[CPA CMA]

Public to private back to public.. Why?

Master of Professional Accountancy (MPA) 12/17/2014

BEC 76 (10/3/14)
FAR 75 (10/24/14)
REG 83 (4/6/15)
AUD 75 (4/20/15)
Anticipated Licensure: August 2016

CMA part 1 passed (6/15/15)
CMA part 2 Passed (9/4/15)
Anticipated Licensure: August 2017

[Birdman]

Boredom

FAR- 74, 78 (10/15)
BEC- 73
REG- 65, 88 (05/16)
AUD- 7/16

[Holly]

Boredom, yes!

BEC - 79
REG - 85
AUD - 5/27/16

[MommyCPA]

Benefits

[Anonymous]

Some reach deadends or road blocks in private

[pharaoh]

exactly as first two mentioned ……boredom boredom boredom.

In public, you learn all the time, it might slow down but there is always new, whether client, type of business, area, what you are working on at this specific client.
downside of public, I guess for everyone, the hours.

In private, learning curve can be the first 6 months and you will be like ….now what?

And i will throw this in there, from my personal experience, no offense to anyone, people/managers in public are way smarter ….or let me say it in a better way, managers in public, get more exposure and they are more experienced while in private, you can easily have a manager who has been in treasury for 9 years and finally got promoted as cost accounting supervisor.

FAR 8/2016
AUD 1/2017
REG TBD
BEC TBD

[NeedsA75]

Good question.

And ROTFL at people in public are smarter. The smart people are the ones who left public and don't have to work 60-70 hours a week..

[red_rose]

Boredom & want to work more hrs to get away from kids & the spouse!

[mtaylo24]

Public would never work for me. I value my time and work-family balance over being Americas best accountant. I really don't get bored, I just take advantage of the free time 💯. Plus I know that I don't really play well with others, especially other accountants. Its pretty much just me and my Director and Im good with that 👌

AUD - 1st - 60 (12/12), 61 (2/13), 61 (8/13), 78! (11/15)
REG - 55 (2/16) 69 (5/16) Retake(8/16)
BEC - 71(5/16) Retake (9/16)
FAR - (8/16)

[Trele6]

@Pharaoh, I would have the exact opposite comment than yours for public vs. private. I work in industry and have a floor here at my building for the PWC teams to do their work full time for my company. Every one of them seem clueless. The questions they ask and the responses they give have many of us just shaking on heads wondering how they ever got hired.

For my international assignment a few years ago we used Deloitte. What a joke, their spreadsheets we full of errors and we had to “audit” their work to ensure what they were submitting for us was correct. Then pay them an outrageous fee for their “services”…

Frankly I've never met a person in public that has overly impressed me. Now obviously there are some very bright people out there and majority of them probably are bright, I've just never interacted with one in my 14 years and every company I have ever worked for is a Fortune 500 company.

We had one guy join us from public once and he was so high and mighty of himself he created an online blog to talk about why he was better than his co-workers and bosses. Needless to say he was escorted out by HR due to his comments in his blog.

First go at the CPA! Only using Becker
Reg / Nov 2015 - 87
Far / Apr 2016 - 79
Bec / May 2016 - 80
Aud / Aug 2016

[CPA CMA]

Do you normally have to take a pay cut when you go back to public from private?

Master of Professional Accountancy (MPA) 12/17/2014

BEC 76 (10/3/14)
FAR 75 (10/24/14)
REG 83 (4/6/15)
AUD 75 (4/20/15)
Anticipated Licensure: August 2016

CMA part 1 passed (6/15/15)
CMA part 2 Passed (9/4/15)
Anticipated Licensure: August 2017

[HoosierCPA]

hahaha I 2nd @trele's comments. Our company has the exact same experience.

However, I will say I've met a few from the audit team that have impressed me. I try not to be too hard on them, the team rotates so often that it's hard for them to understand the ins and outs of our company in a couple months. The benefits of public I see as you get exposure to multiple industries but its a mile long and an inch deep…I don't think they truly understand the process. Moreso they get so caught up in duplicating prior year workpapers that at times I find they don't use their own brain. This is just my experience tho! I try not to lump everyone in public into my 5 year experience with one company.

FAR - 78
REG - 72,74,71...please just go away REG nobody likes you!
BEC - 82
AUD - Aug 16

[ruggercpa2b]

HoosierCPA is right. People get caught up with copying last year's work papers that they do not try to understand the process. I went from private to public to private to public and then back to private. When I went to private after public I realized that I missed the crazy hours and we were not yet starting a family. So I decided to go back and enjoy it till I got pregnant. Now I cannot imagine not picking up my son from daycare and being able to go hang out with him during my lunch hour.

It's honestly just personal preference. I loved being in public and do miss it from time to time.

AUD - 73, 72 retake 7/2/2016
BEC - 8/20/2016
REG - TBD
FAR - TBD

I am so ready for this nightmare to be over. Been at this way too long.

[Amortized and Energized]

Oof, yea I dunno. I'd say the controllers and executives I've worked alongside in industry have been far and away more talented than those I've dealt with in public. I've met a few very bright partners too. The caveat is though, that the controllers and execs I've worked with are all former Big 4. It just seems like the public lays a solid foundation and when they went to private industry they really got to dive into their specific industry and really sharpened their chops. The auditors my company is working with now just really seem to be a step behind every time something comes up or if a memo needs to go out it always seems like there is a long call to explain what's going on. I echo Hoosier in that it's shady to try and lump a whole group in with just a few experiences because I have worked with some very bright auditors. This latest case though is just a small drop in a large bucket of population size, so it'd be unfair to generalize. Pharaoh, curious.. are you big4? Wondering if maybe you are at a smaller or regional firm and dealing with smaller companies and maybe that's where you see the experience/talent gap?

FAR - Aug 2015 (58), Feb 2016 (81)
u
BEC - May 2016 (79)
AUD - Jul 2016
REG - Aug 2016

[mad max]

I've never worked a day for public, and I've never had the desire to either (7yrs out now). Work life balance is important to me, and I like to sleep in my own home. These are personal reasons, but I only know one person in my private life who continues to work in (and to some degree) still enjoys, let alone greater than five years down the line. By all accounts, they are a real burnout.

I've also never had a good experience working with a staff level auditor. That's certainly not to say that they are all stupid, but I'll use my experience with a certain international division for E&Y to give some anecdotes. This is just my experience though…

Auditor level of knowledge is a joke, and they make themselves out to be stupid, asking us questions that they could just Google. What is a zero balance account? What is a bank float? You are auditing a bank sheet, and you do not know the terms that are in front of you. Worse, instead of learning these things, they ask the manager or the controller. Or… we have an unchanged narrative for cash which was audited in the prior year, but you as the continuing auditor do not have an understanding of the narrative before you come to ask me questions about it.

Studying for AUD section during the audit was particularly ironic.

As a funny side story, one round of interviewing at my current place involved a short 4 question accounting quiz, of which I got all 4 right. These are simple questions, I still remember two: What is the purpose of an accrual, and what is the JE for a sale of inventory. My manager told me that one of the candidates for my current job who had 3 or 5 yrs at PWC (cant remember) got a Zero.

I'll be looking for a new job come score release, and it still won't be public.

[pharaoh]

I agree with @hamms30 that public gives you good foundation that helps them when they move to industry.

And also agree with people who said auditors can be clueless ……I was there 🙂 in the beginning yes, I would say my first year or year and a half and then got better 🙂

in private, I had a common scenario, that a person out of college can be hired in a department (Treasury in the case of my manager) and after few years she was promoted as supervisor for cost accounting, so the poor thing all she did since graduation was bank reconciliations. Not that she is dumb but the way the company can move/promote people might not be ideal for them or the company. Another example, I had a manager who was bragging that he has been with the company for 23 years. I was so excited that I will learn like there is no tomorrow from him. on the first balance sheet review, I found that he doesn't understand what “prepaid expense” is and he is booking “expenses” in there. and when I made a schedule to show the real prepaids and what has to be moved to the P&L, he said “No, here you will learn how things are done” 😐 it was not the company hiding expenses :), it was just him and the way he moved from one position to the other within the company didn't give him enough exposure to some basics.

I think how I said my comment before was not the best way to put it, people in public get more exposure and they get that strong financial foundation when they go to private when they learn the business, it is easier and faster for them to see how it reflects on the financials. And for sure there is always exceptions 🙂

Going back to the original question, BOREDOM BOREDOM BOREDOM. I hate the hours of public but I keep thinking of going back because how bored I am and how lucky I am with the type of managers that I work with 🙂

FAR 8/2016
AUD 1/2017
REG TBD
BEC TBD

[Author]

Replies