MDs. It’s baked into the model.