Skip to main content

salaries

It amazes me that the big 4 get away with such a ridiculous salary structure. Props to the accounting firms for perfecting such a structure. It makes sense though, they hire so many graduates now that replacing entry level employees is not much of a problem. Where it hits them is when seniors/senior associates and above start quitting. They can't be replaced immediately. The stress and number of hours they put in is not reflected in their salaries. That is why, sometimes, we are curious by and do not mind those myriad calls by recruiters with offers from "financial service companies" with offers 30% above our salaries and way less hours. That's when a work-life balance and higher salary requirements really kick in for us. I'm okay with the salaries offered to the staff associates for the first two years. But after that, the salary levels are absolutely dismal. By that time, most would have had or in pursuit of their CPAs, and thus are highly lucrative targets for both companies and recruiters alike. In order to compete against this, the big 4 should increase salary levels. Then again, if the salaries of employees increase, earnings of partners decrease, which means they can't by that condo on the beachfront. Sorry employees, but you're not as important as that condo.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

should you choose to audit financial services?

I'm trying to decide whether to audit financial services companies or non-financial services companies. What would you say are the pros and cons of either industries? Do individuals who choose non-FS have less career mobility within the firm or if they decide not to stay with the B4 after a few years? Really depends on what you'd like to do after (unless you really love auditing). If you want to a controller,etc. at a p/e firm or a hedge fund down the road, you'd want to go into financial services. The pay won't be too bad, especially if you get a share of the insane bonuses they dole out. If you want to audit industries with tangible products and want to get a better understanding of the operations of such businesses, then other industries are the way to go.In terms of mobility outside the firm, auditing other industries is the way to go since you have plenty of options when you exit the audit world. For example, in 2008, after Lehman collapsed, it was incredibly hard ...
49 comments
Read more

ADP/Payroll

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.
36 comments
Read more

auditing vs consulting

I was wondering if you could break down the career opportunities in auditing and consulting (in a big 4). I know that consulting pays more in a big 4 and has more interesting work, but it seems that auditing has extremely good exit opportunities (Financial controller, CFO etc). Any thoughts on which is better in the long run? Well there's different consulting services offered by public accounting companies - the most popular being IT consulting and risk consulting. There are also other consulting services offered, but these two hire the most. Do they pay more? Yes, but not by much. Not enough for you to say: Shoot, the $$ is a huge reason for me to move over. Is the work more interesting than audit? Yes. You're actually looking over a company's processes and telling them what to do instead of what not to do (audit). Everyone I know who's made the switch likes it waay better than audit. In the long run though, choosing audit vs consulting really depends on what you want ...
66 comments
Read more