It's amazing how fast this job accelerates your aging. A majority of the senior managers and partners either have white hair or no hair. People with joyful personalities at 22 turn into numbed zombies after 5 years at the Firm. People who wanted to hang out with co-workers all the time now shudder at the thought of sharing quality time outside of work with their teams. People who used to smile naturally now force smiles or avoid eye contact when bumping into others. How many personalities have changed significantly from when they started? This job can really suck some of the life out of you. But hey, hopefully it's worth it (I hope).
Just realized that the very payroll/adp reports we all enjoyed looking at in order to see how much our client contacts made, now seem to piss me off. Especially when your main contact, who couldn't tell a debit from a credit, makes significantly more than you, and leaves at 5. It's almost guaranteed to get you in a foul mood and yak with your team about the ridiculous salaries that certain employees get when compared to yours.
Comments
Can you speak to the differences between larger offices and smaller ones? I've heard that sometimes smaller offices, while they have fewer clients, also have fewer workers on those clients, and therefore you can be on multiple clients, with multiple year ends and essentially, multiple busy seasons/more hours throughout the year. On the other hand, even though bigger offices in bigger markets (Chicago for example) have more clients, they have enough staff that you are generally on one client, and therefore have a more set schedule, less hours, typical "70 during busy season, 40 rest of the year" format, etc.
Do you have any knowledge on this topic?
Thanks
http://lifeofanauditor.blogspot.com/2011/09/can-you-talk-about-working-at-big_06.html
Can you speak to this: The amount of documentation required during audits seems outrageous to me. I must spend half of my time tidying up documents, making them look perfect, and get called out if one little item is not formatted properly. And so much of it seems redundant. Especially for workpapers that really go nowhere. Maybe it is just my organization, but can you touch on audit workpaper documentation? Thanks.
As far as office sizes;
I work in a smaller office and I do have I guess 2 busy seasons (one ends March 1st, the other April 1st) but that's not because of lack of staff, but instead because in your smaller towns, which lend themselves to smaller offices, you have fewer of your giant public clients (e.g. AT&T) and more smaller public and large private clients, which are not forced to the SEC deadline for their 10-K and can push their Year end audit work out after the public companies file.
I am a big fan of your blog and have learned a lot from it already.
I recently landed interview with a large (non-Big4) firm for an audit position and sadly did not receive an offer. I felt that the conversations and interviews were flawless and smooth. I believe one of the main reasons I did not get the offer is due to the fact that the other people interviewing for the job were enrolled in a masters of accounting this year, while I was just taking extra accounting classes at a community college (to reach the accounting units for the CPA as I graduated with a BA in Econ in Spring '12).
Would you think I would have a better chance next hiring season if I enroll in a Master of accounting program for the Fall and try again next years hiring season or continue taking community college classes?
Thank you,
A hopeful auditor
I did have a question regarding applying for Big 4 as an experienced CPA. I've heard from a few sources that Big 4 are hurting for seniors, but how long is the turn around for hiring people from the outside to take their places? Better yet, how long in advance should a person apply to a senior position. 1 week? 1 month? 6 months>?
THANKS!!
This is a great blog for both prospective, current, and ex public auditors. Keep it up