Q&A:Big 4 Audit to Boutique M&A Shop

@Worth a Try

Thanks, appreciate it.

• How did you position yourself to get out of accounting?

From a tangible/concrete perspective, I positioned myself by leaving the Big 4 for a "finance" job and by taking level 1 of the CFA. Equally if not more important, in order to position yourself out of an accounting role, you need to have a certain mindset. Don't view yourself or even present yourself as an accountant. Your play all along has been to become a financial statement expert which will help you exponentially in banking; you chose accounting since its the language of business. Anyone can create three-statement models or run DCFs but your mastery of accounting enables you to really understand the models and the nuances in them which essentially makes a first-year banker better than you solely from an operational standpoint. You can close this gap once you get a shot and do this on a daily . Make sure this comes across when you speak to everyone in your network so they understand your game-plan.

I also positioned myself by learning how to run three-statement models and DCFs as well as my own reading/research. I found the following to be helpful:

1. Wall Street Prep - I bought the premium package for a little over $400. Thought it was helpful as it walked through a bunch of models including DCF, M&A, LBO, etc. These models also provided me a baseline model to work off of as I was never formally exposed to it at either of my current jobs.

2. Aswath Damodaran - this NYU professor really breaks valuation down and essentially allows you take to his class for free via his website: http://pages.stern.nyu.edu/~adamodar/

3. Investment Banking handbook - came across this somewhere but found it to be solid reference material: http://cec.shfc.edu.cn/download/ff9afd43-a63a-4c1e-b8f3-9566c0c62053.pdf

You have the right idea of transitioning into a transaction advisory services (TAS) job as that is the most logical next step towards banking but I'd be wary of doing this internally. At my previous Big 4, this transition was a multi-stage process with numerous rotations outside of busy season and essentially set you back multiple years before you actually joined the group unless you had a solid relationship with a partner that was willing to pull you in. While you're gunning for these TAS jobs, I'd look into other firms like Houlihan Lokey as they have similar roles that could potentially get you exposure to better deals than you would see at a Big 4 or other accounting firm. Also, not sure what your CPA plans are but the designation itself came up a couple of times in my interviews as firms do view this positively. No one really talked about my CFA level 1 but they did talk about my CPA. I'd be opportunistic with the exam only if you can get it done quickly.

• Why did you pick the credit agency job?

I think these jobs are wall street's best kept secrets and really doesn't get the credit it deserves, pun intended. The experience has been very fulfilling from a learning perspective. Significant deep dives into SEC filings and company presentations, executive management meetings to discuss business strategy overall performance, and spreading comps across industry verticals. The analytical rigor that these firms put you through is relatively solid and you essentially get trained to look at a company from both a qualitative and quantitative perspective which is what I was missing at my Big 4. The structure if very similar to equity research in the sense that a younger analyst (myself) follows a senior analyst/MD who's been in the game for sometime now which equates to a solid learning experience overall. Also, the pay was actually pretty good considering the hours I worked. With that being said and if banking is your goal, I think you can only stay here for 2 years max unless you want to get your MBA and then do IBD at the associate level. Coming here allowed me to not only leave accounting but sharpened my analytical skills. The exit opps from here can also be solid if you network properly and position yourself well within the respective agency but that's a whole different conversation.

• Did you focus more on networking or applying for jobs online?

To be honest, I did both feverishly. My goal was to try and reach out to someone new every day who was in IB whether it was a high school alum, a college alum, an ex-Big 4 alum, whoever it may be and simply ask for career perspective and try to get on the phone for a couple of minutes. Whenever I'd find an open position, I'd go ahead and reach out to anyone in my network that worked at that specific firm to see if they could push my resume in any sort of way. In regards to sourcing these positions, I checked everything including linkedin, monster, indeed, firm career pages, as well as random google searches pretty much every other day. At the end of the day, I wanted as many people in my network to know exactly what I wanted, so if they heard of something down the line, I would be the first person they thought of.

On a side note, don't entertain headhunters that try to feed you nonsense jobs that appear to be front office and don't get led astray by titles. 99% of the headhunters that are consistently calling you don't care about your front office dreams as they can't place you in such positions. As a rule of thumb, if there was anything in the job description that included some text around tasks done annually, quarterly, or periodically in any way, I proceeded with caution.

Hope this helps and feel free to reach out here again or via pm.