[J.P.]

I have spent the past 4 years working in private accounting, as both as staff accountant and a financial analyst. As I am finishing up this exam, I am thinking about making a switch to public. I love my job right now, I am pretty well paid and have decent benefits and work with great people. My long term career goals are to be a controller or CFO in a small to medium sized company. I have been married for a year and we are looking to start having kids in the next 2 years and really don’t want to be the type of dad who is working 75 hours a week.

After all that rambling, people who have experience in one or the other, what are your favorite and least favorite things about private or public? What would you change if you could? Pros and cons, etc?

BEC - 11/25/08-61, 8/31/09-76*, 2/24/12-76
AUD - 2/21/09-53, 8/31/10-60, 11/30/11-83
REG - 11/30/09-68, 5/31/12-79
FAR - 8/29/11-81

IL Ethics - 93

*Lost to 18-month Rule

[senbi575]

Public will probably not fit too well into your lifestyle. When I worked in public, my family/personal life suffered. During busy season would leave at 8:00am not come back home until 9:00-10:00. Had to work weekends, and when I didn't I paid the price on my evaluations. Public did give me a lot of good experience in a short amount of time during my first few years out of school.

[mmoynes]

It depends on where you go. I've been with 3 different public accounting firms now and I've finally found the right fit for me. I also did a little bit of private while in college. I get bored very easily so the diversity I get in public accounting (with a small firm) is much better for me. My tax season hours are 8:00 – 6:30/7:00 M-F and about 9:00-3:00 on Saturdays. I'm an all-the-way single mom of two young kids so my time off is extremely important to me (not that it isn't to every other parent out there). I work hard those three months but all of that banked time + vacation time means I get to take off a minimum of 3 weeks this off-season. As I get more time in with this firm that will increase to minimum 6 weeks – it depends on exactly how many hours I bank. You do take a lot of abuse from the clients though and tend to get paid more private.

FAR - 76
BEC - 69, 75
AUD - 74, 76
REG - 67, rematch October 2012

[Anonymous]

If you are going to wait a few years to have kids, I would switch to public now and get some experience. Then switch back to private after the kids come along. 2 years of public looks great on a resume. Big 4s are not family friendly even though they claim they are. They do have work/life balance 8 months out of the year, but the other 4 you will be working all the time including late into the night and on most weekends. Or another option would be to work for a smaller public firm which isn't as bad.

[Author]

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