Pros
- You will get exposure to a wide variety of projects and clients across various industries - ranging from "transactions" work to systems data entry work, and from biotech firms to cloud computing companies. - Great stepping stone for more rewarding opportunities in industry based on experience with CFGI (especially since The Carlyle Group acquisition). - Work/Life Balance is tons better compared to Big 4. - Base salary is better than big 4 by about 10% - The SF team is made up of some of the smartest finance professionals around, and this means you will be motivated to grow your knowledge base - Lots of skills and experiences to put on a resume in a pretty short period of time.
Cons
- VERY unpredictable schedules. Not much direction given about what to do during "available time" - culture is such that you still need to come into the office and awkwardly pretend to be busy. - Benefits are just terrible: Insurance is around 65% more expensive to employees than Big 4. The 401k is not great and the "bonus" is a joke and NOT supportive of a high performance culture. No motivation to work faster or perform well as no bonus for better performance review rating - only bonus you get is simply on overtime hours worked. But that too is misleading - I.e. You only get the overtime bonus for every hour worked over and above the 1900 ANNUAL chargeable hours threshold. So, if you work 3 weeks of 50-hours/week, followed by 1 week of "available time" between clients - then you net to zero overtime bonus. So, WHY would any employee agree to sacrificing long hours? - Unlike Big 4, CFGI invests nothing in its employees. - Top-down communication needs work - not much straight talk. Lots of "indirect" feedback or just political tactics. At times I feel like I'm completely ignored by people I am reporting to. - If you end up in a project that doesn't enable you to learn new skills, you are criticized for it in your review. - CFGI's sole focus is to grow the business (in terms of revenues and headcount) so as to meet the demands of the PE firm (The Carlyle Group) that owns a sizable portion of the company and the founding Partners that are trying to monetize their years of entrepreneurial work. - CFGI does very little true transaction work (some due diligence, no strategy) but if you consider creating financial statements or doing other financial reporting for an acquisition or divestiture, or helping with purchase accounting, to be "transaction" work, then maybe yes, we do some transaction work. - While the firm does provide accounting and finance advisory services, the scale is heavily weighted towards the accounting realm and this should be made clear to candidates (95% accounting, 5 % finance). - Majority of CFGI's revenue is generated from SOX work, revenue recognition, or month-end close and journal entries. - Lastly, CFGI is NOT a startup and in no way, shape, or form does it resemble any of the technology companies (in culture, compensation, or lifestyle) that the masses would associate with the term "startup."