Hello all, I'm in industry at the moment and have been offered a good package with KPMG but I felt that they were overselling themselves a little which got me nervous. What is the general opinion out there?

I work closley with all of the major Management consultancies and they are certainly the company that are recruiting the most based on their growing technology consulting group. I can not speak for the accountacy side but if you have an offer from RAS then I would bite their hand off. Recently voted number 1 company to work for in the UK (Sunday Times) and the number one Big4. They are expereincing substantial growth at the momnet and are sharing the wealth I think 2004/2005 £60 Milllion distributed as bonuses. As I said I have placed many people with them over the past 5 years and have had no one leave them yet!

Hi, you sound like an executive recruiter. Do you know how I can enter the consulting sector, especially companies like KPMG, here? I've had a couple of years of consulting experience but that's been in New York, although I have been working within the public healthcare sector in London for the past 3 years.

I am considering an offer with KPMG's RAS practise. I hear this growing at a fantastic rate and they are paying out record bonuses!How are KPMG viewed compared with their competitors in terms of image/prestige? Consulting offering? Quality of People? etcAny views? Tony?

I would be careful with terminology. Do not confuse management consultants with financial advisors. these are two different kind of jobs and different kinds of people. You will NOT find the word managment consulting on KPMGs website, nor on that of PWC. they are two different professions - one more trying to follow the other. I hope you realise that the position you are discussing is NOT that of a managment consultant, rather that of a financial advisor working for a financial services company - NOT a management consultancy. The only big 4 that a true consulting company is deloitte. Yet, even at deloitte, RAS fits within the financial advisory company, not Deloitte consulting. Just want to point this out - remember do your homework before you leave a good job in industry thinking to become a consultant, when actually youre joining a financial advisory group for a few extra bucks. if the name of the headhunter that brought you there starts with 'r' p then he is a cowboy. beware.

Tht isn't true. I know people at RAS and at BAS in EY who are management consultants and have little idea of finance matters.KPMG are growing and the ruse of RAS as they still have a non-compete agreement with ATOS and Bearing Point

Could be quite a lucrative move also:http://www.accountancyage.com/accountancyage/news/2167299/kpmg-shell-80m-bonusesKPMG non compete with Atos is over. They are now aggresively re-building consulting capability and have hired some top talent.

Jimbo,The 'advisory' services offered by the Big 4 are very much management consulting in the traditional sense. They're offering finance function improvement (not a surprise since this is their chosen marketspace), change management, project management, shared services, etcDon't let the name 'advisory services' mislead you. The word 'consulting' is taboo within the big 4 because they've all (except Deloitte) sold off their consulting arms in the past.I heard John Griffith-Jones, head of KPMG, describe it the other day. He said that differentiating KPMG's 'advisory' services from 'consulting' services was like arguing how many angels can dance on the head of a pin...

Does anyone else get the impression that some recruitment consultants are trying to drive up KPMG interest by posting very leading questions on this forum?They should be careful - look what happened when they tried the same trick with EY BAS.

Original poster here! I have accepted the role in RAS with KPMG and it is definately a consultancy role. Apparently the sale to ATOS removed their ability to offer 'Consultancy' services but they are speedily building their advisory side to sell services to audit and no-audit clients from the financial side of the business.Thanks for the comments - mostly positive and certainly supportive of my initial gut feelings.

I can assure you that RAS is very much management consultancy. The term 'advisory' stems from the non-compete agreement that was signed with ATOS after the sale and HAS recently expired. This has left KPMG free to expand it's operations greatly, hence the massive expansion. From an inside perspective this growth is slightly overstated as it is not strictly organic and is mainly due to this non-compete expiry.Bonus has been better this year than last, but the general consensus is that it is not as good an increase as would be expected considering the massive growth.One word of warning, salary is in line with accountancy wages, although this must change soon to continue the recruitment at its current pace.

What does RAS stand for? Restructuring Advisory Services? If so I checked the KPMG site (graduate programmes) and when it comes to Restructuring programme they say that the graduate will work for ACA. At the same time some other KPMG's programmes (e.g. MAS) offer MBA possibility.So I was wondering... if this RAS is supposed to be MC why they offer ACA qualifications? Isn't it more financial course? Or I messed up something...

RAS - Risk Advisory ServicesMy own dealings with RAS suggest a more classic consulting offering, they're providing support to a change programme I've recently been associated with, and they're also providing the Programme Office for another initiative at my current client.I get the impression that a lot of the personnel who went with the ATOS sale are now drifting back as the non-compete agreement and individual lock-ins and rejoining barriers are expiring.

We&apos;ve just got back all the videos of the presentations given by consulting firms at our Consultancy Careers Fair. These will all be going live on the site next week, but thought those of you reading this post might like a sneak preview of the KPMG video. Should answer most of your questions about what the firm are trying to achieve in the consulting space. Just click below...<a href=http://www.top-consultant.com/career_fair2006/KPMG2.asp>KPMG presentation -- 2006 Consultancy Careers Fair</a>Tony RestellTop-Consultant.com

This does not seem to work.

And Tony no, &apos;consulting space&apos;?! Have you not been following the Ouch thread!

Appreciated the link Tony (see KPMG thread created 18.10.06)... cheers! It does appear that KPMG are pushing back towards conventional conultancy, which is good news. I attended an &apos;invite only&apos; meal with KPMG last week. Unfortunately, the employee contingent were mainly Audit, and therefore had little idea about the Advisory side. Although the company is one of the best to work for, I was slightly put off by the type of work... looked very much like applied audit. However, as I mentioned, most of the empolyees were audit/tax so will take thier views on advisory with a pinch of salt. For learning about the specifics of advisory, the videolink was more useful than the meal.I have to voice my concerns over the salary. Although the official line is &apos;salaries in audit/tax/advisory are all competitive&apos;, I have a feeling that they are also equivalent. If I&apos;m correct, and assuming that Advisory is moving back towards traditional MC (if there is such a thing), then the money is not competitive! does anyone have anonomous info they would like to share on this subject? Further to this, does anyone have any idea as to when the money is likely to become competitive (assuming KPMG DO want to attract the cream) ?

I can only speak for grad level salaries. I recently joined KPMG&apos;s RAS practise. The work is definately proper MC work. The training (2 weeks in Monaco) is fantastic and very relavant to the role.There are concerns about the salary however, as KPMG currently pay the same grad salary for Audit, Tax, and Advisory (£25,500) + end of year bonus. At the more senior levels e.g. Consultant/Manager KPMG pays well but I think they will have move salaries in line with competitors very soon if they want to attract talent. They have ambitious growth targets and are very focused on building a quality advisory practise.

i want to apply for an experienced hire role- where do you appky- there is nowhere obvious on their site apart from the email link to the head of RAS

Loads of roles on the kpmg.co.uk website, although oddly enough none come up if you filter by &apos;Risk Advisory Services&apos;, so if anyone from recruitment at KPMG is watching -- sort out your website!Still, if you look at ALL experienced roles, you&apos;ll see loads of roles in RAS, like this one:http://kpmg.i-grasp.com/fe/tpl_kpmg.asp?s=tcEbHMjWuLXcZzLur&jobid=13107,4987525698&key=1674775&c=870223237887&pagestamp=seriwhquvklcelpdvf

jimbo: cowboy headhunter name: Rav?

Tony have the other careers fair vids been posted somewhere else on this site?

Tony - thanks for posting the video, a headhunter gave me a different spin and I now know it&apos;s not for me. Are there clips from other companies we can see online as well?

Seen your comment about over selling themselves which is a worry if in reality they are short of work.Heard about Partner and staff redundancies so doubt they really can claim to be a growing force - and certainly not in the technology space.Paying big bonuses on the back of a regulatory boom is one thing but now all that&apos;s over I fear it will leave KPMG and others in the Big 4 in a difficult place.Still a good firm but we need to tone down the &apos;Big 4 is the place to be&apos; hype. We can&apos;t turn back the clock - the consulting market has moved on since they were last in it fully and I don&apos;t think some of the Big 4 have really woken up to this.