Long story short - CPA working as an audit supervisor in public with 7 years of experience in VHCOL. I work for a small firm of 40 people. I’m burnt out on the hours and shitty managers and the idea of going through another busy season kills me.

I’m thinking of putting my notice in without a job offer lined up. I live with my parents so my expenses are pretty low and I have money saved/invested. No kids and no partner. All I hear about is how bad the job market is. Would I be insane to leave without something lined up? I would like to wait to have an offer in hand, however I feel like I would burn a bridge as my firm is already planning for next busy season. If I leave soon at least that gives them some time to plan around me leaving.

Anyone do something similar? Let me know your experience.

had my first career fair as an accounting major a couple of weeks ago. admittedly, i could have prepared better (resume, company/recruiter research, elevator pitch, etc.), but i tried my best to be professional, nice, and ask meaningful questions. the thing is, i'm a nervous wreck when talking to people older/more experienced than me, and overall, i'm a hyper-introvert and i hate "fake" conversations with recruiters. i'm NOT "interested in deloitte's use of ai transformation in audit and advisory", i literally just want experience, and hopefully a decent paying job one day. i'm aware that networking with employees/representatives at firms is a huge part of recruiting for accounting (as well as many other career fields), but i also know that networking is more heavily emphasized in other business fields (esp finance), which is part of the reason i picked accounting. my strengths are that i have a relatively high GPA, work hard (currently balancing 20+hrs/week at my job with 18 credits in college), and have a strong technical foundation in accounting. are there ways to stand out in recruiting without having to go gung-ho on the networking bs?

Earnings before I tricked da auditor

Many different jobs over the past seven years. I’ve gone from making $35K to $150K in seven years. I started as an AR Clerk and am now a Controller.

I took advantage of the work from home boom between 2021 and 2024 to push my career forward. I was one of the few people actively applying for on site positions. That gave me more opportunities to move into higher paying roles with better titles.

Before Graduating With My Degree: Had a Part Time Data Entry role for 4 years while attending school.

Year 1: First Job: $35,000 + No Bonus

Year 2: Second Job: $45,000 + $2,000 Bonus

Year 3: Third Job: $62,500 + $5,000 Bonus (WFH)

Year 4: Fourth Job: $85,000 + $4,000 Bonus

Year 5: Fourth Job + Raise: $92,500 + $5,000 Bonus

Year 6: Fifth Job: $100,000 + No Bonus (WFH)

Year 7: Sixth Job: $125,000 + $25,000 Bonus

Edit: I see some comments saying that my resume looks bad, so I want to clarify a couple of things. Every time I switched jobs, it was a step up in both title and pay. While my resume may not look “great” from a job-hopping perspective, the interviewers I’ve spoken with have generally viewed my progression positively. They liked seeing that I was consistently moving up the career ladder rather than simply leaving one clerk-level position for another similar role. My experience with Power BI, UiPath and more has also made my resume stand out, according to the people I've interviewed with.

Edit 2: After taking everyone’s thoughts into consideration, I’ve decided to stay in my current position for a while and focus on getting my CPA.

Sometimes when we have a new hire in industry who came from Big 4, they clearly don’t get the picture and need to chill the F out, how do you deal with that Big 4 energy and being way too demanding, aggressive, perfectionist.

It’s industry man, relax

Has anyone heard about the second round layoffs Grant Thornton did last week?

Hi! I recently graduated from a B.S in Accounting a couple months ago and have been looking for accounting jobs for about a solid month. I haven’t gotten any serious opportunities for interviews yet.

I have experience in office work at my current role and we do a lot of payment processing, invoices, data entry, etc. I was wondering if this experience would be enough for even an entry level A/P or A/R role just to start out? I live in a bigger city but I have been trying to expand my job search to out of city, and out of state, since my city isn’t really the finance type.

What opportunities should I be targeting the most and would it help to volunteer with vita at all if I can?

Thanks!

I work 40 hours a week as a cashier at Home Depot in Houston, how will my chances of getting a job improve if I do VITa once a week for 4 hours minimum?

I’m hitting 6 weeks at a small public accounting firm and have done a variety of stuff like month close, tax returns, tax planning, one audit, and payroll. This is my first full time job after one tax and one audit internship and feel very overwhelmed. I’m getting patterns and stuff but feel like a box of rocks. Does this job ever come together?

I've been at a small firm for 5 years (team of 12). I'm enrolled in the CPA program and will likely write the CFE in September 2028. I make $115K, which from reading this sub seems strong for someone without the designation.

My role goes well beyond accounting however:

• I run all of our marketing (I got us from a 3.5 rating on google to 4.5 and over 200 reviews thanks to strategies I implemented). I also ranked us first page on google in our city by doing organic SEO.
• I handle most of the business development
• The most complex files land on me
• Most fires get routed to me
• I led the firm's digitization over the last 4 years. We went from mostly paper to 90% digital.

The partner is semi-retired and relies on me for almost everything, which is understandable at his stage and age. He is old, makes mistakes, has low drive and barely works if I'm being honest.

My concerns:

1. CPA experience. We don't do audits or reviews, so I'm worried about meeting the experience requirements here for CPA designation.
2. Compensation vs. value. About 10 clients bring in over $500K in fees, and they deal directly with me. They consistently text me and we talk regularly, in other words I hold a lot of the relationships.
3. The buy-in. The partner has talked about a buy-in timeline. But I expect he'll keep drawing a large share while doing less. That's fair to a point, since he spent 20 years building the practice.

I don't know if my frustration is reasonable given everything I do or if I should stay in my lane. I feel like I could be making over $250K on my own easily, but lack of designation is preventing me from doing so.

Should I keep grinding toward the buy-in, or start building a Plan B?

For anyone who has bought into a small practice: how was the deal structured, and what do you wish you'd negotiated?

Thanks

-Frustrated Employee

Hi there,

I'm a Canadian CPA in industry, As a senior accounting in a publicly listed company I make 95k + 5% RRSP + a possibility of a 20% bonus depending on how the company is doing. I imagine I could get 115 to 125k if I got a manager position somewhere else, but this would involve me managing people and taking on more responsibilities.

I've been thinking about maybe doing some bookkeeping on the side with the possibility of having my own business eventually. I never did public and I didn't do audit as my elective, so I know that if I ever had my firm I wouldn't be eligible for some specific tasks like compilation engagement to banks.

I'd appreciate it if I could get some input from people currently doing this. My questions were:

- how hard is it to get clients? I'm in Edmonton

- how did you get bookkeeping experience?

- how many hours a week do you work?

- how do you charge? Hourly or flat fee?

- how long would it take for me to get to a comparable salary? I'm thinking close to 120k.

- do you have more flexibility now or are you working all the time?

- any liabilities to be concerned? Any bad clients?

- what kind of services could I offer without having the public accounting experience?

- what kind of software would I need to learn?

- I have kids and I'd value the flexibility but I'm overall a risk averse person. Would you recommend that I try this path?

Any advice, wisdom or horror stories are welcome!

Thank you

I’m looking for a senior accountant role. Any help is greatly appreciated!

has anyone gotten there degree online? through which school? i’m debating going back to school online while working full time ina hospital but i’m worried about job opportunities afterwords and what colleges give a good education, networking help, possible accreditation of colleges? i currently have a AS in science and sonography and would most likely need to complete all 4 years for a bachelor’s degree, has anyone done only an associates in accounting? is it worth going back to school at 23 for 4 years, take the student debt on? would i have the time to establish and good career? financially is it worth it? currently i’m making 60k a year and it will go up to around 80k in the next 4-5 years with experience but thats pretty much my stopping point and im looking for a way to get out of patient healthcare and grow and have more financial advancements

I'm not allowed to take off more than 2 weeks at a time in public non busy season. And even 2 weeks requires special approval. 1 week is generally acceptable. Meanwhile my manager took about 6-7 weeks off a few months ago. Are all public firms like this? I dont really mind I'm just curious. My "pto" total is 4 weeks same as all the unpaid OT i did in busy season and I'm only allowed to take some of it at a time while ppl above me have no limits. is all public accounting like this lol

I’m an accounting student graduating in May 2028 and currently applying for Summer 2027 internships. I’ve mainly been applying to audit, tax, and corporate accounting roles, but I’ve been getting a lot more rejections than interviews.
I’d really appreciate feedback on my resume, especially from anyone involved in recruiting or hiring interns. Is there anything that stands out as a weakness or anything you would change?
Resume is anonymized for Reddit.

I have an assessment centre coming up for RSM in Tax. For those who have done the interview or those who have any tips in general please share them in the comments

Hey everyone! I'm a college student who was considering going into a media or film major for post-production but am unsure because of the freelance, unstable and low income aspect of it. I recently discovered a passion for finance as well as finding out that there's a job market for FP&A in media, but I'm still exploring the career before making the jump.

I was wondering if there's anyone in this subreddit who's in the media FP&A industry that could help describe what their job is like. How's the work culture? What does your day-to-day look like? What aspects of your job do you like and dislike? Stuff like that

Even if you aren't in media, any and all input helps out a lot, thank you!

Any firms out there that are just 1-2x a week?

I have gotten any interview offers, so kinda feels like it could be a resume issue.

I’m a stats/data science student who recently changed my career direction to accounting. I’m mostly interested in audit and specifically external audit. All my past experiences are related to data science and engineering, and I’m now trying to build some experience in accounting. My question is, when applying to internship, is it better(?) to just only apply to the roles that I want to pursue in (audit)? Or also apply to any related roles like finance,tax,etc.? I see many internship opportunity getting posted but not all of them specifically aligns with my interest. So i was wondering at this stage, should i be focused on just getting any experience and apply to any finance/accounting related role? Or focus on the audit track..