According to This, Who You Work With Is More Important Than Where You Work

Just a friendly reminder, Vault will be releasing its latest Accounting Rankings — when else — on April 15 so those of you who like to whip it out and compare should mark your calendars accordingly.

For now, we get a teaser:

This year, we surveyed more than 10,000 accountants at the top 90 accounting firms in the U.S., asking them to comment on life at their firm. Included in that survey was a question that asked which three factors were most important to accountants when they were deciding on which firm to join. And, this year, unlike last year, respondents to our survey told us that "firm culture/colleagues," and not "prestige," was most important. 

This year, 46.2 percent of respondents cited "firm culture/colleagues" as one of the three most important factors, while 38.8 percent cited "prestige" as one of the three most important. This was a significant change from last year when "prestige" was deemed most important; last year, 47.0 percent of respondents cited "prestige" as one of the most important, while 45.4 percent cited "firm culture/colleagues."

When asked "Which were the three most important factors in your decision to accept this firm's offer?" respondents this year weren't so big on prestige, as noted above. Suck on that, Big 4 recruiters!

I'm a little surprised it took the survey this long to reflect the fact that who you work with is more important than where you work (this explains why people continue to accept offers from, say, McGladrey).

Oh, and then there's this:

On average, our survey respondents this year gave their overall job satisfaction a rating of 7.86 versus 8.09 last year (on a 10-point scale, with 10 being highly satisfied and 1 being not satisfied at all). And accountants gave their satisfaction with respect to how many hours they work a rating of 7.00 this year versus 7.10 last year. In addition, they gave work/life balance a rating of 7.61 this year versus 7.78 last year, and compensation satisfaction a 7.11 rating this year versus 7.22 last year.

In other words, accountants are currently a lot less happy than they were this time last year.

There's plenty more data to nerd out on for now at the Vault blog so head on over and get your fill.