There is a unanimous belief that a Big 4 company is the best way to start a career for accountants, financial consultants, tax specialists, etc. Most of us are well aware of those 4 brands:

PricewaterhouseCoopers, Deloitte, Ernst&Young and KPMG.

Of course this highly regarded reputation makes it more difficult for job seekers to secure place at those firms. To better understand whom they are looking for and get some help for being hired by Big 4 go through below list of useful points:

1. Education. As the main fields of Big 4 business are accounting, tax and finance, of course some educational background in those areas would be useful. However it well may be the case when people with totally different grades are hired.
2. Communication skills. Among the soft skills that is critical for working in Big 4 we may definitely put Communication on the top of a page. Reason behind it is that most of the working time Big 4 employees closely interact with the high level personnel of client companies. It carries more importance as those outside contacts often changes and you have to find common language with the very diversified range of personalities. Once your communication skills are not well-developed, you may be just omitted regardless of your education, professional qualification and other hard skills.
3. Creative. Big 4 companies always looking for bright and creative personalities. So try to demonstrate maximum of your creative nature at interview. Also be very personable, clean cut and articulate.
4. Leadership. Leadership achievements would also be an asset for you. Try to list your lifetime achievements as much as possible. This may include leadership in school or university projects, involvement in the community, some records in team leader role.
5. Readiness to work hard. Demonstrate that you are not scared of working hard and staying long hours if needed. Job at the Big 4 could be seasonal and busy seasons may force you to stay really late and extend yours work day up to 10-11 hours.
6. Diverse experience. If you have been involved into many areas of business and social life it could really promote your nomination. More diversified you are more value you can bring to clients.
7. Languages. Regardless of the country of your residence English would probably be the compulsory requirement. Speaking more languages would be only advantage in your favor.
8. Excel skills. As working at Big 4 presumes much interaction with external companies, you’ll always have to deal with pretty different formats of data. Fast processing of various file formats would help you much and spare your time significantly.
9. Internship. Try to grab this opportunity. Readiness to work for free is very valuable for recruiters. They will obviously consider you first once vacancy arise.