Q: Big4 - Yearly salary increment

Originally Posted by Unregistered

recently left, dont hate audit, dont hate the hours, hate the fact that management is doing nothing to maintain the quality of the profession. a lot of politcal bs at the very top.

senior partners got very little incentive to change status quo because any change affect their take home and they are about 5 years away from packing bag and retiring in their condo before taking on some AC / director roles. junior partners got to suck it up because their comp and bonus is all decided by senior partners exco.

all these salary raises to address the situation are done under the gun, basically milk spilt already then take cloth and wipe. audit standards are going down faster than double declining depreciation ever since covid.

4.1k starting pay got what use when ur MA outside paying 4.8 with i would say competitive progression for the first 5 years. all you get are the leftovers still, just that your leftover still slightly better quality. this is not withstanding that outside of audit the WLB is about 50% better at minimum.

even if say someone told me i guarantee become partner 8 years from now if i stayed, and i can earn 25k / month as a year 1 partner would i do it? probably not, because the 8 years are going to be like dragging my balls through glass. the intern of 3 years ago is better than the year 2 associate of today.

being a manager now is just the a sandwich position, ask u take a 1m port still u need to manage the partner, uphold the firm standards, make sure everything is prim and proper before send them for review at the same time hand hold the senior and staff. some seniors now cant even construct a proper english sentence, some cant even give basic JEs. but you cant do anything about it because press them too hard they look like they gonna break and fall apart, so you just "make do". few years ago u just need to catch up with the senior, give some guidance, good to go.

the ask of you vs the promised benefit is not worth the money, and im certain i dont need 25k a month to lead a good life. beyond 15k you honestly just want a crazy rich asian lifestyle. good luck to those who are still inside and gunning for partner, hats off for your resilience, probably easier to make it there now. but if you make partner you might be sweating buckets everytime you sign the FS.

I don't even need 15k, even 10k is good enough for me. I just want WLB...

how bad must performance be to be retained/PIP from A2 to S1?

Originally Posted by Unregistered

how bad must performance be to be retained/PIP from A2 to S1?

back when i was a1. out of every 3 batches there will only be 1 who retain, so maybe 1% chance.

now, during round table, easily 5 to 8 are in the discussion each time, but even then, we have to be "lenient" if not affect morale

Originally Posted by Unregistered

hiring freeze for banks apparently

i had to take a paycut for IA role in different industry. anyone else wanna share?

this is false. look on linkedin and you can see how many openings there are. hiring slowdown, yes probably true.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

back when i was a1. out of every 3 batches there will only be 1 who retain, so maybe 1% chance.

now, during round table, easily 5 to 8 are in the discussion each time, but even then, we have to be "lenient" if not affect morale

Last year it was 75% promotion rate from a2 to s1.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

What did you jump into? Is SM pay that much higher than commercial?

not OP, but i think the answer is no. it is not so straightforward.

i think you need to think about your salary goal and how fast you want to get there. if you want anything 12-14k in 10 years. i will say the best odds are to stay to SM3, outside would likely take longer, could be 15 years, 20 years, depends on your industry your own capability etc, of course could also be faster, i know guys who made it to PE or just manage to get hired as FC at immediately got a 30% raise. but of course these are minority cases.

but you need to consider that "surviving" to SM3 is not exactly easy either, along the way some people fall off the curve also, but if you can, it is probably the fastest. but then making the switch from there is exponentially difficult because you are just branded as an auditor. if you ask me is commercial that much different from audit, the answer is no, because audit actually exposes you to a lot of things and all that gives you a nice varied skill set. but does your future employer know that? the answer is no also, in that 2 or 3 rounds of interview you will never be able to display your true value, and then you got people who are "tried and tested" people doing FP&A which is probably a better bet to your hiring manager.

then the next consideration is can you make partner, if you can and you think audit is the career for you, then by all means stay. but if you cannot, then there is a real possiblity you are stuck as an SM3 with little to no exit opportunities and may have to take a pay cut. then you are suddenly behind the person who left early and now got the special "at least 10 years commerical experience with 3-4 years in big4", and these guys usually earn a decent sum.

think long and hard, dont look back. but i mean of course if everything turns to ****, and if you were a decent staff, your manager/partner will hire you back in a heartbeat looking at the situation today...

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Last year it was 75% promotion rate from a2 to s1.

lol funny thing is, even those retain will get a salary uplift from the recent adjustment. but those people are still crap performers, essentially the cost/efficiency just decreased even further (the problem that they are trying to address). at this point big4 is just throwing pails of water on a forest fire.

but should be thankful, MNC finance roles usually adjust salary after to stay competitive

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Last year it was 75% promotion rate from a2 to s1.

why did the 25% not get promoted?

1 batch usually how many ppl?

Originally Posted by Unregistered

why did the 25% not get promoted?

The number of people they can promote depends on their budget. If they have too many seniors who are not leaving, they will have limited slots.

whether you received complaints from your managers during round table discussions might also be a factor.