[katerina2665]

hey guys,

I had one of the managers in B4 NYC area referring me for the entry level assurance position in the Asset Management. group. HR contacted me, we scheduled an interview. I did went on their website and saw that the position was posted there. The interview lasted one hour exactly, half with S, Manager half with Partner. Was very surprised about that since i always read here that interviews can take good half a day. In about a week HR contacted me and said that they will go ahead with an offer and asked when i will be able to start. I thought i will give two week notice at my current position and then one more week for take care things at home, so i said i can start in three weeks. He said ok. Then i got an email with an offer with the start date i told him. I went to check the website, the position was no longer there.

My questions are

1. Why are they going with the date i told them, since im entry level? Dont they have uniform date everybody starts (summer/winter)? I thought they would say, oh you will start 10th of September (like an example).

2. Did anybody here worked in the Asset Management dept? What can i expect in terms of busy season vs other work hours? I know it all depends on clients, but maybe someone can share their own experience.

NYS CPA since December, 2016

[Anonymous]

I mean… I've never worked in public accounting myself, but I assume that hire dates are pretty dependent upon each individual office need. Also, if you are looking for specifics about work hours you probably should have asked those questions to management at your interview. I imagine they are going to be able to give you the most reasonable response.

[tamlange]

@ EHendrickson: This is off-topic for this thread but I couldn't remember where I saw your test results before and noticed that are scores are similar. I am taking that as an indicator that we have similar learning styles and topic grasp. I am cramming pretty hard right now- I have passed REG and FAR but failed BEC with a 74. I just took AUD a week after you did and am waiting for my score but will retake BEC in a couple weeks. Since you have already passed, what review courses and methodology did you use? I originally used Roger and WTB but recently purchased Ninja for more depth. I have completed 850 questions and my trending score is 74 but I still have 600 questions to go. Any advice you can offer is appreciated! My REG pass will expire on Jan 6, '16 so this qtr and next are all I really have to get these next two out of the way.

REG (72), 77 July '14
FAR (74), 79 Jan '15
BEC (74), 85 August '15
AUD 80 July '15

Material: Roger full review, Wiley test bank all four topics
Ninja MCQ: AUD and BEC retake

[Anonymous]

@tamlange I passed BEC and REG exclusively using CPAExcel/Wiley Test Bank. In order to pass FAR on my third attempt I added NINJA Notes and just focused on doing a lot more questions. As for AUD, I actually added NINJA MCQ as well as the NINJA Audio and fell short. This most recent attempt I added Roger CRAM and feel like it was an extremely useful tool.

The more I progressed the more valuable I thought it was to just do MCQ's until I was sick of them… and then did more. It sounds like we even have very similar approaches in terms of study material haha. I don't know that I could really add much more advice than what you have already done. Best of luck :).

[Anonymous]

@katerina2665 were you a straight out of college hire or were you an experienced hire? From what I've heard, the uniform start dates are mostly for those that are college recruits. Seems like they seem to have more leniency with the experienced hires on start dates. It could also be a case that they just really needed someone to start ASAP. I don't know anything about the Asset Management though, sorry!

[Anonymous]

It's possible that the date you'd selected was already a pre-determined start date and it worked out conveniently. I wouldn't read into that too much.

As far as asset management goes it completely varies by city. Summer is usually fairly slow but from about 9/1-6/30 it can get busy. Granted everyone's schedule is different and so you may have a slow month thrown somewhere in that mix.

Congrats on the new job 🙂

[Mayo]

1. Why are they going with the date i told them, since im entry level? Dont they have uniform date everybody starts (summer/winter)? I thought they would say, oh you will start 10th of September (like an example).

No. They have a series of dates from August through October. So it makes sense that they'll just fit you in the slot you mentioned.

2. Did anybody here worked in the Asset Management dept? What can i expect in terms of busy season vs other work hours? I know it all depends on clients, but maybe someone can share their own experience.

I never worked on Asset Management specifically but I worked on financial services clients so I worked with a few Managers and Seniors who were on Asset Management clients.

From what I remember the hardest thing about Asset Management is that a.) they have multiple report dates throughout the year. Which can incidentally lead to multiple busy times outside the typical January – March busy season, and b.) some people really didn't like the fact that the client/industry really doesn't have any tangible assets. It's mostly just financial contracts and instruments.

The potential upside is that there isn't typically SOX, as many of the clients are private. Which can be good work-wise, as SOX sucks. However, if you want that type of experience and see yourself in a public company in the future, it might hurt your overall career. But it's not a necessity.

Mayo, BBA, Macc

[katerina2665]

thank you for all your replies guys.

@alittlebitofnope, neither, i graduated two years ago, but went for entry level because one of the employees referred me

@CPAMule, thank you 🙂 yeah, my concern was about months when it might get relatively busy, since i know audit and tax, for example, differ in that department. Will see.

@Mayo, thats a very valuable information, thank you for sharing, I am working as a fin analyst now, and our clients and report dates vary significantly, we almost had nothing to do in March, but in June I was working late almost every day. My friend said that what i do is similar to my new position, so hopefully, it will go well.

NYS CPA since December, 2016

[Author]

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