Landed A Big 4 Job? Here’s 4 Valuable Tips I Wish I Knew

Congratulations, you secured a place at one of the Big 4 companies. Onwards and upwards from here! Right…? Well as you may come to realise its not that simple. You may have already heard the entourage of people yelling about the busy season - which to put it mildly is incredibly challenging. Or maybe you’re acclimatising to the exams that are about to come. Well, if you’re ever going to succeed you’ll probably need to amp up your game. These are a couple things I’ve learnt along the way:

1. Using shortcuts

   When I say shortcuts I mean finding any way to do a task faster than the method you already know. Unlearning things you already know is a good virtue and can really help pick up better habits. Learning keyboard shortcuts are a great starting point. Know how to open a new tab, quickly edit your typing, even learn to touch type. Touch typing is a skill that deserves its own post but to summarise, the quicker you can flow your conscious thoughts onto a document or Excel file, the quicker you can get through key pieces of work. I learnt this all too late but after two and a half years at my firm I decided to try and take my 30wpm to my current 80wmp. Knowing key Excel formulas is also critical in the workplace. If you don’t know some key skills, reach out to seniors or managers and ask them to coach you through it. Think of it this way, everyone in the firm will have a brilliant piece of knowledge, your aim is to extract those key pieces of knowledge from all people and become a well rounded person. Also learn VLOOKUPS and Pivot tables. They will be your best friends.

2. Stop playing email tennis

   Every email should be purposeful. Try to minimise as many return emails as possible as this just delays the completion of work. If you need to arrange a call with a client, your email should state the reason for the call, your availability and ask for their (or your own) preferred virtual meeting application. And because I’m nice I’ll put a template to show you what it could look like.

   Example Email:

   “Dear Becky,

   I hope you are well.

   My name is (…) and I’m currently working on the XYZ project for the current year.

   Could we please have a call regarding the ABC document you provided. I was hoping to understand how this data supports the trial balance provided by Lisa.

   I’ll be available anytime today apart from 12-1pm and 3:30-4:00pm. Please let me know when works for you and I shall put in a Google Meet for that time.

   Kind regards,

   Shavez.“

3. Get a good amount of rest

   Sleep. Yeah I know you don’t have a good schedule. I used to suffer from revenge procrastination and end up watching videos before I go bed only to wake up 6 hours later. There’s a million videos on YouTube about the importance of sleep so I won’t bang your head with them. I’ll simply remind you to try and incorporate it.

4. Learn to say no

   People appreciate it a lot more when you take on less and complete it faster, than to overload and underdeliver. A critical way to achieve this is to learn to decline work from the start. Instead, when asked to complete a long list of tasks you could say “hey (manager), I have a few concerns about the workload I currently have and I don’t think I’ll be able to complete it for the proposed deadline. Can we talk about lessening the work I currently have and then picking it up later?“. There is a caveat to this… Sometimes you’ll need to work across several different projects due to the human capital available and the fact that people prefer to have a smaller budget for projects. The less time it takes a manager to complete work, the more they will also be rewarded and so at times it may be a bit more difficult to reduce the work you have. If you do however feel any time of work related stress or anxiety then it is always better to speak to your manager and make them aware. Last thing they want is to cause any time of harm to you which in turn also jeopardises the completion of work too.

There we are. My not exhaustive but definitely helpful summary of some key skills when starting the Big 4. If you want more intermediary or advanced tips be sure to let me know. Good luck!