Pros
Crowe started off with a lot of benefits, including the ability to drive your future and head in the direction you had the most interest in; things like Manufacturing and Distribution, Healthcare, Banking / Financial Services, FinTechs and many other areas including your standard Regulatory Compliance, Tech Risk, BSA/AML, Credit, and much more. I selected Crowe as my first job out of college because of the honesty of it's people, the integrity and poise with which their leaders held themselves, and their accountability. It started off with their motto of Care, Share, Invest, and Grow; and Crowe really did a good job of doing all of those...back then. The pay was very competitive, and they offered to have you join in growing a world class organization. Work was really fun, I enjoyed the people I worked with. They were all very smart and intelligent. We had amazing perks like peer lunches / dinners every quarter in our first year of start with the firm, Road Warrior benefits for those of us that traveled a decent amount on the road were absolutely amazing. Our credit cards fees (up to $500) were covered for as were the phone bills. The ability to reach out to a local office partner and get a pleasant response to help on whatever was needed was great. There were also a lot of intangible, unquantifiable benefits the company provided, however, none of these benefits exist anymore. The hours are pretty standard, not as intense as Big 4 depending on the role, but can be worse depending on your Partner or Senior Manager. Advancement from Staff to Senior is what some would call easy and standard, but I've seen some get held back a year. There are opportunities out there
Cons
Lots of things have changed after the first restructure in 2017. The company had changed its name from Crowe Horwath to Crowe LLP and it's internal structure from Business Risk to Financial Services Risk Consulting, and is an ever evolving nightmare. - 3 years of restructures that were not communicated well. We struggled through it, hoping management would spare us. Decisions were made at the top to let go of lots of good people without all partners knowing and having a say. Managing Directors were laid off as well as some partners who were "thanked for their service". I wouldn't call that a great partnership to be a part of. Employee morale was decimated, as was the number of staff and seniors in our office and many more in the mid-west. Our in- person Town Halls at the office, which once consisted of jam packed rooms filling 50 or more, barely had 7 or 8 including the Partners and Senior Managers. For 2 years, we had no staff from one particular office that we regularly visited to service its IA clients. Recruiters had no idea that we needed IT staff. People just kept disappearing left and right; and you would just know when you tried to contact someone and their status reads "Presence Unknown". It was traumatic, and most of us always wondered when we would be next, and then it came. - Peer Program disappeared. - Road Warrior Programs were axed. - Raises for Staff promoted to Seniors were in name only followed by an annual raise % that was less than the number of fingers I can count on one hand. - Annual Bonuses were extremely disappointing. I made much more through the Road Warrior Program than my annual bonus. Too bad that disappeared. - Schedulers constantly asked to push back exams, tests for chargeable client work when it was scheduled months in advance, which doesn't help when you're really trying hard to get a certification. - Any issues are generally brushed under the rug, and forgotten, including audit reports that finally get reviewed only after they need to go to the clients Audit Committee. - Seniors are often over-worked and given a title of "Project Lead' while being required to perform Manager (or higher) level activities on top of day-to-day workload, communications with clients, and steering the project. - Communication from upper management is poor, and often times cannot be trusted. - Clearly, attrition as evident as the total number of staff is less than it was in 2019 as is the total revenue of the firm.
