Life of an auditor

I always wondered how people at the Big 4 leave. Do you just call up recruiters? Or do you reach out to your alumni buddies and/or clients? Good question. We average 1-2 recruiter voicemails/emails a week, some list out available jobs at unnamed public and private companies, and some just tell you to call them since they have opportunities they think you'll be interested in. Assuming they get these "leads" through the AICPA directory or the state CPA society directory. Then they bombard you with phone calls and voicemails, hoping that somebody will bite. Most people who seriously consider leaving will either call one of these recruiters back or hear from ex co-workers who left, and use their recruiters instead. References are huge in this world, so if an alum who left had a good experience with a recruiter, the word spreads, and you tend to gravitate towards that recruiter. I usually ignore these calls, but, not going to lie, I did end up calling a few back over the cour...

what would you say is the MOST common exit route from the Big 4? Asst/Controller, Accounting Managers? How about pay and hours speaking in a very general sense? $80-100k 60hrs a week ish? This is another one I'd need to break down by level - Staff associates and senior associates: When staff associates leave, they usually get a 10% raise over what they were making in auditing, and get senior accountant jobs. Some senior associates and managers: 15-20% raises - with jobs like assistant controllers, controller, internal audit managers, and SEC reporting manager positions available in plenty Senior managers - Controller positions, director of research positions and SEC director positions, with 20-30% raises likely. You will definitely not work as many hours or as hard. It will be close to a 8-5 lifestyle with occassional pockets of hard work periodically. It will take you time to adjust since you're so used to quick deadlines and working 12-13 hours a day.

It is amazing how much companies and recruiters value the big 4 experience. The multitude of calls and emails telling us about job openings and public and private companies is proof of this. They're constantly telling us that these companies are looking for auditors with 3-5+ years of business experience. Why is this the case? Well, I think it's analagous to the hiring at private equity firms and investment banks, they primarily hire people either from other private equity firms, investment banks, or ivy league colleges.  There are still a ton of equally talented and smart individuals from other colleges or companies, but the private equity firms and investment banks are primary comprised of ivy leaguers and bankers, so they tend to show preferential treatment to individuals with similar backgrounds since they already know the type of experience these individuals had. The accounting groups at public companies are primarily headed up by people with public accounting experience, ...

Guess my last post was around thanksgiving. Busy season lived up to its name. Plus to be honest, I ran out of things to blog about. Not sure whether this means I've addressed pretty much everything, or whether I'm drinking the corporate kool-aid even more. I think it's a bit of both. Not going to lie, the job does get better the higher up you go. Maybe it's a deep comfort zone I've got into, or maybe it's the stockholm syndrome I blogged about earlier. Looking at that blog from 2008, I said - "I've been railing against people drinking the kool-aid ever since I began working at my firm. Now, I'm dangerously close to getting into a comfort zone. This is one step before drinking the kool-aid myself. I still have a long ways to go before I do that. " Almost three years later, and I guess I've reached that point. I think I've realized that I could fight and complain all I want, but it's not going to change certain aspects of the industr...