Good place to start a CPA career, but felt undervalued by headquarters
Pros
As a medium-sized professional services firm, CLA was a great place to start an auditing career as most clients are small enough that first year staff gain exposure to several different audit areas right from the start. This also leads to opportunities for working on clients from 2 or 3 different industries, which was also very interesting. Managers and Seniors on my team were genuinely concerned with my development and were generally great to work with. Company offered lots of opportunities for training and all staff traveled to headquarters each year for a full week of training.
Cons
The main con is one that I feel is true for most/all auditing firms, which is that audit staff and audit seniors are being criticized one day for not having enough billable hours and the next day for running over individual project budgets that were built based on a target realization rate rather than a valid assessment of the time required. Also, the benefits plan left many things to be desired, healthcare coverage had significant co-insurance %s and either high deductibles or high premiums compared to other jobs I've had. Annual raises were generally 2-5% so experienced staff wound up not making much more than the next year's entry level staff.
