[importracr317]

All… after passing the exam and well after finishing my MBA, I’m considering going into the Big 4 for TAS/Advisory. I’m mid-level in my industry career and and basically stalled, so I’m considering the switch. Given where I am in life (married, young children, comfortable) am I kidding myself to consider moving into, basically, consulting? I keep hearing all these Big 4 horror stories about terribly long hours, bad pay and only putting in the time because it should translate to a decent job later. Is it really like that on the advisory side? I assumed the advisory side was for folks that had already put in their time and was basically the next step, much like moving to the industry after auditing for 2-3 years. I’ll be putting in hours and traveling, no doubt, but is advisory anything like assurance and tax in terms of no work/life balance?

Thanks for any feedback.

Awaiting license in IL.

[thegrinch]

This is none of my business, but you might want to rethink TAS as it is heavily travel-intensive and you have a wife with small children. I only say this because I have a colleague in advisory whose wife divorced him after he was travelling Sunday-Friday for 5 months. They have a small baby (wasn't even 1 year old when his wife served him the divorce papers) and now she is giving him difficulties in custody matters. What a mess.

Make sure your wife will be completely, 100%, okay with you being gone for prolonged periods of time.

[Author]

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