[jabybb]

I was at 68K as a portfolio analyst at a bank just entering monthly and quarterly financials after 2.5 years in Public at big 4 but I definitely wasn’t learning anything. In another year or so I could have probably got a title promotion to 76 or 77 doing the exact same thing and maybe another couple of years after that have gone to 86 or so as a manger but I took a job to go back to Public for 75K now hoping to continue to learn and grow my value as a professional. I feel like I did the write thing but I know I just increased my stress by a lot for the next couple of years and it’s been two years since I was in public so I’m stressed that they’ll expect more than I know of the top of my head right away at the public job. Does anyone have any opinions or helpful insight to possibly bring my stress level down?

[RockChalkCPA]

To give my honest opinion on whether you made the right decision, I would need to know more about your personal career goals. I think public accounting is an incredible way to get a diverse range of experience in a short amount of time. For me personally, my 5.5 years of public accounting were like drinking from a funnel because of the opportunities that were given to me that I leveraged into promotions. That said, I knew a long time ago that I didn't aspire to be a partner, which is why I ultimately decided to make the move to private. In my opinion, for me personally there wasn't much point to sticking around public much longer than I did because A.) busy season sucks B.) I know I didn't want to try and make partner and C.) I think the best exit opportunities out of public are between 3-5 years – stick around much more than that, and you put yourself at jeopardy of having to take a pay cut or what feels like a demotion when you do decide to move to private. Not saying it's like that for everyone, but I know some of my colleagues felt this way when they made their exit.

At the very least, you're getting great experience in public accounting. And if you feel like you weren't progressing/learning at your old job, I'd say you made the right decision based on that alone.

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

First try with Becker

[Author]

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