Financial Services and Health Care offer opportunities to get deep industry knowledge, and strong technical skills because of the the regulatory requirements, and both should be stable from an industry and fees perspective. You will have a strong stable of experience when you're ready to transition out.
Government and NFP are interesting and you get exposure to unique organizations (NFP) and how government works, the balance between executive and legislative functions, seeing the government operate through the fund accounting lens, that whole backwards “encumbrance” process…it's absolutely interesting BUT — here's the thing: The economic environment has placed HUGE fee pressure on the Big-4 and Second Tier firms and the NFP and Government audit and consulting opportunities have become crazy bidding wars in the past few years.
You can sell a major financial services audit for $20 M, but in some cases a municipal audit goes for $30,000….so it's harder to float the boat, and you have to sell a lot more of those tiny jobs to hit the annual practice revenue numbers.
It's good to think about this early, for those of you who are early in your career, if you're a Sr. Mgr. with a decade in automotive and decide you A. Don't like Detroit anymore or B. want to move into Health Care…you will find it's an uphill battle and nearly impossible to make the transition…The partner won't want to let you go, and you would struggle with the lack of experience and industry knowledge.
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