[Flamerhino]

I’m not exactly sure which job to take so i’m wondering if ppl can help me out. To make story short, the head accountant in the company that i’m working for had left a couple months ago. The CEO had a hard time finding the right candidate so he wanted to promote from within and offered to train me into the position. I’d be covering all the ups & downs of the business (AR, AP, Sales/Use Tax, Reconciliation, prepare end of yr tax document for our tax accountant and etc). However, this company only has 10 people, including me, and is growing very slowly. Much to my surprise, I recently received an offer from another company for A/P position. The new company is around 150 ppl, fast growth, and about to go IPO in two years. Company is well known but this position is solely A/P for now. I expressed my desire to learn other accounting functions during interview but no promises for fast promotion.

Both paying about the same for now but I do get stock option if I go with the new offer but I also get a 6 month review for my current job and possible salary increase there. However, I’m just not sure if I should stay in the same company that no one has heard of and work on different functions of private accounting on a smaller scale or should I start from scratch again at the new position with a bigger and well known company that has bigger volume of accounts to deal with? I really want something solid on my resume for my future career since this is my first accounting job and all I was doing is A/R. I tried applying & interviewing with CPA firms and for-profit firms but they aren’t impressed at all with my experience.

What do you guys think? (Long time lurker, 1st time posting here!)

[See Pee A]

Take the new job. You may be doing only one more narrow area of work, but you will become an expert. With your current company, many of your procedures are proprietary or standard and are likely fairly simple (your company has 10 people). In a company that may be public, you will have to deal with an entire army of reporting requirements, full-scale audits where your processes and everything will be challenged. Most likely, you also have the potential to make more and even grow quickly with the company if you do well and the company does also. Current role, you may get a broad experience but it will likely be lower level and not nearly as recognizable whenever you decide to leave (for whatever reason–family, new city, etc.). Considering the pay is similar, why stay?

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REG 88 (11/08/11)
AUD 86 (11/29/11)

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[wldcatnc]

@Flamerhino

I definitely agree with what See Pee Aaa had to say, so I wanted to add a little insight as well. As I'm sure you well know there is absolutely no reward without some risk involved. While the current company might offer a great salary bump with great hours that will never replaces the chance to take on something new. With a chance to turn into something big. While I have no direct experience, what I have learned is that new companies can and will promise the world to get talent into the building. (take some appreciation in that). So if I were in your shoes, I would take my accounting skills however remedial or advanced they might be and do as much reading/research you can on the company. When and if they offer stock options I would read/research even more. If you decide to take the job at the new company, I would try to infiltrate myself with as much knowledge as I possibly could because my future stake in the company is on the line and not to mention the managers will appreciate it. Lastly, if things don't work out for whatever reason you have learned a valuable thing that can never be taught in any business school or college. Very few try and even fewer succeed but its the ones that fail that learn the most. Just my two Pennies. Good Luck.

FAR: 81
REG: 85
AUD: 73,71,83
BEC: 82

DONE!!!!!!

[jelly]

Do a LOT of due diligence with the newer place:

1) What kind of funding or investing support does this newer place have? How many investors or interested parties are there? Is the entire success of the company's IPO dependent on a single piece of software/technology or loose government regulation? These factors are going to be the expectations, and politics that are going to determine the workload, success metrics and management's behavior.

2) Also, what kind of experience does management have for this kind of start-up environment?

3) Realize that stock options can be a double-edged sword, as some may have very long vesting periods, and are often code for unpaid, sweat equity on your part. At this point, I'd just assume that it'll be nominal and negligible.

4) Check out what their infrastructure is in terms of training and such, as I suspect you'll get more much of it in your current place, if the CEO wants to teach you everything from scratch.

5) Also, what do current workers think of the larger place? Higher volume of work doesn't always necessarily translate to more or better experience. For instance, doing 5 bank recs as opposed to 15 does not really expand your accounting skills when you could be learning & doing something else.

Couldn't pass again!

[Anonymous]

This is a hard one..

You'll get better general accounting experience with your current job. It sounds like you'll be doing much of the accounting for them and will be working closely with the CPA on their tax returns. Like you said, the CPA firms you interviewed for weren't impressed by your work experience. If all you're doing is AP with the new company, there's no big change in experience. However, there's more growth opportunities with the new company. If positions open up and you can get recommended for it, you'll be surprised how quickly you can move around within the company.

If I were you, my decision would come down to what I want to do 5-10 years from now. If you want to go into public accounting, I would stay with your current company and get the general accounting experience. I work for a small CPA firm and there's a lot of monthly as well as year end accounting involved just to get the financial statements in good shape for me to prepare their tax returns. I don't know what its like elsewhere, but if you run the accounting of your company only if you had some tax experience as well, my company would love to hire people like you.

If you want to stay within private, I'd go with the new company and hope you can move up.

[Flamerhino]

Thanks for all the input! I ended up staying with current company. The HR of the new company did not want to negotiate any further other than the first counter offer proposed by them and decided to withdraw the offer. I was surprised even tho i offered to take their counter offer after their decision but they still would rather pass on to someone else. I guess that made my decision easy for me.

[jelly]

Congrats on a decision being sorted out. Go and soak up everything the CEO's gonna teach ya – consider it the best free career gift ever!

Couldn't pass again!

[Anonymous]

Looks to me like you dodged a bullet. I would have suggested staying put and soaking up what you can for the next few years and get some broad accounting experience. Take the experience, and a great reference, and move on with your career after a few years. Good luck!

[Anonymous]

I would have stayed with the current company. The new company would have worked you to death, you would never see your family again.

[Author]

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