Does Audit Get Better After Your First Year?
Hello everyone!
I interned in tax at a big 4 last summer and am doing a rotation into audit as a full time hire (started last month). I wanted to check out both audit and tax before making a decision. I enjoyed my time in tax and thought there was a lot of value added.
However, I don't want to stay in public accounting forever, so I moved to audit, because I also eventually want to do either transaction services or valuations. And I know tax to TAS or Valuations isn't a good transition. But the work in audit is so terrible. All menial, tedious work with no value added. Staring at excel for hours. The kind of work that sucks the soul out of you.
Question: Is TAS or valuations like audit? (meaning is it just as tedious with no value added?)
Also, how hard is it to go from tax to TAS or valuations?
Any advice will be much appreciated!
Short answer: Not Really.
You'll begin to audit more complex areas(Goodwill, Pension, Complex Transactions) but the work itself remains fundamentally the same.
Voice your desire to move to TAS now and you could potential make the move in your 2nd year. The work on the TAS/Valuation may be more interesting but there will still be alot of excel staring.
No it does not get better. Moving from audit to CF/TS/Valuation is very hard, as everyone else wants to transition as well, there's a fierce competition, but at least in audit you do have a shot to make the transition.
My advice: before you set foot in there, have a exit plan already, and stick to it. You learn useful stuff in the beginning, but too much time spent there and you're pigeonholed. Leave max 2 year mark.
PS: if you do not like excel, you're probably not in the right line of work.
Audit doesn't get any better imo. I left after two years into TAS/TS (FDD) and found the transition fairly easy, albeit not within a Big 4 firm. I went from a national firm doing audit to another national firm doing TAS/TS.
From my experience it was all about time and whether or not the TAS/TS groups were hiring. Feel free to PM me with any questions.
Best of luck.
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