Tough decision: Deloitte London graduate audit program or accept LSE GMIM offer + loads of debt
Hello fellow WSOs
I just wanted to hear some thoughts on my tough situation:
I have a choice of offers between Deloitte London audit (35K pre ACA salary) and LSE GMIM.
The LSE GMIM would cost 100K GBP and my family can barely afford it
What would you choose in my position ?
If you cannot afford the Masters, then go for the Deloitte position. There will be a lot of people here who are, frankly, completely out of touch who will say to go for the Masters because "it will pay for itself". Guess what, no it won't. Let's say you land an IB job from LSE. Great. Now you're on a 70k base with a bonus of like 30k maybe a year. How long do you think it would take to clear a 100k debt? Spoiler alert: a very long time.
Even if you got the IB job, you would be having to live FAR below your means to make ends meet. You should NOT be living pay-cheque to pay-cheque as an investment banker or other similarly highly paid job.
It just isn't practical, reasonable, or sensible to go for the Masters here.
Take the Deloitte position, build experience, and then you can lateral to other positions later on. 35k is a good starting salary (that I assume will rise significantly after ACA).
Hope this helps.
Very helpful and reassuring.
I do occasionally get put off by all those audit horror stories online though I agree that living paycheck to paycheck as an IB may be much worse haha
Agree with this comment. Not exactly sure how it works in the UK, but I would grind it out in audit for a couple years or until senior associate promotion and then look to lateral to advisory, corporate banking, IB, FP&A, etc. Take those 2-3 years to get your accreditation, research what you want to do, and start taking steps to get there (modeling courses, asking to be on an audit client with M&A or financing activities, etc.).
And on audit horror stories, there are some rough months, typically the two months leading up to your client's annual report (busy season). But the hours are pretty predictable, and you can manage them mentally knowing there is a set filing date (unless something catastrophic happens). I did audit for 6 years to manager and now work FP&A at a PE backed portco.
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