BKD Reviews

I have been working at BKD full-time for more than 3 years

Pros – Competitive Salary verse hours required

Cons – Company Perks were not competitive with other firms

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

I worked at BKD full-time for more than a year

Pros – Competent co-workers, decent starting salary

Cons – Very impersonal work environment, grind-it-out mentality, very little diversity, extremely slow and rigid pathway toward advancement

Advice to Senior Management – Re-work your approach to training, encourage more work/life balance, more frequent feedback and guidance about performance (good or bad)

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

I worked at BKD full-time for more than a year

Pros – Good experience, knowledgeable partners (until mandatory retirement), lots of training during the first year. Not a terrible place to begin your career in public accounting as long as you're OK with the second-tier job opportunities that follow. Some offices seems great, some are terrible.

Cons – Average pay and small raises. With a relatively high number of partners for a firm of their size, you notice the day-to-day cost cutting everywhere. Offices can feel like a "good ol' boy's" club where it's acceptable for managers to discuss female staffs' "talents" during lunch, etc. Expansion through acquisition creates a firm without a coherent culture. They shuffle people around enough that this will probably work itself out.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

I worked at BKD full-time for more than 3 years

Pros – You will learn a lot on the job. Hours are long but there is room to grow and to move up.

Cons – Long hours, pay is relatively low but this goes with the territory.

Advice to Senior Management – Do more to keep your best.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

I worked at BKD full-time for more than 10 years

Pros – Good experience and a good company culture

Cons – Low salaries, incompetent partners, lack of an effective strategy to compete in the market

Advice to Senior Management – Learn how to reward your top performers. Empower your employees to contribute to the bottom line.

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

I worked at BKD full-time for more than 3 years

Pros – I worked with an incredibly talented team and made many lifelong friends. Team culture was great. I was never asked to take any shortcuts while I worked here as I had at another top 10 firm.

Cons – Budgeting for jobs was terrible. Budgets were often too small and partners were unwilling to write-off or charge necessary overruns to clients. This adds additional stress to staff and senior in-charges.

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

I worked at BKD full-time for less than a year

Pros – Good experience
Sink or swim mentality teaches you to think for yourself, as no one is going to help guide you beyond week one of training
Nice comraderie among peers

Cons – Company's approach to recruiting is hiring to fire. You have just a couple months to prove your worth and receive no training. If you ask too many questions, you are immediately viewed as weaker than your peers and run a huge risk of being let go. If you are a strong performer, you also run a risk of being let go, as rather than own up to its recruiting mistakes (i.e. hiring too many), when times get tough management's philosophy is to unload staff as quickly as possible. BKD is not a great place to work, so usually those that don't get fired quit pretty quickly anyway. If you have a family or want a life outside of work, forget it. Informing them that you prefer less travel known is like career suicide. BKD is also very inflexible with working hours. Other public accounting firms are flexible in that it is about getting your work done at any time of the day, but BKD is very rigid - wants you there from exactly 8:00 to exactly 5:00 with a one hour lunch from 12:00 to 1:00. They frown upon you leaving at 4:00 on a Friday, even if you have already put in 60 hours for the week. Much of the travel is for two week jobs, and they also frown upon you coming home on the weekend, which is also different from a lot of firms. Most managers and partners are rude and act like they are above talking to staff. Technology is horrible (i.e. computer crashings and Excel time sheets, paper billing, etc.).

Advice to Senior Management – Don't hire to fire - recruit the correct people and the correct number of people. Take a look at your cheap and inflexible employment practices.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

I have been working at BKD

Pros – The partners are easy to talk to and helpful. The whole office has a family feel to it.

Cons – The long hours are hard to deal with during busy season.

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

I worked at BKD full-time

Pros – Opportunity to work on privately-held companies, which could hopefully lead to Controller or CFO opportunities in the future.

Opportunity to obtain work experience necessary to obtain CPA license.

Cons – Salary / compensation is well below market. No bonus structure, and health insurance is extremely expensive.

Lack of opportunity for advancement, unless partner's retire.

Upper management more worried about finding merger opportunities, than improving morale or growing the business.

As a result of partner comp levels, billing rates at all levels are extremely high compared to the market (approaching Big 4 rates), which makes it nearly impossible to stay competitive and bring in new business.

Advice to Senior Management – Figure out how to improve morale at your firm and not work your staff 2500 hours a year.

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

I have been working at BKD full-time for more than 3 years

Pros – Growing company. Forward thinking and moving ahead

Cons – Takes time to convince Management of the correct approaches

Advice to Senior Management – You have skilled talent that you have placed inside the company. Listen to those members and trust their expertise and ask them questions which will engage them in the process

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