Any thoughts in career, exit opportunities and etc.?
1 year of experience at assurance, ready to jump as soon as possible
Boutique valuation firm pays pretty well at 65k + 20-30% bonus
Big 4 FDD - what is the salary/bonus situation?
Thanks for the input
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Any thoughts?
Your bonus at the boutique valuation firm will be 0-10% during your first year. And if you are a top performer will top out at 30% at the end of your analyst stint before you are promoted to associate.
You will be looking at ib hours your first year to set yourself up for a 30% bonus in your second year.
That being said, go val. for the training, as long as your boutique is not an accounting firm.
coughDon't do FDD, you'll pull your hair out in frustration before your first month is overcough
Thanks for the insight guys. Boutique is not an accounting firm. It only does valuation work.
Two Jobs: Big 4 Audit, or Boutique Valuation/Financial Opinions (Originally Posted: 02/24/2013)
Hello guys!
Right now I am trying to decide between two possible career starts:
Big 4 Audit Associate for financial services clients.
or
Valuation and Financial Opinions Analyst for a smaller boutique ibd/valuation shop(Lots of ex Big 4 Val guys here)
If anyone has any insight I would greatly appreciate it!
I know that the work at the work at the valuation shop would be more interesting, due to the inherent nature of audit work. My only reservation would be the long term career progression of starting at a small shop in valuation. At the Big 4 you do two years, and can exit into a Senior Financial Analyst role at a F500 and write your own ticket on hard work. At the Valuation shop I feel like I would learn a ton since the work would be interesting from the get go, but after two years the exits would be more of a crapshoot due to lack of a solid brand on your resume!
The cost of living adjustment places the Val job at a 20% greater salary with an approx 10% bonus(generally larger if you slave away more).
Thank you in advance for any advice you guys might have!
I would definitely choose the boutique. Financial services audits are extremely repetitive, and what you learn will not be relevant to anything besides performing accounting work for financial services companies. If you were looking at a different industry for the audit position, it would be a toss up, but I think the boutique is the obvious choice from where you stand.
Not to steal the thread away but, I have heard before what you mention about financial services audit being repetitive and if you want to get into financial analyst positions to try to audit something like tech/energy/etc. However, I look at some job postings that specifically mention audit of banking/capital markets/asset management in the post. Why do you think this is?
Thank you for the insight!
Do you know if the Big 4 Valuation departments hire from boutiques, or is it straight internal transfers from there audit departments?
Also do you happen to know any typical exits for valuation guys past the two year mark? I've never had any kind of career exposure to the finance track.
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