[Kay]

I am a junior auditor in internal audit department of publicly traded company. I heard in big 4, after working as a junior auditor for 2~3 years, they promote you to be senior. I have been working for almost 2 years, and spoke with my manager about promotion. Then she said we can aim for end of this year (it will be past my 2 years as junior), or next year (very close to my 3rd year)

I would like to know how is promotion process in other private companies.

Currently:
CPA - Class of 2013
ALMI (Associate, Life Management Institute)
CISA - Passed in 2011, Certified in 2014

In Progress:
ASA (Associate of Society of Actuaries) - EXAM P (O), EXAM FM (O), EXAM MFE (X), EXAM MLC (X), EXAM C (X)

[2012passtheCPA]

@Kay I have only been out of college and working for 2 years. Consider yourself lucky that your boss is working on a promotion with you by year's end!! That's amazing and you should feel proud of that.

I work in a private company with 5,000+ employees. The accounting function is just a “support” function of the company, as I would imagine it is for a lot of private companies, but I just want to paint the picture for you. I told my boss (this is while I'm studying for the CPA exam) that in due time I'd need to work under a CPA. Knowing full well there are sufficient number of CPAs working here that I could work under, the response I received was “That can't happen here.”

From what I've read on “Going Concern” the promotion process is a lot slower in the private world due to a number of factors; size of the company, number of positions, company culture, etc. Hope this helps a bit :/

Good luck and congrats!!

[minioncpa]

I agree with 2012passtheCPA. Same here – out of college and have been working for 2 years now in private. Although my company is only about 2,000 employees. Thankfully I work under a CPA but there’s no room for growth for now unless the company grows exponentially faster.

congrats on your soon-to-be promotion 🙂

[mla1169]

In industry usually no less than 1 year and often quite longer. Promotions are almost always based on there being a position available. If you work somewhere with low turnover that could be years.

Only in public have I ever heard of someone being promoted based on tenure/merit without needing to wait for a vacant position. I guess that's because depending on the situation they could have 5 or 500 seniors at the same time.

FAR- 77
AUD -49, 71, 84
REG -56,75!
BEC -75

Massachusetts CPA (non reporting) since 3/12.

[Mayo]

I really wouldn't try and compare Industry with Public's promotional structure. For one, there's rarely every too many Seniors. In fact, it's often quite the opposite. So the openings will always be there for the second year staff to promote.

Industry just doesn't have that type of turnover. So promotions will inevitably be at a slower pace.

Mayo, BBA, Macc

[Kay]

There are 3 managers, 1 senior, and 1 junior in our team – managers being AIC (auditor in charge). and even myself, as junior, works as a senior already because we don't really need junior position (i luckily got offer as entry level after successfully finishing internship here)

I had classmate who did internship in this company, and she worked in business audit, and i did IT audit. she got promoted after working for 21 months. I shouldn't compare her promotion with my situation because we are under different managements. however, it doesn't feel pleasant if you know what i mean – she didn't get good support from her management. her director got fired because of low performance. on the other hand, i had a lot of support from my director who is very smart, and supportive. but i did not get promoted.

Like mla1169 said, it could be available position that i had to wait for. but i already have been doing senior work, and in our hierarchy, it is already unbalanced having more managers than senior + junior. 2 seniors wouldn't be too much different from 1 junior and 1 senior.

I am patiently waiting for promotion to take place. I have been getting contacts from recruiters about senior roles. but i refused them because I liked ppl in our team. However, if the promotion doesn't happen, and I keep getting low compensation as compared to seniors because of myself being a junior, then I may want to make a move.

Currently:
CPA - Class of 2013
ALMI (Associate, Life Management Institute)
CISA - Passed in 2011, Certified in 2014

In Progress:
ASA (Associate of Society of Actuaries) - EXAM P (O), EXAM FM (O), EXAM MFE (X), EXAM MLC (X), EXAM C (X)

[jaredo155]

I worked in Industry for a little over five years, and in my first position I was in the same role for right at three and a half. Starting at about the two year mark I was asking about promotion, just to get a feel for what I could expect as I was brought in on the very low end of pay (also my Manager was out on maternity leave and I was asked to handle all her manager level roles until she returned, and I felt that warranted at least a move to senior). I was told they were working on getting it pushed through, and after a year there was no doubt left in my mind they were just trying to stall me so I wouldn't move on (or maybe they were hoping I would lol). In my second position, which I also started out at the staff level, I was promoted to senior within about 6 months.

The first organization was a Fortune 1000 company and the second was a fortune 500, so the second was considerably larger. However at both organizations the jump from staff to senior was based on purely merit and time with the organization. The move from senior to manager or manager to director were the only promotions based on there being available openings. I am not sure if this is consistent with the industry standard or not, but it seems to be consistent with my geographic area which is a large urban city. Also at both organizations there were a ridiculous number of VP positions, it was a running joke that there were probably more VP's than Staff.

AUD - 2/2013 - Passed!
BEC - 5/2013 - Passed!
FAR - 8/2013 - Passed!
REG - 11/2013 - Passed!
"Do or do not, there is no try." - Yoda

[Author]

Replies