Originally Posted by Unregistered

Just left after all peak after 1 year of manager, so i think i can answer this, but this is just my perspective

Can cope, dont want to cope anymore. Exited for higher pay and easily half the workload, i like to tell the rest of my batchmates who are still inside that im getting more pay but doing s2 work. whats not to like?

Dont feel any more stress than being an AM

Being sandwiched yes, but honestly if you made it to manager juggling this shouldnt be that much harder. only the ridiculously stupid amount of admin is probably the most challenging thing that a new manager encounters.

Main reason i left is because many of my engagements didn't have a competent team and partners just didnt care to be honest, basically they will tell you they understand but this is the market now, and wont mark you down if the job not well done, but end of story is suck it up. Dont be fooled by the pay raise, its still a business, partners still care about their margin because they are material risk taker, for those still inside, im sure you are seeing a greater emphasis on offshore staff, this is to manage costs in exchange for increasing pay. The thought is with higher pay we will get better people, to balance out the offshore staff capabilities.

fact is they are about 2 or 3 steps behind market, and audit is going to be terrible for the next 3 to 5 years. i would say about half the a1s to s1s are honestly just lost and clueless to how the audit works. you can be good at section work (even then nowadays some cant even do proper section work), but if you cant piece together what the audit is trying to achieve and the key risk areas you are just a rollforward machine and dont really deserve to be senior, but hey we gotta promote or we got not enough seniors.

now think about it, the starting pay has been behind market for so many years, that accountancy itself is unattractive, the cutoff for uni is all time low, and even the better qualified candidates dont want to start in audit and just join your MA programmes wherever with higher pay and better progression, i can attest to this because i offered PO to 2 good interns but they said they were just here because mandated by school and wanted to go bank / MNC MA program or whatever. And i am certain their interaction with the clueless seniors who can barely piece together journal entries and explain basic audit concepts dint help the cause. I can sell them the dream but end of the day they can also see their are mainly going to work with the clown seniors.

with the above in mind, we already know that current batch of seniors suck, and current batch of graduates that are coming into big 4 are the barrel scrapers since the good ones dont wanna start here, even if the trend will revert, its going to take a minimum of 4 years and the next 4 years are going to be hell, pure flaming hell, honestly its like working in an asylum.

fact is many of us foresaw this, keep raising it to management, but always just gets ignored or just sidestepped, i can tell you that Big 4 audit margins at the entire portfolio level are extremely high, those doing engagement budgeting would know this pretty well, but they still refused to raise pay and now this **** state we are in where they have to desperately raise pay twice in a span of 3 years (never before in history) to fix the problem, came a little too late.

then put yourself in my shoes, do i really want to stay on a sinking ship for the promise of partnership and riches even if i got what a 100% chance? the answer is no, dont need that much money, dont need that kind of stress even if i can cope.

hope i answered your question