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I was wondering if anyone can tell me anything about the following topics for Big4 Int tax and M&A tax in NYC, specifically for GULC/NYU Tax LLM

Typical starting salary
Typical interview questions (will it be technical?)
Differences between the 4 firms
Differences between M&A tax vs. Int Tax
Amount of travel

What are good questions to ask the interviewers?

Should I play up my Excel skills, which are well above the typical law student? (pivot tables competency, financial modeling at average ibanker level, and basic VBA skills) Do the interviewers even care?

Specific landmines I should look out for?

Typical starting salary: may have changed, but I’ve heard as low as 90k (Deloitte SF) to 120 (PwC NY)

Typical interview questions (will it be technical?): Deloitte was technical, the others were very laid back and relaxed.

Differences between the 4 firms: KPMG and Deloitte have pensions. Honestly, they’re essentially the same just like most law firms on similar tiers

Differences between M&A tax vs. Int Tax: a lot, M&A is a lot of due diligence for deals, ITS is a lot of memo writing. Both do structuring work.
Amount of travel: less than 10%

What are good questions to ask the interviewers? Ask about how the teams are staffed and the types of clients the office deals with.

Should I play up my Excel skills, which are well above the typical law student? (pivot tables competency, financial modeling at average ibanker level, and basic VBA skills) Do the interviewers even care? Yes. You will actually be a valuable asset to the firm. A lot of the first year is training on these systems, so if you already know what you’re doing, you may get even more substantive work.

Specific landmines I should look out for? n/a

Thank you.

It's good to hear from as many people as possible.

Please note the pension is a joke. I accrued something like 1k after working at Deloitte for 4 years.

What about promotion timelines? Internet suggests pwc is slower to promote to senior associate but that doesn’t seem specific to tax LLM.

If I wanted to lateral to something like advisory or strategic consulting or go to business school, would it make a difference which big 4 I go to?

Which one would expose me to most quantitative work and travel? By firm and by department (transfer pricing, M&A, int tax)

To be honest, if I can make 120k, enough to pay rent and living expenses in Manhattan, I am happy. I am mostly concerned about upward and horizontal mobility than pay in the short term. Will I get this much in NYC with all the big 4s? Any department where I wouldn’t get this? (I heard PwC core tax pay less)

icansortofmath wrote:What about promotion timelines? Internet suggests pwc is slower to promote to senior associate but that doesn’t seem specific to tax LLM.

If I wanted to lateral to something like advisory or strategic consulting or go to business school, would it make a difference which big 4 I go to?

Which one would expose me to most quantitative work and travel? By firm and by department (transfer pricing, M&A, int tax)

To be honest, if I can make 120k, enough to pay rent and living expenses in Manhattan, I am happy. I am mostly concerned about upward and horizontal mobility than pay in the short term. Will I get this much in NYC with all the big 4s? Any department where I wouldn’t get this? (I heard PwC core tax pay less)

Promotion to senior is pretty much automatic at PwC after 2 years with a JD in these groups. 3 year timeline for senior is more for other groups and people without advanced degrees.

You're really not going to travel in any of these groups, with limited exceptions.

There's a lot of quantitative work in international right now around tax reform.

Thank you.

Let's say if I WANTED to travel. Would I be able to get assignments that allow me to travel in Int Tax or M&A?

icansortofmath wrote:Thank you.

Let's say if I WANTED to travel. Would I be able to get assignments that allow me to travel in Int Tax or M&A?

Same anon from above...

I’m reticent to say absolutely not, because I have limited knowledge of firms outside my own, but yeah I’ve basically never seen it at associate/senior level. As you get more senior than that, you may travel to more conferences and/or to meet clients in some cases, but the actual work done in these groups just very very rarely requires a physical presence in a particular place to the extent that it’s worth the firm paying for your travel/expenses.

Auditors travel quite a bit because they often need to be on-site at clients, but that’s just not really the case in tax.

Anonymous User wrote:

icansortofmath wrote:Thank you.

Let's say if I WANTED to travel. Would I be able to get assignments that allow me to travel in Int Tax or M&A?

Same anon from above...

I’m reticent to say absolutely not, because I have limited knowledge of firms outside my own, but yeah I’ve basically never seen it at associate/senior level. As you get more senior than that, you may travel to more conferences and/or to meet clients in some cases, but the actual work done in these groups just very very rarely requires a physical presence in a particular place to the extent that it’s worth the firm paying for your travel/expenses.

Auditors travel quite a bit because they often need to be on-site at clients, but that’s just not really the case in tax.

A manager I know traveled to Japan twice during the year with the partner to discuss stuff with the client.

Also, a director I know traveled to a German office for something.

And I know a few seniors who have been asked if they want to work abroad for 6-12 months on client engagements.

So, not completely out of the question.

icansortofmath wrote:Thank you.

Let's say if I WANTED to travel. Would I be able to get assignments that allow me to travel in Int Tax or M&A?

If you really like traveling, I'd suggest doing management consulting. For tax, travel is likely going to be the exception for anyone below the partner level. I travel a decent bit doing in-house tax, but I'm the exception even within the tax department.

nealric wrote: If you really like traveling, I'd suggest doing management consulting. For tax, travel is likely going to be the exception for anyone below the partner level. I travel a decent bit doing in-house tax, but I'm the exception even within the tax department.

I actually tried during 3L. I have no business experience and a recruiter at Oliver Wyman straight told me they couldn't hire me as an associate but think I'm a flight risk if they hire me as an analyst. The pay cut is just too big. To be frank, she was probably right.

A related question, lateral into management consulting possible from Internation/M&A tax? How about MBA?