[Anonymous]

I was going to just post on another thread, but my situation is a little different than what was described by that OP.

So things weren’t happening at my job in industry so with my CPA journey almost complete (hopefully I passed my last one which I will find out about on the 9th), I applied for and received an offer from a small CPA firm here in town.

Of course after giving my notice and negotiating and accepting an offer with the CPA firm an opening came open in my current place of employment that has a banded paygrade. There are 3 bands. If I were to get this job, the middle band would be the same (taking health costs into consideration) as working at the CPA firm but NOT earning a bonus. The highest band would be the same as working at the CPA firm including the bonus.

I was selected for interviews for the position at my current place of employment and my interview is Friday (12/4). I will find out whether or not I will be offered the position on probably Monday(12/7) or Tuesday(12/8). My last day at my current job is 12/11.

So if I were offered the job and it was better to stay, then I would have to notify the CPA firm that I would have to back out of the offer less than a week before my start date!

I know I am putting the cart before the horse, but what are your guys thoughts? How LOCKED IN is an offer after I have accepted? How do I go about having that conversation with the CPA firm if this all plays out that way?

[Anonymous]

try to flip the situation. now imagine if they did that to you? a week before your start date the new CPA firm came back and said oops we were jk you cant start with us.

its obviously not illegal, but are you a man of your word? if its a small CPA firm (which it sounds like it is) instead of a giganto employer which will easily absorb the loss, you're really hurting the small employer. hiring and searching for candidates is very expensive(highest cost for small firms is obtaining new employees)…not to mention a month before tax season. a MONTH!

if its an area with not a lot of CPA's, aka the community of CPA's is pretty tight-knit. they all talk partners at big firms small firms, golfcourses etc. you can expect to get badmouthed for the flakiness and never land a public accounting job in the area again.

its a dick move, really, no other way to put it. not to mention that the offer post interview will probably take a week, so youll be notifying them a day before your start date. not to mention that the current employer that you just left is probably looking at you weird (hey, i quit nope jk i want to come back interview me) this just seems wrong all around. take the CPA offer, dont try to convolute an easy decision. good luck with the cpa and with your career no matter what you choose.

[Hammer]

You can do whatever the hell you want. Unless you signed a binding legal contract then who cares. Always look out for number one and do what is best for you and your family.

Example: I quit my job at a Big4 after 2 months because A) I knew I was going to hate it. and B) my old firm offered me a 45% raise to come back. Never looked back and I couldn't be happier with my decision.

FAR - 70, 81
AUD - 83
BEC - 77
REG - 70, 78

Licensed in Ohio.

Now what the hell do I do?

[taxman89]

The second poster is way off base.you dont owe the new firm anything. if the promotion at the old job is what you want (tho they now know that you were looking /planningto leave) then you shouldnt hesitate to take it. it doesnt look great to the cpa firm and you most likely will have burned any future bridges with them but its not all that uncommon for current employers to offer raises/promotion to get people to stay.

AUD - 75
BEC - 77
FAR - 78
REG - 82

AUD: 61-67-75 (Thanks ninja aud)
BEC: 77
FAR: 78
REG:69-73-70-82

Aud-75 3x I knew i never liked you
Bec-77 1x being in the bubble is stressful
Reg-82 4x its not me its you...and no we cant be friends
Far-78 1x easiest section

[Tuthegreat]

yeah. I started in governmental, and that got toooo boring for me, so I thought big 4 might be a challenge. I left big4 cause I hated it too. I left there like Moses fled Egypt. Fast. Quick. and in a Hurry. I don't know how some of my seniors stayed there for so long. The incentives to work for a large company is great, but I love the smaller firms. My boss never questions what Im doing. Half the time, I dont know what Im doing, but just keep that between us.

[Anonymous]

it's just business. We hire people and they rescind their acceptance all the time because they get a different one.
It's just a job, not the end of the world. it's uncomfortable to have that conversation but I personally would rather not have someone work for me that would rather be somewhere else.

[Missy]

Is pay the ONLY reason you were looking to leave your current company and have you already given your notice?

You're not locked in after accepting an offer, you're not locked in after you start. And of course the devil you know is better but can't imagine they'd be looking to promote someone who had given their resignation………..

Old timer,  A71'er since 2010.

Finance manager/HR manager

 

 

Licensed Massachusetts Non Reporting CPA since 2012
Finance/Admin/HR Manager

[the LAST Coffee]

Even with a legal binding contract, you are always allowed to quit. No one can force you to work. However you'd pay the penalties or whatever.

FAR 84 (AUG '15)
BEC 83 (AUG '15)
AUD 79 (OCT '15)
REG 71, 78! (NOV '15, FEB '16)

[Anonymous]

Yeah honestly in the corporate atmosphere I am currently in I see me being offered the higher band as a very unlikely situation. I may be good enough to get an offer, but unless they bring the big dollars it wouldn't make sense.

I have also been very clear ever since giving my notice that I never really wanted to leave, but the pay difference made it where I basically had no choice. Stay where I am and barely scrape by, or move to the firm and have a little breathing space. The profit sharing, job security, and health benefit availability for my family is much better where I am now, but public accounting fully uses my CPA (assuming I can lock it up).

I see tremendous value in working for either entity, so yes, it basically comes down to dollars and cents at this point.

Honestly with me training my replacement as well as buttoning up a large project several upper management in my current job are freaking out a little that I am leaving.

I guess if I do end up staying at my current company I could always offer to still work for the firm to help part time during tax season?

It's just potentially upsetting because the firm has been great, kind, and wonderful and I HATE the idea of kind of screwing them over.

Oh well, I probably won't either get an offer, or the offer will be too low and the decision will be an easy one.

[taxsage]

Seems like you need to put some thought into your career path and look beyond the pay in next year alone.

Public accounting offers different opportunities than private accounting. Some private accounting jobs offer no path for promotion or the experience only translates to similar level positions. Some public accounting firms offer experience that can lead to Manager/Controller positions. Public accounting firms can teach you skills that are entrepreneurial. Will this new position at the private accounting job look better on your resume than Senior Accountant at Public Accounting Firm X?

Also your private accounting job might match the pay now, but many public accounting jobs will give significant pay raises every two years due to the many levels of promotion(senior, manager, senior manager). With baby boomers on their way out(dying and retiring) there will be huge opportunities to buy partnership stakes in small public accounting firms in the next decade and make well over a $100,000 a year. Many high level accounting positions prefer public accounting experience. Public accounting experience at a small firm can often lead to job offers at larger firms.

Do you want to work on the same excel sheets every day at the private accounting job or potentially deal with a lot of varied clients who all have unique problems. Then again do you want to work 60 hour work weeks at a public accounting firm or do you want to work less hours in private.

In general I think people who have public accounting experience will have stronger careers and faster career progression, but will also have to put in more hours. With more hours comes more experience and knowledge. Some people don't want to put in the extra effort and take the easier path which could provide more happiness for some. Others will be unfulfilled by private accounting jobs where promotions are dependent on the Controller and the next three accountants in line for the job leaving. Others prefer the stability and consistent hours of private accounting, so they can spend more time with their family. On the other hand having more money by choosing a more lucrative career path in public accounting can help your spouse stay home with the kids while planning for a comfortable retirement.

My main point is that you are not asking any of the right questions and seem to be focused on a very superficial and nonstrategic measurement criteria such as current year salary. If salary is your major measurement criteria then you should be looking at the 20 year average to determine the better career path. Public accounting jobs at reputable firms will often lead to higher salary than being a staff accountant climbing the corporate latter. Alternatively turning down a job at a small no name firm that works on basic 1040's and does nothing more difficult than a compilation may not be such a bad thing.

[Anonymous]

business used to be done on a handshake and a man was defined by his word. i understand our linkedin/fast pace/easy relocation environment has eroded some of those tenets of business.

i just reread my reply and realized i came off kind of harsh. my bad, i come from a small community and kind of set in my ways.

call me old fashioned i guess

[Anonymous]

@eesti, in small communities there is a perception of reputation to maintain so I definitely understand that. Some people it means more to then others. I personally take it for what it is – at the end of the day it's just a job and if a person is always going to be longing after another position then I would never have their full attention as an employer. I've seen it a lot in our company. Insurance isn't typically something someone goes to college for.. most people just ‘fall' into here. Some it works great for.. others it doesn't.

[Missy]

My personal perception is that it “looks” better to say your current employer didn't want you to leave and offered a promotion/raise than to accept another job offer after you'd accepted the first. Staying put shows not only loyalty but that you're valued by your employer and I can't see how that could burn any bridges even in a very small community.

Old timer,  A71'er since 2010.

Finance manager/HR manager

 

 

Licensed Massachusetts Non Reporting CPA since 2012
Finance/Admin/HR Manager

[Anonymous]

@taxsage – Your viewpoint is an interesting one. I have thought of futures, but honestly do not know how the promotion, raises, growth would work long term.

In private I would get between 3-5% raise a year assuming I didn't get promoted. There are a couple managers who will retire soon, but it is a large department which means it would probably be fairly competitive to promote.

In public, I am starting as an Accountant, but will (hopefully) be a licensed CPA in a couple months and the firm is 15 people (including me) and only 4 others are CPAs.

How do they base raises generally? I got the vibe that they adjust based on billables for the previous year. How much did I personally bring in in dollars, divide it by 3 and if that is more than what my salary is at the time then they give me a raise. I could be wrong, and they never said that, but it was just an educated guess.

I am truly trying to envision my situation 5 years out and 10 years out and then asking myself which will have me in a higher situation.

[taxsage]

@ MattFoley

Based on what I am told by colleagues and research on glassdoor public accounting pay raises go something like this:

YR 1 4-5 percent

YR 2 8-10 percent with senior promotion

YR 3 4-15 percent

YR 4 4-15 percent

YR 5 Manager promotion comes with a salary of 90-100k plus bonuses in my job market.

The thing is that many people start receiving job offers for 90k in my market after 2 or 3 years of public accounting experience. After the manager title many people can expect to leave public accounting for jobs making 100-150k. Regional and small firms are known to pay more than Big 4 firms in my area, but the exit ops may be harder to come by.

Also if you don't mind looking at death statistics of baby boomers you will find that pretty much the whole baby boomer population will be gone by 2030,and most partners at all public accounting firms are in this demographic. The thing is partners do not want to work until the day they die and they don't want to close there doors some random weekday. They want to sell their client list and their name brand. There are going to be massive amounts of opportunities to purchase partnership interests that come with income that the average person cannot achieve in private.

Factor in the fact that millennials personality types are not compatible with public accounting and you have a scenario where the demand for seasoned public accountants is way higher than the supply in ten years. Based on my basic understanding of economics I am fairly certain that the ten year outlook for public accountants is better than private since most people in public accounting after 10 years will be making at least 100k and many will be making 200-500k as partners.CFO's are probably the exception. but most CFO's with a strong accounting background have public accounting on their resume.

[nyclife]

@ Matt – If you decide to accept the new position (assuming you get it), you can notify the new employer that your current employer wanted you to stay and offered you a different role and corresponding compensation for said role. It's a simple response that should address practically all questions the new employer would have. They might offer to counter but you can respectfully decline. It's pretty simple.

@ Eesti – I am sorry but your logic is terribly flawed on your second response. Based on what you wrote, you must be pretty young and/or inexperienced and/or live in a fantasy land. LinkedIn etc didn't change the dynamics of the workplace. Back in the day, you could work for an employer until you decided to have your retirement party. You had a defined benefit plan aka a pension. Unions were common in the workplace. The employer decided to slowly take away most of these compensation components that bred loyalty. Shareholders became the utmost priority, which is fine with me.

If your excuse is that you're set in your ways and old fashioned, then good luck in life. Life evolves with or without you. You can be that staff accountant that makes way above what s/he makes in the market because of how long you stayed at the company while your skills become stagnant. When the firm decides to shut down or cut you, you will be forced to realize that other firms will not pay you close to what you were paid because you don't bring current skills since your skills are based on you being “set in your ways.” I see this all of the time. Being closed minded doesn't get you far.

[Author]

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