Fed Up with Audit
I am so fed up with the audit... Out of college had no clue what I wanted to do in finance so by accident I ended up in audit at big4. After 1.5 I can't stand it.... Thought to transfer to FDD, no positions available due to macroeconomic conditions. Interviewed with other finance traditional roles such as FP&A and corp. finance, they say I don't have the right skill set. The only jobs I get interviews to are fund accountant which are a completely dead end (but with a good salary). I am too early for an MBA, is it worth doing doing master's in finance or a master's in management from the top 10 universities? Or is it a waste of time and just go do something else? In need of advice here. Audit destroys my soul.... suppresses my creativity... ideally, I would want to go into IB. How crazy of the journey is it?
Surprised you aren’t getting looks for FP&A roles - SFA/FA roles look favorably on public accounting backgrounds. What types of companies are you targeting?
I worked with recruiters on FP&A, and they were mostly financial services firms. Any recommendations where to look at?
You are not too young for MBA, especially given the timing of the cycles. Apply next cycle (for entry in Fall 2025) and you will have 2.5 years experience, that's plenty. Use that time to get your GMAT, resume solid, recs lined up etc. Should be able to land IB with a top 15 MBA pretty easily.
Thanks for the advice! Do you think 2.5 years of audit is sufficient for a good MBA program? I was always under the impression that I needed to have some better experience to be qualified.
Contrary to what a lot of the people on this forum will tell you, Big4 audit is considered great work experience in the grand scheme of things. Almost everyone I know who has applied for a top 15 MBA out of Big4 has gotten in. You will certainly have to convey that you are very ambitious and come up with a better reason for going into Big4, but you should not have too much trouble getting in (assuming you put the effort into the applications).
I hear you. I’d suggest you hang in there, suck it up, and get into a Top 15 MBA program in ~2 years.
I went through a very similar experience as you… I got tricked into doing audit out of undergrad and ended up hating it. I did it for 3 years, got my CPA, and transferred to our FDD practice for 2 years before getting a top 10 MBA and transitioning into IB. Don’t get me wrong… IB is incredibly hard at times. But whenever I get down on my situation I just think about how I could still be in audit, and that gets my gears cranking again.
The job market is terrible right now - FP&A is a reasonable/stretch exit opp from audit in a normal time, but the market currently is over-saturated with qualified candidates. In the short term, you can suck it up in audit, transfer to advisory, leave for fund accounting, or gun for FP&A/IB (will be difficult). For a top MBA, it doesn’t really matter which one of these you do… I met people from all of these backgrounds during my time in school. I’d caveat that if you go fund accounting, pick a reputable firm and not some no-name shop.
My personal suggestion would be to try transferring internally to an advisory role for a couple years, and if you can’t just suck it up and stay in audit before applying to MBA programs. In advisory, you get paid more, work less, and the work is likely slightly more interesting than audit. Which was precisely my experience. Either of these options are also a good contingency plan if business school doesn’t work out - audit sucks ass but it leaves the door open to work overseas, transfer to another service line, etc. You’re not giving up on yourself career-wise like you would be if you went to fund accounting or FP&A, where you’d be some back office scrub and a cost center for the firm.
Best of luck… I remember going through this exact situation and hope this helps. It’s important to not give up… audit has a way of eroding the soul, but stay hungry. Apply to business schools, go to another service line, hustle for IB roles, do whatever it takes to escape audit. Keep moving forward and don’t get complacent.
So many people in audit either aren’t aware of other opportunities out there… or they are aware and don’t believe in themselves enough to pursue them. Don’t be one of those people… IB is brutal but it’s 100x better than audit, and it’s doable.
Thank you for the response.... that was inspirational and just what I needed!
Ex cum ut libero qui. Enim blanditiis delectus enim non perferendis sapiente et. Eos perspiciatis sint consequatur quos omnis debitis sint.
See All Comments - 100% Free
WSO depends on everyone being able to pitch in when they know something. Unlock with your email and get bonus: 6 financial modeling lessons free ($199 value)
or Unlock with your social account...