Q: Big4 - Yearly salary increment

May i share this article on RAZER CEO, Tan Min Liang’s work behaviour as CEO

I have already boycotted his products

s://mothership.sg/2019/12/tan-min-liang-threaten-staff/

Literally these are the kind of people you will be working for in all your life, especially Singaporean/asian superiors

You think about it

Even if you are a CFO you are still under his thumb

Originally Posted by Unregistered

This is the dumbest comments i've seen so far.
1. Nordic countries taxes are one of the highest in the world. In denmark for e.g. the tax rate us 60% of your income. And since you are a foreigner there is very little to none tax rebates which means you pay full.
2. Cost of living in nordic countries are high. If you think food in Singapore is expensive, wait till you see nordic countries food prices. They don't have hawker centers or the concept. They have street food but even that cost double our hawker centers. Most people just cook and brownbag to the office
3. Don't be fooled by the "you can go home at 4pm". Nordic people value getting work done instead of asking you what time you go home. In other words, if there are audit to complete, you will still be expected to pull all nighters to "get it done".
4. As a salaried foreigner you do not get to enjoy most of the benefits as a local. In fact refugees from arab and africa get more benefits than salaried foreigners
5. It is now very unsafe in nordic countries due to the mass influx of refugees and assylum seekers. I'm sure you are aware of the stabbing in the news. Walking alone at night is a no-no.
6. The culture, the food and customs are so different. While its great going there for a few months to a year, any longer and you will feel isolated. Nordic people are culturally very tribal. You will not fit in.

6. In SG, our culture is reinforced with beliefs that we should

A. Be hardworking as humans are only resources in SG
B. We need more population and more population to generate more productivity to sustain ageing population
C. Humans in SG need to work harder to maintain competitiveness over other ASEAN countries
D. Mental health is an issue but not a big issue
E. Foreign working population are a necessity and even if they displace locals, it is fine
F.Japanese are our role model when it comes to diligence

As a result, we are always surrounded by foreigners who always give impression of working hard. How do you want to survive in a society where your productivity output directly correlates to your value in life? Especially where the workers to your right and left can always put in 2x your effort?

Do you want to live with this psychological burden for your entire life lol

Originally Posted by Unregistered

This forum is made up of millennials and 30+ year olds who are bitter that audit fell from one of the more prestigious sectors (only behind medicine, law etc) to a laughing stock that's avoided by most Gen Z and young millennials now due to its sweatshop reputation. They're still seething at the loss of prestige.

Hence, the incessant backward-looking reminiscence about the "good old days" and taking it out on the young people.

Exactly and the way they type you can tell they are all boomers lmao. Cringe af

What is the culture at EY FS wealth asset management?

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Audit was very popular in the late 2000s to early 2010s. All the NBS accounting students ya ya papaya look down on nerd nerd engineers. Think that EY is very atas can wear slim fit office wear work in CBS fancy Raffles Quay office (in reality 80% of the time will be spent in some dusty client industrial estate in Loyang).

After 2015 audit became a joke sector and joining B4 is a shameful 3rd choice option.

Agree with this.. 2020 onwards the gap between accounting and comp sci/engineering widens and more obvious….

Originally Posted by Unregistered

I can tell you your english gave me cancer. Worse than Malaysian english. I think you just become security guard sua la

Here's a refined version of your text with improved clarity, grammar, and tone while preserving the essence of your message:

What transferable skills are we talking about? Vouching? Analytical reviews? Issue resolution? Managing both senior and junior staff? Wait, now managers are doing fieldwork because there’s no manpower.

You leave audit without any commercial knowledge, no understanding of accounting systems, and the only skill you have is picking samples and checking financial statements. Honestly, the quality of audits has declined so much that I think there’s a problem even with reviewing financial statements, let alone preparing them. There’s a reason locals don’t want to stay in audit—it’s because it takes away your life. Next thing you know, you’re in your mid-30s with nothing but a decent paycheck and feeling like a shell of your former self. You forget what having hobbies even feels like.

You think the commercial sector will hire you as a Financial Manager? You’re expensive but lack the necessary skills. You can’t leave audit because you’re too costly, and so you continue this life, year after year, until you’re in your mid-40s, realizing you missed your kids' birthdays and your parents' funerals.

Is it worth it to trade your life just to grow your salary to 8–9k? You stagnate unless you become partner. You can't leave—your skills are too generic and not specialized. Your day consists of trying to book staff, but no one joins, and all the competent seniors quit, assuming there even are any.

You look around and realize there are hardly any Singaporeans left—just Malaysians who speak broken Chinese, and you end up working just as many overtime hours because they're motivated by a 3:1 exchange rate, while your own is 1:1 at best. Eventually, you marry a Malaysian girl and pick up their strange Chinese accent.

What branding does Big 4 actually provide? Just leave as a senior if branding is that important. Whether you leave as a senior or manager, your branding is the same. And once you reach the senior level, your knowledge is on par with that of your managers, if you know what I mean.

As a manager, your skills start to deteriorate because you’ve lost touch with the technical work—you're too busy reviewing working papers all day. When you finally leave for a commercial role, you struggle to keep up because you haven't used Excel in so long. Your accountants and senior accountants look down on you—they don’t respect you as just a people manager who never contributes to the work itself.

The Big 4 doesn't pay you enough for the amount of hours you put in. Just do the math. Aren't accountants and auditors supposed to be good with numbers? Should I hire a McDonald's worker to do your job instead?

There’s a reason why seniors handle senior-level tasks and juniors handle junior-level ones. The speed at which you comprehend, the level of technical competency, your efficiency in testing, and the time spent on documentation all play a role in how late you work at night.

At this point, there’s no distinction between peak and off-peak periods—it's peak season all year unless you're underperforming. When manpower is low, peak season is permanent.

Clients have an entire year to manipulate their financials, but auditors have less than a month to review them.

Have you ever gone without sleep for days on end? Spent a whole week doing nothing but working and catching up on rest? Your weekends are consumed by catch-up work, and you take sick leave just to manage your backlog. Try doing that for months. Are you really willing to sacrifice your life just for "branding"? Branding for what? Commercial roles? The industry is flooded with Malaysians now, and salaries are being driven down.

You can’t apply for leave during peak periods. In fact, nowadays, you can’t apply for leave at all unless you get explicit approval from your manager. Are you okay with taking your laptop overseas? When you’re sick and on MC, does your workload shrink? The peers I worked with would spend their sick days working because clients and partners won’t wait for you to recover. There are statutory deadlines, group auditors to report to, and no one will wait for your health to catch up.

Want to guess what happens if you miss those deadlines? Your entire year’s work could be undone during promotions. You’ll be left behind while some Malaysian with broken English gets promoted, not because he worked harder, but because his rented room in Woodlands is too small to even turn on the air conditioning before 10 PM.

Are Singaporean students so naive to think they can compete with these people? These Malaysians have left their families behind to compete with us locals, driven by a 3.5 exchange rate. Do you think it’s worth competing with them? They won’t bother mentoring you—they’d rather side with their own and dump all the heavy work onto you.

Now, let’s say you’re promoted to manager and decide to leave for a commercial role. You join an SME or an MNC as a Financial Manager. Here's the issue: competency is a problem. Your AR/AP executive is probably halfway through an ACCA, holds a diploma, or has some Malaysian certification. You can't expect them to handle heavy lifting because their exposure to auditing and accounting is limited.

Your accountant will always be missing, especially before the year-end audit. They’re underpaid, have no growth opportunities, and face immense stress with a heavy workload. As a Financial Manager, you’ll struggle to find replacements unless you join an MNC with a strong reputation that attracts talent. You’ll be living on borrowed time—your performance as an FM will depend on how smoothly the audit goes. From March to December, you might experience work-life balance, but come January and February, when audits kick in, you’ll realize that your balance was just a ticking time bomb waiting to explode.

There’s no future in this industry. Malaysians have flooded the market by taking advantage of low entry barriers, and partners are too focused on maximizing returns. Now they’re panicking because the government is raising EP requirements. Do auditors really think their salaries should be determined by the whim of the government?

Don’t buy into the growth hype that people in Big 4 love to peddle. As long as you’re trading time for money, your hourly rate will be low. The long hours, lack of work-life balance, and high stress are simply not worth it. Just look at your managers—they’re stuck. Ask them why they haven’t left, and they’ll tell you they’re stuck.

What’s the point of a 1-month or 1.5-month bonus for "great performance"? How many jobs do you need to close for that bonus? Does the math add up? You could probably earn more doing GrabFood on weekends and ignoring your work—assuming, of course, you can even meet the bare minimum requirements to get promoted.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

What is the culture at EY FS wealth asset management?

It is good but...

What transferable skills are we talking about? Vouching? Analytical reviews? Issue resolution? Managing both senior and junior staff? Wait, now managers are doing fieldwork because there’s no manpower.

You leave audit without any commercial knowledge, no understanding of accounting systems, and the only skill you have is picking samples and checking financial statements. Honestly, the quality of audits has declined so much that I think there’s a problem even with reviewing financial statements, let alone preparing them. There’s a reason locals don’t want to stay in audit—it’s because it takes away your life. Next thing you know, you’re in your mid-30s with nothing but a decent paycheck and feeling like a shell of your former self. You forget what having hobbies even feels like.

You think the commercial sector will hire you as a Financial Manager? You’re expensive but lack the necessary skills. You can’t leave audit because you’re too costly, and so you continue this life, year after year, until you’re in your mid-40s, realizing you missed your kids' birthdays and your parents' funerals.

Is it worth it to trade your life just to grow your salary to 8–9k? You stagnate unless you become partner. You can't leave—your skills are too generic and not specialized. Your day consists of trying to book staff, but no one joins, and all the competent seniors quit, assuming there even are any.

You look around and realize there are hardly any Singaporeans left—just Malaysians who speak broken Chinese, and you end up working just as many overtime hours because they're motivated by a 3:1 exchange rate, while your own is 1:1 at best. Eventually, you marry a Malaysian girl and pick up their strange Chinese accent.

What branding does Big 4 actually provide? Just leave as a senior if branding is that important. Whether you leave as a senior or manager, your branding is the same. And once you reach the senior level, your knowledge is on par with that of your managers, if you know what I mean.

As a manager, your skills start to deteriorate because you’ve lost touch with the technical work—you're too busy reviewing working papers all day. When you finally leave for a commercial role, you struggle to keep up because you haven't used Excel in so long. Your accountants and senior accountants look down on you—they don’t respect you as just a people manager who never contributes to the work itself.

The Big 4 doesn't pay you enough for the amount of hours you put in. Just do the math. Aren't accountants and auditors supposed to be good with numbers? Should I hire a McDonald's worker to do your job instead?

There’s a reason why seniors handle senior-level tasks and juniors handle junior-level ones. The speed at which you comprehend, the level of technical competency, your efficiency in testing, and the time spent on documentation all play a role in how late you work at night.

At this point, there’s no distinction between peak and off-peak periods—it's peak season all year unless you're underperforming. When manpower is low, peak season is permanent.

Clients have an entire year to manipulate their financials, but auditors have less than a month to review them.

Have you ever gone without sleep for days on end? Spent a whole week doing nothing but working and catching up on rest? Your weekends are consumed by catch-up work, and you take sick leave just to manage your backlog. Try doing that for months. Are you really willing to sacrifice your life just for "branding"? Branding for what? Commercial roles? The industry is flooded with Malaysians now, and salaries are being driven down.

You can’t apply for leave during peak periods. In fact, nowadays, you can’t apply for leave at all unless you get explicit approval from your manager. Are you okay with taking your laptop overseas? When you’re sick and on MC, does your workload shrink? The peers I worked with would spend their sick days working because clients and partners won’t wait for you to recover. There are statutory deadlines, group auditors to report to, and no one will wait for your health to catch up.

Want to guess what happens if you miss those deadlines? Your entire year’s work could be undone during promotions. You’ll be left behind while some Malaysian with broken English gets promoted, not because he worked harder, but because his rented room in Woodlands is too small to even turn on the air conditioning before 10 PM.

Are Singaporean students so naive to think they can compete with these people? These Malaysians have left their families behind to compete with us locals, driven by a 3.5 exchange rate. Do you think it’s worth competing with them? They won’t bother mentoring you—they’d rather side with their own and dump all the heavy work onto you.

Now, let’s say you’re promoted to manager and decide to leave for a commercial role. You join an SME or an MNC as a Financial Manager. Here's the issue: competency is a problem. Your AR/AP executive is probably halfway through an ACCA, holds a diploma, or has some Malaysian certification. You can't expect them to handle heavy lifting because their exposure to auditing and accounting is limited.

Your accountant will always be missing, especially before the year-end audit. They’re underpaid, have no growth opportunities, and face immense stress with a heavy workload. As a Financial Manager, you’ll struggle to find replacements unless you join an MNC with a strong reputation that attracts talent. You’ll be living on borrowed time—your performance as an FM will depend on how smoothly the audit goes. From March to December, you might experience work-life balance, but come January and February, when audits kick in, you’ll realize that your balance was just a ticking time bomb waiting to explode.

There’s no future in this industry. Malaysians have flooded the market by taking advantage of low entry barriers, and partners are too focused on maximizing returns. Now they’re panicking because the government is raising EP requirements. Do auditors really think their salaries should be determined by the whim of the government?

Don’t buy into the growth hype that people in Big 4 love to peddle. As long as you’re trading time for money, your hourly rate will be low. The long hours, lack of work-life balance, and high stress are simply not worth it. Just look at your managers—they’re stuck. Ask them why they haven’t left, and they’ll tell you they’re stuck.

What’s the point of a 1-month or 1.5-month bonus for "great performance"? How many jobs do you need to close for that bonus? Does the math add up? You could probably earn more doing GrabFood on weekends and ignoring your work—assuming, of course, you can even meet the bare minimum requirements to get promoted.

If you think going to the big 4 will act as a stepping stone to get you else where
You are wrong

Just check the salaries of accountants on careerfutures
All you will see is 3k to 4k
Isn't that below median income?

All your seniors are stuck, too expensive to leave. Come on, 0 commercial knowledge and pay you 5k? You want a pay jump? LOL. hey friend welcome to the working world

Is that what stepping stone is suppose to feel like?
Please dont tell me you use big 4 to jump to IB or consultancy
its too funny

Originally Posted by Unregistered

I can tell you your english gave me cancer. Worse than Malaysian english. I think you just become security guard sua la

at least i made u read
there is a reason why singaporeans speak singlish
if u cant understand means you are a JHK
which explains why you are more defensive

go back malaysia lah bodo lol friday coming in another weeks time
bring your luggage to office den depart from there
HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA

monday take mc but mc is malaysian doctor
SDN BHD LOL!

you rented room too small is it
HA HHA HA HA HAHA HA HA

tonight i sleep in peace knowing u paying for my condo

Originally Posted by Unregistered

If you think going to the big 4 will act as a stepping stone to get you else where
You are wrong

Just check the salaries of accountants on careerfutures
All you will see is 3k to 4k
Isn't that below median income?

All your seniors are stuck, too expensive to leave. Come on, 0 commercial knowledge and pay you 5k? You want a pay jump? LOL. hey friend welcome to the working world

Is that what stepping stone is suppose to feel like?
Please dont tell me you use big 4 to jump to IB or consultancy
its too funny

For poly graduates, it's a very good springboard if can use it to jump out to 4k.