Q: Big4 - Yearly salary increment

I am audit manager now

With gen Z not joining big 4

With gen Z resigning

With incompetent gen Z colleagues

I really scared they jeopardize my career path as my work really rely on their quality of work

Originally Posted by Unregistered

I am audit manager now

With gen Z not joining big 4

With gen Z resigning

With incompetent gen Z colleagues

I really scared they jeopardize my career path as my work really rely on their quality of work

Dont talk abt quality when ur technical compentency is crap.
Stop blaming on others and work on urself.
Also mgr role include training and guiding ur team obviously u some shyt mgr. Go g urself.

Im also M. Its ppl like you who shyt this industry.

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

"Main reason i left is because many of my engagements didn't have a competent team a"

I thought manager role is supposed to train and guide your team? But you left audit industry because your engagements didn't have a competent team?

Eh, you know ah, working with different teams, even if they not so good at first, actually good for you leh. Can improve your leadership and problem-solving skills, you know?

Instead of running away, better to give feedback and help them grow. Like that, you show you got strong leadership mah. Also, no team perfect one. If you work together and help each other, can improve a lot. If you leave too fast, you miss the chance to make a big difference lor.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Dont talk abt quality when ur technical compentency is crap.
Stop blaming on others and work on urself.
Also mgr role include training and guiding ur team obviously u some shyt mgr. Go g urself.

Im also M. Its ppl like you who shyt this industry.

OP here

how you know my technical competency is crap?

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

Y would ppl stay when u have better qualification and better opportunity and better performance. Make no sense to keep doing the same copy and paste for at least 200k pa. I left audit as M too. It just makes no sense to me, doing same thing and every year just fight for fee increase to proof ur performance.

U luck client ok with fee increase and ur performance is deemed better. If not u are just some avg joe.

Blue
S3: 5300 (before)/ 5600 (after october, b4 ca bonus)
5800 (before w Ca)/
S4: 4800 (before) / 5100 (after)
G1:3800 (before) / 4550 (no bonus), 4400 (advisory)
G2:3600(before) / 4350 (no bonus)

Yellow
S2: 5500 (before) /
S1: 4800 (before) /
A2: 3800 (before)
A1: 3500 (before)/4300 (after, no bonus)

Orange
S2: 5300 (audit) 5500 (tax) 6000 (cons) (before)
S1: 4800 (audit) 5000 (tax) 5500 (cons) (before)
A2: 3800 (audit) 4000 (tax) 4500 (cons) (before)
A1: 3500 (audit) 3600 (tax) 4000 (cons) (before)/4100 (no bonus) 4800 (deals , no bonus) (after)

B4 Ca completion bonus 2.5k x 4

Black
S2:
S1:
A2: 4500 (after)
A1: 4100 (after)

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Dont talk abt quality when ur technical compentency is crap.
Stop blaming on others and work on urself.
Also mgr role include training and guiding ur team obviously u some shyt mgr. Go g urself.

Im also M. Its ppl like you who shyt this industry.

you don't blame others lah

you also shyt this industry

you think you very good?

if you are good, your staff wouldn't leave you

3.5, come here my malaysian beggers. Be my slave and work for me

Originally Posted by Unregistered

3.5, come here my malaysian beggers. Be my slave and work for me

singaporean here.

Bro, you kena bully by JHK and JHB until you go mad is it?

Keep spamming malaysian for what?

Can Singaporean complete all the audit portfolio themselves and makan all profits?

So big audit portfolio, we all Singaporean can swallow meh?

We still need Malaysian to share the burden of all audit portfolio.

And one day these malaysian will take PR and stay here

So not sure why you keep scolding malaysian for what?

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Y would ppl stay when u have better qualification and better opportunity and better performance. Make no sense to keep doing the same copy and paste for at least 200k pa. I left audit as M too. It just makes no sense to me, doing same thing and every year just fight for fee increase to proof ur performance.

U luck client ok with fee increase and ur performance is deemed better. If not u are just some avg joe.

yeah, im not even a manager and i'd say why bother stay as M>SM>P when you can be FM>Regional FD>CFO. the scope of your work is much more interesting and varied while having WLB