Baker Tilly
Overview
Introduction
Founded in 1931, Baker Tilly has offices from coast to coast and is one of the largest CPA firms in the U.S. Its interns are treated like full-time staff, and get access to seniors and managers—who are very willing to help. Full-time staff get formal training, on-the-job training, mentoring, and internal mobility options. The firm is strongly focused on philanthropy and diversity, and has new initiatives in place around D&I. Recently, it’s made great strides when it comes to gender diversity.
Company Stats
Employer Type
Size
Featured Rankings
Major Departments
Major Office Locations
Employment Contact
Vault Verdict
Baker Tilly is ideally looking for personable, hardworking team players with strong critical-thinking skills. For students, the firm runs a rewarding internship program, providing interns with significant hands-on experience, many networking opportunities, and an accurate look at what it’s like work for the firm on a full-time basis. For its full-time staff, Baker Tilly provides extensive growth and development opportunities, including valuable trainings and mentoring and clear promotion paths.
During the busy season, the hours are typically long, and it can be difficult to find work/life balance and take time off. However, outside busy season, staff can achieve work/life balance, and vacation is easy to take. When it comes to quality of life, staff particularly ...
About the Company
Baker Tilly is an advisory, tax, and assurance firm headquartered in Chicago. It currently ranks among the top 10 largest accounting firms in the U.S. as measured by annual revenues, according to Inside Public Accounting. Baker Tilly has more than 6,700 team members and is the largest member firm of Baker Tilly International, the world’s 10th largest network. Baker Tilly International’s independent member firms have combined revenues of $5.62 billion.
Employee Reviews
- “Use of vacation is very easy, but there are significant periods of time throughout year in which it is expected that PTO is not taken due to busy periods and client deadlines. This can sometimes be the majority of the year and leave three to four months for available PTO periods.”
- “The offering of ‘open time off’ is very attractive but not exactly realistic. When accounting for the amount of total and chargeable hours that are required on an annual basis, you end up not being able to ...
- “Use of vacation is very easy, but there are significant periods of time throughout year in which it is expected that PTO is not taken due to busy periods and client deadlines. This can sometimes be the majority of the year and leave three to four months for available PTO periods.”
- “The offering of ‘open time off’ is very attractive but not exactly realistic. When accounting for the amount of total and chargeable hours that are required on an annual basis, you end up not being able to take any additional time off beyond what any other firm would offer as a standard—each PTO day you take eats into your total hours required for the year, and you have to account for that. The firm does encourage employees to take time off, though.”
- “Because of the line of work that I do, I’m working more than 50-hour weeks for half of the year. Over the past year or so, it’s become very difficult to schedule PTO and other similar types of time off due to the fact that we are now trying to schedule everything a year in advance at minimum. As a result, all of my time off is predetermined well ahead of time, which makes it very difficult if plans change or something comes up that I would like time off for.”
- “The firm tries to promote a healthy work/life balance. However, with the pressure that they put on hours, it’s very difficult to accomplish. There are many initiatives that they put in place that are centered around billable hours, and I understand that’s how we make money, but it causes unnecessary stress. This also causes you to want to make up the hours during busy seasons if you weren’t busy during the off-season. So, by making up the hours, you’re working overtime all week to reach your goals.”
Why Work Here
Getting Hired Here
- “Step 1: HR screening, phone call. Step 2: Virtual interview with your future team, Zoom/Teams call. Step 3: Offer decision, typically within 48 hours of step 2. The ideal candidate at the college graduate level is someone who is able to learn and adapt, as well as communicate openly and manage a workload of several ongoing projects at once (with different direct reports for each one). ‘We can teach you the accounting, but we can't teach you how to engage with us and learn.’ A big bonus is expressing ...
- “Step 1: HR screening, phone call. Step 2: Virtual interview with your future team, Zoom/Teams call. Step 3: Offer decision, typically within 48 hours of step 2. The ideal candidate at the college graduate level is someone who is able to learn and adapt, as well as communicate openly and manage a workload of several ongoing projects at once (with different direct reports for each one). ‘We can teach you the accounting, but we can't teach you how to engage with us and learn.’ A big bonus is expressing having a clear plan to pass the CPA exams.”
- “Ideal candidate has good critical thinking skills—there’s a lot of information to know, so being able to decipher what is applicable vs. isn’t can be 50 percent of the battle. It’s also important to have good teamwork skills—you need to be able to work with a lot of different types of people and build rapport with team members.”
- “We try to expose the prospective employee to as many team members as practicable, while not wasting too much of anyone’s time. Depending on the team involved, it may require four to five interviews. Our ideal candidate is someone who is personable, enjoys learning, works hard, and is somewhat scrappy. This firm is a great place to work if you are able to push yourself.”
- “Interview and callback process seems standard/typical for public accounting. Firm is seeking candidates who are hardworking, ethical, care about others by teaching/training them, and are dedicated to helping ensure success of clients and colleagues.”
Perks & Benefits