The last paragraph is totally me too... It really hurts not being able to see your parents as they get older because you're OTing on weekends and nights and public holidays or too tired from OTing.
For the students, this is how my schedule is like these days. FYI I'm still working this week because our reporting for Sep is end-Dec (but no replacement leave allowed):
Jan - Mar: Listco peak / group reporting peak
Apr - Jun: Subsi peak / delayed Dec YE peak / Mar or quarterly peak
Jul - Sep: Jun or quarterly peak / if lucky can go on leave
Oct - Dec: Sep or quarterly peak / interim peak
Because I'm constantly working from peak to peak, there's nothing to learn but firefighting. I don't even have time to properly learn auditing standards and IFRS. 4 years of ********ting back-to-back jobs and hoping no one picks it up. Don't believe the old coots who tell you that audit is a good job, maybe it is 20 years ago when they actually have off peak and you can get a job with just a degree. SG clients are so **** that listings often don't even tie to the TB and they don't know why but you have to firefight somehow because it's a "me" problem when I'm delayed.
Also, timelines are always delayed and you have to follow up on your own after hours since "job ownership", so you're essentially working on multiple projects at one time. Planned breaks are often disrupted due to this when things suddenly pop up. Your juniors won't be of help either because the new batch doesn't know accounting, don't know how to use Excel, don't know how to Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V, cannot understand how to vouch, don't know how to refer to past year, takes 2 days to complete cash section, will never update PBC list and status updates so you have to do it yourself, and need extreme handholding so your working hours are doubled to coach. Apparently there's such an extreme shortage of grads wanting to do audit that we're taking the people who failed classes or something.
Please just don't join audit. Do you know that hiring managers these days explicitly filter out auditors even for accounting roles (because you don't have
ERP experience) and FP&A (because you don't have forecasting, analytics experience)? Please read anonymous posts and have more coffee chats with actual hiring managers elsewhere instead of audit campus recruiters before you decide on your first job. There are politically incorrect things that people can't tell you in an official capacity or when there's other people around to judge them. Audit experience hurts you unless the company wants a workaholic (yes, this is what they explicitly say, we like auditors because they are used to OTing).