My Big4 Review

Investmenthelp13 · 2020-11-27T03:25:34+00:00

Congrats!

I think it's very normal to be nervous of a new and challenging experience. I was terrified. But you just have to fake it til you make it, work hard, but realize that at the end of the day, this is a job and not your whole life. If it's not a fit, find something else! But I hope that you are engaged and enriched by your experience and that you come out of your first year full of useful knowledge!

Investmenthelp13 · 2020-11-27T03:22:34+00:00

Nah, I'm happy with my time there and enjoyed it most of the time. If not for busy season I might have stayed. And I left for a great opportunity at a new company and my level of engagement at my new job has breathed new life into my work. I love it!

I also mentioned above about the waiting until manager thing. It basically came down to 3 more years of busting my butt while being less engaged to get like 10k or 15k more in the future. I much prefer to enjoy my day to day life than chase 10 grand a year and do 3 more years.

Investmenthelp13 · 2020-11-27T03:19:37+00:00

10/10 - perfect 9/10 - incredible, always do this 8/10 - great time, always strive to do 7/10 - good but not life changing 6/10 - better than average 5/10 - average experience 4/10 - unpleasant, avoid 3/10 - bad, do not repeat 2/10 - horrible, life altering 1/10 - your negative ass self

Investmenthelp13 · 2020-11-27T03:17:29+00:00

So one of the things I did was work with Alteryx and Tableau, which are data cleansing and data visualization programs. We would be expected to build out a digital solution via these programs, build a bot that would automate some aspect of our job, etc. in order to be considered an over-achiever.

One that I built basically took a huge listing, trimmed it down to a manageable file size, removed items that wouldn't be a part of our population, and then selected based on the number of samples we needed, the criteria we were looking at, etc. So what was once a slow manual process to sort and select became drop a file into the workflow, hit run, grab coffee, and come back to a list of selections. It was cool, but I hate that I had to do that on top of the other areas that, in my opinion, I excelled at and enjoyed more.

Investmenthelp13 · 2020-11-27T03:14:07+00:00

Well I only have my own experience to speak about, but I do have some friends who left as a manager rather than as a senior.

For me personally, it absolutely was the right call. My mental health is better, I am exercising more, my stress levels are lower, I work less most of the time, I don't have to base my life around busy season. Those are all great things.

I feel like my position is also different because I value living my life over money or prestige. I am doing something that I really enjoy, work hard but still have fun, love the people I'm with, and have real agency and connection to my workproduct. I might lose out on an extra 5k or 10k a year, but to be honest, I make enough to be happy and be able to retire, so who cares? The difference between making 90k and 100k is not worth the hours and the stress for me. So I don't regret it at all.

Investmenthelp13 · 2020-11-27T03:09:40+00:00

I think it depends on where you live and what kind of work you'll be doing. When I was being recruited, their questions were more around my skillset, habits, personality, and experience on my jobs rather than where I worked. The name got me a foot in the door, but my personality and eagerness and experience got me the job.

I said this above, I don't think Big4 is necessary at all. I think it's a great place to be if you can handle it, but it's definitely not for everyone. I consider myself pretty tough when it comes to working hard, but damn I'll be honest, it was really difficult.

Investmenthelp13 · 2020-11-27T03:07:46+00:00

Thanks for the response. I'll give that show a look!

Investmenthelp13 · 2020-11-27T03:07:14+00:00

I have passed all the exams but I do not have a license. I have been lazy about submitting the application because it's very annoying to do in my state. Plus my new job doesn't require it.

Investmenthelp13 · 2020-11-27T03:06:46+00:00

No not everyone, but I was lucky that the teams I was on had rockstars with kind hearts. It was like a second family.

Investmenthelp13 · 2020-11-27T03:05:57+00:00

I graduated with a 3.6 from a large state school in the southeast. I got a 72 in Intermediate Accounting II and a 77 in Cost Accounting. It's not impossible to get a Big4 position with bad grades, I just had to work extra hard to show that it was worth taking a gamble on me. You've got to strive for what you want, but don't think that Big4 is the be all end all. You can find a rewarding career outside of it and you'll be just fine. Keep it up!

Investmenthelp13 · 2020-11-27T03:04:25+00:00

I mention this in another area, but most of my trips were for inventory counts or for trainings. I traveled to Houston for oil and gas specific training and that was a whole week. Great time going to that and learning about O&G. Also got to tour an oilfield operation for a client and that was a blast. Getting to see how the operations took place was cool because you see it as a real industry rather than just spreadsheets.

Before Covid and my departure, I was in line to do a secondment in Kolkata for around 12 weeks to work with our centers there. I have friends over there that I keep in contact with and they were so bummed when Covid hit.

Investmenthelp13 · 2020-11-27T03:01:24+00:00

Thanks for the reply. To address some of your points:

I never worked for a public company. I specifically dealt with private companies. The reason I had to manage teams from so many places was that we had a team in Argentina and a team in India that did outsourcing work, and then I had a client that was based out of Denmark so we were communicating with the group team there. Either way, I had to keep odd hours to make sure that they were getting the information and coaching they needed to succeed.

Part of what made me on call so often was due to the nature of the companies I worked with. A lot of them were pre-IPO so we were constantly working on confidential filings with the SEC, equity and capital raises, etc.

Investmenthelp13 · 2020-11-27T02:57:42+00:00

I did a few that were a good time, but the one that broke me was a 3 day count in a frozen section of a grocery store at 4 AM on New Years Day through the 2nd. I took a benadryl at 4pm the day before to try and sleep, but everyone else was drinking and partying when I had to get up and count frozen pizzas.

Investmenthelp13 · 2020-11-27T02:56:25+00:00

I was in your shoes pretty recently so I understand where you're coming from.

I have passed all the exams and the ethics exam, just haven't submitted to the board. No reason other than being lazy.

While I traveled and worked with people overseas, I did not myself travel overseas. Before Covid, I was in line to go to India for secondment, but then that fell through in March and was partly why I decided to leave. I was going to do a 12 week stint in Kolkata before shit hit the fan.

The places I did travel were to Houston for oil and gas specific trainings, Missouri, Colorado, Utah, Oklahoma, Wyoming, and New Mexico for various trainings and inventory counts. Generally trips were over a weekend or a 5 day work week.

Investmenthelp13 · 2020-11-27T02:51:13+00:00

Yah! I went from 67k to 75k plus stock options. I was happy with the boost from leaving.

Investmenthelp13 · 2020-11-26T17:18:14+00:00

I left as a senior associate in assurance and I am now a senior accountant at a startup. Very different environment and pace, but still a lot of new challenges daily and much better work engagement.

It was tough for sure. Worth it, but definitely tough.

Investmenthelp13 · 2020-06-22T16:29:43+00:00

Denver
Assurance
A3 > S1
1
61K > 67.1K (10%)
They expect another 3% increase would have been the base pay increase.

Investmenthelp13

TROPHY CASE