[abranaugh]

Hello everyone,

I need help with deciding on two job offers. Just a little background on me, I do not currently work in accounting and make around 57K a year. I majored in accounting and computer systems and recently passed the CPA exam. I have an offer from a small CPA firm and a big 4 firm and want to gain some of the accounting experience.

The small firm is an per hour basis which is $23 an hour (about $48K a year), and then anything over 40 hours is time and a half. They estimate 200 hrs of overtime pay which equates to about 55k a year. One of the downsides it the PTO though, and that is only 2 weeks, but that is what I have now. The work would be taxes and auditing. There would be no overnight travel.

At the big 4 firm, I was offers 58k, plus a 3k signing bonus. For PTO, they are offering 5 weeks. The work is in their IT Attestation. There would a longer drive into the office and I believe I would have to pay for parking. There is also about 30% travel.

One of the problems I am having is deciding do I want to go to big 4 and label myself as an IT Auditor and stay in IT Audit for my whole career. Or do I want to get the general accounting and tax experience. I have been thinking about opening my own business at some point, so I feel the small firm working with small businesses would be better long term, but I don’t know if that for sure will happen. Big 4 has more pay potential and opens more opportunities in the long run.

Thanks for any help and advice