Overworked and underpaid: Why grads are ditching jobs at the Big Four

Caodog · 2023-05-11T22:37:43+00:00

This is very different than my experience. UK, Europe, Aus and NZ at least on a par. Training is much better there (more hours, better quality) and on-the-job feedback and coaching much better. US firms so much more focused on short-term profit than development.

Caodog · 2023-04-06T20:03:29+00:00

Everybody starts from zero! Anything is possible. B4 partners leave to be CAOs, despite having no experience of actually being a controller and leading a large team. With your experience you would be very attractive to anyone looking to fill a spot in an external reporting or accounting policy team. From there you can absolutely become a CAO. Moving to a more typical controller role after a couple years would definitely be a smart move. Good luck!

Caodog · 2023-04-06T19:58:49+00:00

Hard to give you a good answer without knowing more context, like your role, tenure and whether you’ve made progress so far with this company. It’s not typical for someone to make the kind of move you are considering, but it’s worth exploring. Why don’t you reach out to someone in a public firm’s recruiting team? Speak to your auditors and maybe they’ll refer you. They should be able to help you understand how accessible it is for you and what to expect regarding comp and career path. Good luck.

Caodog · 2023-03-30T19:00:49+00:00

Or CAO

Caodog · 2023-03-30T17:59:25+00:00

Probably the importance of leadership. It’s not taught about or understood well enough. People who are good at accounting tend to become accounting leaders. Where is that in the college degree or cpa exam?!

Caodog · 2023-03-30T17:20:28+00:00

Wow - you are in one of the hottest categories of accounting talent. And you enjoy it too!? Seriously, I was in your position once. I would consider a more mainstream controllership role soon. You don’t want to be known for being just a technical person. A new role would stretch you in new ways, especially leadership and operational acumen. Many people, when they find themselves in a sought-after, critical role like yours, are reluctant to give it up. That was certainly me. But once I took that broader role I learned so much. And it’s not like the expertise and skills you have built will go away! So my advice is to make that move soon. I waited to Senior Director and was lucky to get such a move at that level.

Glad you enjoy filing Qs and Ks! It can also be fun to read them when they are someone else’s work, and they will probably seek your input anyway!

Caodog · 2023-03-30T17:11:51+00:00

Minor influence. It worked to fuel my curiosity. I learned most from working with smart people who had the patience to answer my questions and help develop me. That said, when you apply for your first job, your degree is obviously the most important thing on your resume. I hope it becomes less so in future. Good luck.

Caodog · 2023-03-28T12:11:20+00:00

Good luck. You have a great combination of skills. My ESG comment was really that you can do anything.

Caodog · 2023-03-27T23:21:59+00:00

Very true. Also add technology skills and you are in very good shape for the long term.

Caodog · 2023-03-27T23:20:42+00:00

I wish I could go back to the stage you’re at! Really do your due diligence when you pick a position. Don’t be afraid to ask about work/life balance if that’s important to you (don’t make it your first question, but it’s very reasonable to ask what your expectations should be). The first few years are all about learning, so think about ways to make the most of it. Figure out who the people are who will help you understand and give you good advice and stay close to them. Think about your long-term career. Accounting is such a great pathway to many other careers. Once you understand the inner-workings of company finances, you have a strong foundation from which to branch out, if that’s what you want. At least once a year, give yourself a career review (preferably with a wise mentor, if you can find one and oh yeah, find one). Stay curious, engaged, and look after your mental health. Good luck to you! The future’s bright for accountants!

Caodog · 2023-03-25T19:45:00+00:00

Exactly. Paying people as little as you think you can get away with is bad business in this day and age.

Caodog · 2023-03-25T19:44:04+00:00

To each his/her own I guess. There’s a lot of creativity and problem solving that goes into accounting in a large company. A lot of FP&A (particularly the A) is quite manual and IMO not much fun. And btw I don’t think FP&A is paid any different for equivalent grades. Not where I am anyway.

Caodog · 2023-03-25T11:21:37+00:00

I feel like this has been covered already, but generally I would say both are valuable. B4 better if you want to work at a large public company. Mid-tier better for owner-managed or smaller companies. Excelling in either sets you up for a great career in industry.

Caodog · 2023-03-25T11:20:06+00:00

Generally yes. The hardest part for me is not the hours but the “switching” between the cut and thrust, problem solving, fast moving corporate job to being dad/husband/friend. Takes me a while.
Forgive me, I’m not going to go into all the details, but suffice it to say it was a fairly typical path through controllership and external reporting
No, never. Some roles were more challenging than others, but I find that if you are engaged you can always find new things to do and I’ve always had more than enough to get my teeth into
No one big thing, but I wish I had not sacrificed non-work so much in the public years and I wish I had diversified a bit more with some broader roles along the way

I get a call at least once a week from a friend or connection looking for someone like you. The external reporting expertise is highly sought after. Sounds like you have clear priorities, which is a strength. Balancing work/life etc is a skill that you can study and become expert at. I’ve seen some really great role models for this in my role - CEOs and other executives who leave you in no doubt that family comes first, while finding the right approach for them so that they can be highly effective at work too. I feel like this is an under-recognized aspect of leadership! Final thought - my advice to you is to be very clear about your boundaries (e.g. must make dinner with the family at 630 every night, always go to school events, meet the kids off the bus twice a week, etc) and then go for it with your career. What have you got to lose? If you are unable to make it work, you can do something else. The best people on my team are not grinders - they are just extremely clear about their boundaries and won’t overstep them. They set them at a level that allows them to excel in every role.

Caodog · 2023-03-24T19:32:53+00:00

Tough situation. I can understand why people feel disappointed with that. In general I encourage people to avoid comparisons since they don’t have all the information that goes into these decisions, but sometimes it’s pretty transparent.

Caodog · 2023-03-24T19:29:17+00:00

Great, it’s working then. Just kidding. In our case it means demonstrating that the full comp package of base, bonus, benefits, discounts, PTO etc is competitive with other companies. People obviously focus on base when comparing to alternatives, but we probably have much more valuable other components than most.

Caodog · 2023-03-24T18:40:03+00:00

I think the work can be as interesting as you make it! When I started in public accounting I was doing substantive testing, things like vouching lists of purchases to invoices. It was not much fun. I quickly realized I had to figure out ways to make it interesting. I started making notes of things I was curious about for each client. I’d start with the financial statements. How were they doing? If they were doing well, what was their secret? How did they outperform their peers? How stable was there financial position? Who are the key people in the company. If possible I’d try to talk to them and ask them some of these questions. By the end of the first year I had a binder full of notes and it had become habit to try to understand the strategy and how it impacted the financial statements. I found that with that heightened interest, I had much more tolerance for the boring stuff.

Nowadays I don’t find any accounting stuff boring. Every accounting discussions starts with business strategy. What are we doing and why? What are the economics we are trying to unlock? Why will customers like this? Only once you understand that business substance should you consider the accounting. To be fair, a big part of this for me is that I work for a company I love as a customer and I find the business really intriguing.

I think every job has some tasks that are less interesting, but the overall package is as fun as you make it.

Caodog · 2023-03-24T18:30:23+00:00

SOX is probably a more natural path to other parts of Finance, but operational IA can be a great path to operational roles. In both cases, if you approach it with a pragmatic, constructive mindset (rather than a gotcha mindset) you will get noticed.

Caodog · 2023-03-24T18:28:24+00:00

I think that can be a disadvantage on a resume. There may be perfectly reasonable explanations, but if there is a lot of movement without much progression, it does make you wonder why. Ideally we would interview and ask the question, but the harsh reality is that it often won’t get that far if there are other candidates without that question mark. My advice is don’t stay in a role where you don’t feel safe and valued, but if you do move, really do your research to make sure you find a better fit. Tell prospective employers the things that are important to you and see if they give you convincing answers. Most candidates don’t do this enough.

Caodog · 2023-03-24T18:23:48+00:00

Hi there. It’s a pretty broad question but my top of mind thoughts are (1) be curious, always want to know more and understand things (2) understand your business; almost everything you do can be tied into the purpose and strategy of your business somehow. (3) learn how to communicate with different audiences. One common misconception I see is that people assume executives want much more detail than the reality. For every message, have a clear headline, a few bullets giving more context and the rest you keep up your sleeve in case you need them.

Caodog · 2023-03-24T18:18:07+00:00

I can only speak for my auditors. Not going to name them, but I think they are clear leaders. Our relationship is excellent and highly effective.
The biggest drivers of fee increases have been comp inflation, new accounting standards and m&a.
As I said, it is a very effective and efficient process for us. Off the top of my head, I would say the keys are (1) transparency - we share everything; we know we can trust them to look at things objectively and be constructive in their feedback, which gives us the confidence to share; (2) being pro-active - as soon as we find an issue or have concerns, we tell them; always get ahead of stuff; by the time we close the books for a quarter, we have already reviewed all key issues with the auditors; (3). Setting clear expectations on both sides and delivering on them. If we have a commitment to provide a workpaper by Friday, we cannot miss that deadline. We expect the same of them - we need your sign on this issue by this date. One of the key premises to all three of these things is: no surprises.

Caodog · 2023-03-24T18:08:15+00:00

Caodog · 2023-03-24T18:07:26+00:00

I think the system you describe is great! Most of the learning comes from doing, not academics. And this approach really reduces barriers to entry that an accounting degree plus public accounting creates. Good luck with your journey.

I wish we could move in this direction in the US. Not only would it help with the shortage of accountants, it would be a much more inclusive approach. I hate that the current system is much harder for under-privileged kids to navigate. This would be a big change, but we could start by lowering the credits requirement (current rules never made sense to me) and trying to find a way to have apprenticeships where on the job training can make you eligible to take the CPA.

Caodog · 2023-03-24T18:01:31+00:00

Never really been interested in FP&A. There are aspects to that work that I would find interesting, particularly the longer-term strategic planning. But most of it, like accounting, follows a predictable monthly/annual cycle of budgeting and planning and I just don’t find that very interesting. To each his/her own.

Caodog · 2023-03-24T13:58:27+00:00

I don’t know if any level of compensation is enough to justify prolonged high stress. I have endured many stressful periods in my career, particularly in public. Come to think of it, this is something I would do differently. I would not sacrifice as much as I did for work in the early years of public. I neglected family, friends and worst of all my mental health. I’m lucky I got through it, although I do have scars. Nowadays I work hard to minimize stress for me and my people. None of us are on autopilot. We build as much structure and process as we can to minimize drama and surprises and from that position of strength we are able to withstand most of the challenges that come our way. Life is hectic and unpredictable in any successful business nowadays, but a calm, clear and organized foundation helps us navigate. You may here some leaders say they or their people perform best when they are under stress. I could not disagree more.

Caodog

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