Ryan, LLC Reviews

I have been working at Ryan, LLC full-time for more than a year

Pros – Senior management is very involved and genuinely seems interested in employee's success. If you're on a good team it can be rewarding. Really depends on your team.

MyRyan is good if your manager embraces it.

Cons – I found the culture to be very bizarre. The firm is obsessed with winning (seemingly meaningless) awards and people speak of Brint Ryan as if he is God. I'd get a constant barrage of e-mails asking me to fill out surveys for random awards and make contributions to the (quite conservative) Ryan Political Action Committee. Perhaps it is because I came from a very large firm, but the culture just was too weird for me.

Aside from the culture, the only other cons I can think of is that your success really depends on your team and the review/compensation process could be better. If you're on a crappy team, it's not fun. Not all managers are equal and not all managers embrace MyRyan.
Additionally, the review process is not entirely logical and can hamper your advancement and compensation until the next year. As an aside on compensation, I found Ryan's base salaries to be below market, but there is a high bonus potential. I left the firm for a very comparable position at a comparable firm with significantly higher base pay.

Advice to Senior Management – More consistency in managers/training. Ease up on the awards and other random stuff and let people work. Who cares if Ryan places 3rd in Sheboygan Wisconsin's Best Places to work list? Let employees focus on clients and driving revenue and stop flooding inboxes with this stuff. Base salaries more in line with the market will attract better young talent, not these meaningless awards. It's not like the firm is competing in Forbes or Fortune or anything.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend – I'm optimistic about the outlook for this company

I worked at Ryan, LLC full-time for more than a year

Pros – Best in Class service to clients. Strong Marketing. Has all the tools to be a great place to work.

Cons – Company politics and a wild west approach to sales make this a difficult place to work. With such rapid growth into other countries, the philosophies of Ryan H/O to do not transfer to their international branches.

Advice to Senior Management – Listen to the employees that leave your company. With such a great product and service the main reason people leave is leadership.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

I have been working at Ryan, LLC full-time for more than 7 years

Pros – Flexible schedule, working remotely, immediate supervisor is awesome to work for, bonus structure, ability to work on different projects in various industries, and enjoy working for/with clients

Cons – Takes forever to get new technology, needs to be a way to anonymously bring up issues (e.g. laziness, inability to complete tasks, etc.) with co-workers as we work in teams, there needs to be a way to divide up money-making projects equally, ergonomic furniture, better annual salary increase, less expensive health insurance, and more accountability, to name a few.

Advice to Senior Management – Keep up the forward thinking progress and remember that a thank you with your employees goes a long way. Even our Christmas bonuses have gone away.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

I worked at Ryan, LLC full-time for more than 7 years

Pros – Ryan is a great place to start your career. They train you very well, and you will certainly know whatever practice area you're hired into very, very well. They also provide wonderful soft skill training classes as well. The work is interesting and ever-changing, which is nice. The benefits are nice and fairly comparable to others in the same sector. The flex environment provides the opportunity to really balance out your professional and personal life as long as you have a manager willing to allow you to take advantage of it.

Cons – While there, you will feel like you are preparing yourself for many more opportunities. This is untrue - you will find that unless you are in a specialty tax practice (severance, motor fuels, property, etc.), the daily activities and tasks you become very proficient at are not really especially desirable to anyone other than other consulting firms (unless you plan to be at Ryan for many years). There is no compliance work, no strategic planning, or any other of the many requirements that you will find when/if you start looking to move on from Ryan. Moving from one tax practice to another is difficult and practically unheard of - if you are hired into the Sales and Use Practice, do not expect to be able to easily move to Property Tax or Severance Tax. The bonus structure is biased and unfair. Unless you are on one of the "rockstar" teams (it usually ends up that the same 10-15 teams are making the most revenue each and every year), you will not be making the additional salary that Ryan likes to say that everyone in the firm is making. Also, Ryan has become very slow to promote to a management level (expect it to take 8-10 years). Additionally, the raise cycle is inconsistent and difficult (not the average annual pay increase that is fairly common at other firms). The flex work environment that Ryan has is difficult to navigate at best. As long as you have a manager that is willing to allow you to use it, it's great. However, it can be very frustrating when you are made to feel guilty/punished when taking time off. Not having a set amount of PTO days makes taking vacation near impossible. You will never truly be off, you will be expected to answer emails and phone calls while on vacation regardless. Also, working from home is not as common as they would make it to be - lots of the managers still feel that if you are not in the office, you are not actually working. Expect to be in the office on a consistent basis and expect to put in as many hours as anyone working at the Big Four (expect 50-60+ hours a week).

Advice to Senior Management – Find a better way to distribute projects to all teams within the firm. Provide additional training (internal or external) so that employees are able to expand their professional development. Allow employees the option to either remain with the current bonus structure or opt for a higher base salary with no (or very little) bonus allocation in order to balance out the inequities. Provide tuition reimbursement options to employees. Bring back having a set number of PTO days (or at least a set minimum that is enforceable) so that employees can actually "unplug" and not feel guilty/looked down upon for taking some personal time.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

I have been working at Ryan, LLC full-time for more than 3 years

Pros – Intelligent people, motivated staff, experts at tax consulting. Company has done nothing but grow for over 21 years.

Cons – Fast growing company experiencing growth pains. Lots of rules, policies and procedures - some are quite necessary, others are tedious and counterproductive.

Advice to Senior Management – Be more global in your thinking - there's a big world outside of Texas, and people outside of Texas are not always happy to be called on by aggressive Texans. Like the GEICO gekko, try to understand the cultures of people you do business with outside of Texas. And get rid of the "old timers" who have made their contribution, but who have "checked out" and are stifling the folks below them.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend – I'm optimistic about the outlook for this company

I have been working at Ryan, LLC full-time for more than 3 years

Pros – Ryan is always looking to improve in all areas: for our clients, for our employees, and for our community.

Cons – Pay is far from competitive unless you are one of the few on really great projects.

Advice to Senior Management – Ryan is often very misrepresented to employees entering the firm. I've heard stories of consultants who are told they will make far more in bonuses in their first year than is realistic. Because of the time it takes to complete a project, the average billing amount and the amount of consultants sharing a bonus pool, it takes quite a few years to build up a steady income of bonuses.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

I have been working at Ryan, LLC

Pros – Decent starting salary with no experience, good hours, good work life balance, good people, Houston is a nice city, tax

Cons – Sometimes the work I was asked to perform was a little boring and redundant, growth potential seemed unclear many times

I have been working at Ryan, LLC

Pros – Ryan has an un-capped bonus structure which means you can be new to the company and double your pay or more in one year. Ryan implemented the Worklife Balance program, "myRyan" and works to improve it. The company is also quickly growing.

Cons – Ryans pay structure is significantly lower than its competitiors, this is partially due to the un-capped bonus structure. You can go years making low pay with relativly trivial bonuses. Also, if you actually start to slow down and think you can take some time off just expect your manager to sign a few more engagements.

Advice to Senior Management – You need to alter your bonus structure and/or pay your staff employees more. Stop anncouing at firm meetings how much revenue team generated. Although, go reconginition it makes others want to leave the company since it was dumb luck they got the project, most of the time.

I have been working at Ryan, LLC

Pros – Fast paced and challenging environment. Learn something new everyday.

Cons – Pay and set in concrete policies related to benchmarks.

I have been working at Ryan, LLC

Pros – myRyan creates a positive environment.

Cons – Administrative overhead can occasionally become oppressively high.

Advice to Senior Management – Quality assurance audits should be tailored more specifically to service line.