BDO reviews

3.5

62% would recommend to a friend

(10,335 total reviews)

Pat Kramer and Peter van Laer

73% approve of CEO

57% positive business outlook

BDO has an employee rating of 3.5 out of 5 stars, based on 10,335 company reviews on Glassdoor which indicates that most employees have a good working experience there. The BDO employee rating is in line with the average (within 1 standard deviation) for employers within the Finanzen industry (3.7 stars).

Reviews by job title

10K reviews
1.0
Jun 23, 2020
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Get to experience a wide variety of clients, and complete files from start to finish, helping increase exposure compared to a Big 4 firm.

Cons

Anything related to HR policy is intentionally vague. The company will make several promises prior to tax season to incentivize unpaid overtime, then redact these promises once the work is complete. During my first tax season I was promised banked hours and put in 250 hours of unpaid time. Once tax season finished, the HR policy was changed to replace over time with a bonus at the end of the year. This erased all of my banked hours, which I was not compensated for. The "performance bonus" equated to $8/hour when considering the overtime I had worked. Any staff below management level are blatantly ignored during meetings and told to be quiet when offering solutions. None of the managers are provided training on how to manage staff, and it was extremely common that if you went to your manager with an issue, personal or work related, the entire office would know about it by the end of the day. The only people that get rewarded/recognized are those that are willing to forego work/life balance, and work 70+ hours per week with no additional compensation. Competence does not factor into raises, only time spent in the office. Managers use guilt, shame, fear, and lies to motivate people.

1.0
Apr 9, 2020
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Free fruit and coffee. Some people are genuinely nice (although few and far between)

Cons

Lack of diversity - subtle racism. They are great at making you feel left out and not leaving obvious evidence so you’re not able to raise it to anyone Passive aggressive people - sarcasm and opinions not taken into consideration Subtle acts of showing you’re not valued - things like no welcome lunch, no buddy, not getting a locker compared to other people Unclear progression pathway - need to beg if you don’t fit in, even if you have good merit ratings. Other people who fit in can get away with not doing work whereas you work so hard only to get the finger Partners who only care about profits - They lie and make you feel like they’ll do something for you but goes through HR for “bad news”. No guts to speak to you in person

2.0
Dec 25, 2019

NOT A PLACE TO BE

Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

BDO SF has some interesting client works for anyone that has passion of doing taxes. This is a great place for anyone who is fresh out of college. You can join the firm without any basic accounting knowledge. If you do not know how to complete a balance sheet, you can still survive at this office. Your senior and above will roll up their sleeves and wrap up the work for you. For first year staff, if you just want to do what you are told without thinking thoroughly, this is the place for you. If you are okay that you only get to do less than five returns for a year, this is the place for you.

Cons

The scheduling is a mess. Your managers, sr. managers or partners do not communicate to each other when there is a priority issue. They do not give real feedback to staff on real time basis even though they tell you they will at interviews. You will be very surprised to hear a lot of comments after the career round table discussion. People falling behind do not receive proper guidance and feel sad to come to work. The office culture and environment are very bad - talking behind, yelling, and the worse - since it is an open space environment, your senior, manager will look at your screen and see what you are doing (even you are doing client works.) I will leave you to judge whether this is the professional environment where you want to be.

Viewing 292 - 294 of 10,335 Reviews

Glassdoor has 15,143 BDO reviews submitted anonymously by BDO employees. Read employee reviews and ratings on Glassdoor to decide if BDO is right for you.