<p>Hey everyone, new member here and I was wondering if you could answer this question</p>
<p>is there a chart for salary progression that I can see regarding how accountants move up the corporate ladder?</p>
<p>I think a website called goingconcern mentioned a progression like this</p>
<p>Accountant
Year 1 - 55k
Year 2 - 57k
Year 3 - 60k
Year 4 - 62k
Year 5 - 70k
Year 6 - 75k
Year 7 - 80-85k
Year 8 - 90-95k</p>
<p>but I wasnt sure if these were feasible for the above average accountant (I'd like to assume that I am not going to be those superstar ballin accountants)</p>
<p>To accountants with 5 year experience do many go on to work as a senior associate or manager or are these VERY VERY hard to come by?</p>
<p>Another question is in regards to do most accountants look for positions with better hours as they hit the 30's? I've heard there is a lot of burnout with accountants working for the Big 4 companies and therefore look for greener pastures but anyone have any insight into this.</p>
<p>Is it possible to earn 140k at age 40 with 40-50 hours or are most of these jobs in the 130-160k range mostly 60+ hours work weeks?</p>
<p>Lastly, I took some of my business courses and accounting courses at a community college and now headed to USC Accounting (I am a Spring admit). Say, I do get a 3.4 GPA or above, will the recruits look past my CC courses, since I'm worried my GPA looks higher than it really is?</p>
<p>In Big 4 firms at least, turnover is relatively high. If you are a consistent performer moving onto senior associate within 2 or 3 years of work is fairly common. You don’t have to be a superstar – I certainly wasn’t! Where it starts getting competitive – as in, you really have to desire it to get it – is when you are aiming for senior manager/director or partner positions. Especially with the latter, where you have to buy in to the firm, that’s probably something that you start planning for well in advance because as you get higher up you start having more expectations involving community work as well as bringing in revenue to the firm (sales). But for senior associate or manager, all that really matters is the quality of your work and assuming we are talking about a reasonably big firm here the slots for this are far from rare. </p>
<p>As far as salary progression – a lot of that is really based on your specialty and your location. If you are hired to work in D.C. or L.A., they will likely have to give you a higher starting salary than if you work in a place with a lower cost of living. Additionally, based on my personal experience people who were hired for advisory or consulting services (each firm gives its own name for this but it’s basically the same thing no matter where you goes) started out a bit higher than anyone else. I don’t know if this is commonplace but I do know that there’s enough variability that you’re not going to get an exact number unless you have an offer letter from a firm in hand.</p>
<p>As I mentioned before, turnover is high in public accounting. Many people decide to take the skills they develop here and move on to private sector where the hours are more manageable. However, I personally recommend sticking in public accounting as long as possible. The workload is high but the learning curve is great, and having that experience on your resume makes you so much more competitive for other jobs. If your goal is to become a controller or CFO at some company then having that name Deloitte or PwC on your resume (or any accounting firm, actually, don’t feel like you’re stuck with Big 4) means a lot to many employers.</p>
<p>People I know who left while still an associate (1 or 2 years of experience) often end up stuck in internal audit at corporations, which isn’t bad but is not as great as they would have done if they had waited a couple of years more to make senior associate or manager before leaving.</p>
<p>I would second what DmitriR said and then add a few more other comments:</p>
<p>The turnover in public accounting is high, but it is nearly all self-motivated. That is to say, it is from people voluntarily leaving public accounting. So, in answer to this questions:</p>
<p>“To accountants with 5 year experience do many go on to work as a senior associate or manager or are these VERY VERY hard to come by?”</p>
<p>If you are willing to stay in and don’t botch things up too badly, you will almost assuredly run through the ranks. As DmitriR says, things gets trickier at senior manager, since then, progression is based on one’s business case/book of business/buying into the partnership (if they go partner/principal).</p>
<p>“Another question is in regards to do most accountants look for positions with better hours as they hit the 30’s? I’ve heard there is a lot of burnout with accountants working for the Big 4 companies and therefore look for greener pastures but anyone have any insight into this.”</p>
<p>A lot of people do move on. As DmitriR also said, if you plan on leaving Big 4 or public accounting, it’s better to leave later rather than sooner…I think what a lot of people find when they leave is they get a nice pay bump (industry typically pays more…at least for tax, don’t know as much about audit), and they get better work life balance.</p>