Pros
In short, Ryan is a great place for high-achievers. If you welcome challenges, are creative, curious, intelligent, and have a strong work ethic, you will be successful. In the early days Ryan had a reputation as a sweatshop for young tax consultants. This was evidenced by the Big 4's efforts to poach senior consultants and managers in the early and mid-2000's. Now, Ryan has matured into a firm with a healthy balance of career growth and personal attention that I find refreshing and rare in the consulting / accounting / finance industry. If you are a young college grad you will grow faster and gain more experience with Ryan than with most other firms. If you are experienced and coming from another firm there will be an adjustment period as you become accustomed to Ryan's method of doing business.
The long story (my personal story): I joined Ryan’s Dallas office fresh out of college in 2004 as a Finance grad from a Midwestern university. I wasn’t necessarily looking for a career in tax, but the business model and the amount of young talent was attractive. I just happened to join one of the fastest-growing and most successful sales and use tax teams in the firm (my original manager is now a practice leader). I left Ryan after two years primarily for personal and location reasons (my now-spouse lived in a city without a Ryan office), but back then a lot of people left Ryan when they were ready to settle down and start a family. The work environment was difficult to support a work-life balance. I worked in the energy industry for a few years and ended up starting a couple small businesses that provided a handsome living. Still, I had always enjoyed the people at Ryan and enjoyed the work, and after I grew my businesses about as big as they could be I still felt I had more opportunity at Ryan. I started unwinding my businesses in 2013 and re-joined Ryan, winding down my last business in late 2015. What a difference seven years made – Ryan had grown from 250 employees to 2,000 employees and had taken massive steps to improve employee retention through myRyan (go visit the website to read more - it really is unique and a lifesaver for those with kids). I now have my own team and am relocating from Dallas to the Northeast to help build out one of our practices in the region. It is an opportunity to grow both personally and financially that would be rare at a much larger firm such as the Big 4. I am well aware of the opportunities, or lack thereof, at the Big 4 based on numerous friends who work in all four firms - many of whom used to work at Ryan.
Being able to view Ryan from the inside as an employee, from afar as an ex-employee, and again as an employee gives me valuable perspective that most Ryan employees do not have, as most of those who joined since 2008 have remained at Ryan. Choose an industry job if you want to work barely 40 hours a week, grow excruciatingly slow in your career, handle compliance issues every month, and decent benefits but mediocre pay. Choose the Big 4 if you want high turnover, decent pay but no life-changing opportunities and the experience of always leaving money on the table for your clients. Choose Ryan if you wish to be financially rewarded for the amount of tax you save your clients, want to work with a young and talented workforce, wish to be promoted based on results rather than seniority, and want a company with much room to grow within the market. I love working at Ryan and would recommend it to anyone who believes their desires align with my experience.
Cons
Your success, at least early in your career (5 years or less), is heavily dependent upon the practice area and team you are hired into. The firm is taking steps to ensure a somewhat even distribution of projects, but just like the real world the highest-achieving managers will be given the best projects. Ryan does not exercise a welfare / redistribution scheme so that everybody gets a trophy. I recommend pressing hard in your interviews and with your recruiter to learn the amount of opportunity in your planned destination. If you happen to end up on a team with limited opportunity, take the initiative to network with other teams and lead some of the committees to show your leadership potential. If you truly are a hard worker and deserving of opportunity it will be given to you – you may just have to work harder than those who fall into a top-performing team. Once you are promoted and running your own team your success will rely solely upon your own talents.
