When I worked for my former Big 4 firm, during busy season my effective hourly wage was around $10-12/hr because of all the required overtime that you’re not paid for. Unless you count being paid in snacks and free dinner/lunch, which had a retail value of $25-30/day, or added $2 per hour worked to my “pay”.
I’m not joking. Public accounting is probably one of the lowest paid professions out there (on a per hour basis) for people that are at the associate or senior associate level. A friend who I know from my Big 4 days just put in her 2 weeks notice and is taking a 30% raise leaving public accounting and going to work in industry. When I quit public accounting, I got a 25% raise and that was being brought in at the minimum salary for my new role.
Wow! Well, I was aware that everyone leaves public accounting at some point in time but 30% raise. Well, I understand that people are underpaid and job profile isn’t really exciting. If you are coming out of non target school then why not go for accounting? Because you may better pay in Retail banking but Its a sales job. I know two alumni who are still looking for real finance jobs after MBA and now they are working in retail banking for time being. Some guys after graduation are working in min. wage jobs while looking for almost anything they can get in finance. But if you don’t have CPA in Canada then your options are very limited. From my experience, people who studied CPA during MBA have much better jobs and exit options. Most of them are financial analyst now making $ 70-90k. I guess that’s much better than investment salesman. Obviously it’s different for top b school.
Yeah if you’re in that position why not? It’s better than retail banking. For me accounting was always a fall back option in case I didn’t get any of the jobs I actually wanted. Unfortunately, I wound up needing that option since I didn’t get any of the jobs I wanted, like corporate finance in industry, inverstment banking, etc. I didn’t want to be in public accounting but it was the best available option at the time, compared with unemployment or some dead end job. I also finished undergrad at a really bad time (2010) and went to a non-target school so neither of those helped. But I hustled to pass all my CPA exams and CFA L2 in my first year and got out right after my 2nd busy season.
All any of us can ever do is play the cards we’re dealt and make the best of it…
Wow! incredible story. Well, I’m trying to do the same which you have done. I hope I can get more insight from you. I am going complete CPA prep by Dec. But I’ll be out of school by that time. So far, I have been able to network well based on CPA. But I don’t know if senior managers really care about finishing CPA PEP before considering anyone as a serious candidate. I don’t care about salary at this point which sounds foolish but really as an international student all I care about choosing a right career path with exit options and getting Canadian experience.
I see people are shocked by $120 being low. Yes it is… if you are in the states. In Toronto, Canada, $120 is a good salary people! lol. It ain’t free capitalism like in the good ol US of A. Also, I’m 26 so for me $120k seems like a lot lol. Maybe if you are high level controller in Toronto, you’ll be getting $160k. But like I said… this isn’t USA.