[Parthamis]

So I have been in a struggle to progress in my career a few years.

I am in a place where I make a GREAT experienced associate, but I do not have the knowledge or expertise of a senior associate, and small firms SUCK! they really suck, and do not provide growth or training.

Per my resume, my 2nd to last job lasted about 1.5 years, last job was 8 months, and my current job is about 9 months now. But the pay is quite terrible, and I have been wanting to move onto a bigger firm, but my resume looks quite jumpy as it is. I’ve actually interviewed at 3 firms and a discussion with an internal recruiter this past month, and they all rejected me. I am in a point of feeling hopeless, and belief I can’t grow out of my hole for a few years, which I hope is not the case… This is strange given I have my CPA also.

Could I please have advice on how to move forward?

[jeff]

Why did you leave your last two jobs? What about each “jump” made it appealing?

[Parthamis]

Unfortunately I did not leave those jobs voluntarily. The first job#did to Covid and office politics. Let go on October 16th 2020.

The second job, after 8 months:
I made a few mess ups. They hired me as a CPA, expected me to have much more experience than I actually did. Learned a lot there, but did not have enough XP for what they were looking for. Towards the end there were two new projects I got paranoid on, instead of asking questions I spent a tremendous amount of time trying to do them myself.

[jeff]

Small firms do not necessarily suck – perhaps one that you worked in did, but I started in a small firm.

When you have 20-30 writeup clients, do their taxes, quarterlies, it's “kinda” like being a controller for multiple small businesses.

Small firms have their quirks – and can be drama pools, but it's easy to get lost in big firms/corps and be stuck doing one thing.

[Parthamis]

I guess when I say they suck, that is our of context and subject to personal Opinions.

When I say they “suck” :
They do not offer training and development. You either come green, with little to no experience, and have to teach yourself everything to grow. You come in with all the experience.

The first firm hired me green, and I did not learn much. At the last firm, I learned quite a bit by doing and personal research.

But from what I know, larger firms have the training and development in place, which is what I'm looking for. They also have much higher salaries generally at all levels.

But back to the initial query, is it too early for me to jump?
Thank you for the replies Jeff.

[Parthamis]

I guess when I say they suck, that is our of context and subject to personal Opinions.

When I say they “suck” :
They do not offer training and development. You either come green, with little to no experience, and have to teach yourself everything to grow. You come in with all the experience.

The first firm hired me green, and I did not learn much. At the last firm, I learned quite a bit by doing and personal research.

But from what I know, larger firms have the training and development in place, which is what I'm looking for. They also have much higher salaries generally at all levels.

But back to the initial query, is it too early for me to jump?
Thank you for the replies Jeff.

[jeff]

You're going to face the inevitable question of why you're leaving so soon in interviews.

[CocusM]

Maybe you need to try to be more polite with people?

[RockChalkCPA]

I think you're making generalizations about smaller firms based on anecdotal evidence. So, I'm going to rebuttal that with my own anecdotal experience 😉

I've worked for both large and small firms, and without a doubt, had more development opportunities at the small firm I worked at. In addition, when we would pull in associates/seniors/managers from larger firms, they struggled at first as they hadn't had the variety of exposure that we got at the smaller firm.

As far as compensation goes, I think that is up to the individual (to an extent) to negotiate/determine. If you are a high performer who isn't afraid to bring up compensation/negotiate, then it won't matter whether you're at a large or small firm. In order to do this, you have to be able to back up your claims and also make sure what you're asking for is reasonable compared to the market. When larger firms/recruiters have tried to poach me with a higher salary, several times I've let my boss know, and they either matched the other offer or did the best they could to match it.

BEC- 83 (April 2015)
REG- 77 (May 2015)
FAR- 82 (July 2015)
AUD- 94 (August 2015)

First try with Becker

[Roger]

RockChalkCPA wrote:

I think you're making generalizations about smaller firms based on anecdotal evidence. So, I'm going to rebuttal that with my own anecdotal experience 😉

I've worked for both large and small firms, and without a doubt, had more development opportunities at the small firm I worked at. In addition, when we would pull in associates/seniors/managers from larger firms, they struggled at first as they hadn't had the variety of exposure that we got at the smaller firm.

As far as compensation goes, I think that is up to the individual (to an extent) to negotiate/determine. If you are a high performer who isn't afraid to bring up compensation/negotiate, then it won't matter whether you're at a large or small firm. In order to do this, you have to be able to back up your claims and also make sure what you're asking for is reasonable compared to the market. When larger firms/recruiters have tried to poach me with a higher salary, several times I've let my boss know, and they either matched the other offer or did the best they could to match it.

Complete opposite imo. I'm at one of big 4 and the amount stuff I learned in terms of project management, communication, and technical accounting far surpasses what I learned at a regional firm.

[Author]

Replies