Opportunities to learn a lot but slow career and salary progression - Anonymous employee BDO Employee Review

2.0
Jun 24, 2021
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

- I've been working with good people in my team so far; teammates are willing to offer help when I ask for it. - Steep learning curve, at least for the first 1.5 years or so.

Cons

- Workload has increased significantly since the end of last year due to BDO winning new clients, but size of staff has remained relatively stagnant. Therefore, current staff had to work much longer hours to complete deliverables. - Despite the increased revenue from new clients, salaries of most employees (especially the junior staff) have not increased much. This appears to be one of the main causes of the staff retention problem the firm has. - Career progression pathway for audit trainees is too rigid, mainly only focusing on the ACA. Progression is quite unclear if one has decided to take a different work-related technical qualification outside of accountancy qualifications. - Performance review process is too rigid and convoluted, meaning that individual employees are not accurately evaluated and rewarded based on the actual hard work they've done.

Explore other reviews about BDO

5.0
Jun 2, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Strong team culture and they offered great flexibility throughout the internship.

Cons

High workload during busy season (although that is expected)

2.0
Jun 5, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

There actually are great people, but you play manager roulette.

Cons

BDO is notorious for promoting people who just never leave. The middle of the road, not great, not awful, people get promoted over and over again. There have been changes every 3 seconds since the ESOP. Terrible communication around change (non-existent). My manager's favorite term was "We are building the plane as we fly it". After 4 years, I was hoping to have more plane built. It was never built.

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