This is in response to the question on whether I get to choose my own team...
It's possible, but takes a good amount of effort. So many client schedules intertwine that it is difficult to pull somebody you like, and place them on to your team. So if you work with somebody and you do end up meshing with their personality and they work hard, you'd want them on some of your clients but will notice that they are already booked.
I've pretty much been working with the same higher-ups since I started. Managers are usually the ones who set schedules. So hopefully he or she is in the loop about the quality of personnel needed for a specific job. The unspoken rule around this firm are that the better you are, the worse the client are that you get put on. Why is it the case? Well, it essentially means that you will be able to handle the more complex clients and your worklife will be more hellish. Unfortunately, the firms don't do enough to seperate the good auditors from the average auditors in terms of salary, and so where's the motivation to perform well outside of anything internally generated? I've personally heard people who said that they don't really try to perform a good job since they don't want to be on bad jobs, and the pay raise over auditors with lower ratings is just simply not enough to motivative them. But i digress.
Back to the question, a lot of politics go into setting up your own team, a dream team of sorts.
You have to get scheduling on your side, that's a group you just do NOT want to piss off. Next thing you know, you'll be scheduled on a job in locations you just do not want to be in.
You also need to schedule your team well in advance, as far back as a year if you can. This foresight will be extremely helpful when arguing with other teams about personnel.
And finally, you better hope your team will still be working at the firm by the time the audit begins.
It's possible, but takes a good amount of effort. So many client schedules intertwine that it is difficult to pull somebody you like, and place them on to your team. So if you work with somebody and you do end up meshing with their personality and they work hard, you'd want them on some of your clients but will notice that they are already booked.
I've pretty much been working with the same higher-ups since I started. Managers are usually the ones who set schedules. So hopefully he or she is in the loop about the quality of personnel needed for a specific job. The unspoken rule around this firm are that the better you are, the worse the client are that you get put on. Why is it the case? Well, it essentially means that you will be able to handle the more complex clients and your worklife will be more hellish. Unfortunately, the firms don't do enough to seperate the good auditors from the average auditors in terms of salary, and so where's the motivation to perform well outside of anything internally generated? I've personally heard people who said that they don't really try to perform a good job since they don't want to be on bad jobs, and the pay raise over auditors with lower ratings is just simply not enough to motivative them. But i digress.
Back to the question, a lot of politics go into setting up your own team, a dream team of sorts.
You have to get scheduling on your side, that's a group you just do NOT want to piss off. Next thing you know, you'll be scheduled on a job in locations you just do not want to be in.
You also need to schedule your team well in advance, as far back as a year if you can. This foresight will be extremely helpful when arguing with other teams about personnel.
And finally, you better hope your team will still be working at the firm by the time the audit begins.
Comments
Wow, fast reply. I stayed up till 1AM last night (dawn) reading your blog.
I will be graduating in April and will start articling with a small/medium firm (not among the big 4s plus I don't live in a big city like Vancouver, so I guess it won't be as hellish as what you have right now) on May but I couldn't wait and I'm too excited that I want to find out more about the work environment. Another blog led me to yours, and I just want to thank you...your blog has been the most insightful so far. Thank you, thank you, so much! I hope you don't stop updating your blog. I want to ask you a thousand more questions, but I'll control myself. Hehe. Thanks again.
UAE Audit