One of the most difficult parts of getting ahead in public accounting is recognizing when you’re in a position to succeed versus when you’re set up to fail. In many ways, they may not feel that different. In both cases, you may have great coworkers and feel welcome. Alternatively, you may be stressed and ground down in both situations. It can be challenging to isolate your chances of career success from how you feel about your working environment, but it’s an important difference to recognize.
For simplicity, let’s define career success as one of three things: 1. Maximizing your salary, 2. Optimizing your work-life balance, 3. Extracting as much value from the company as possible. You’ll note that this definition of career success exclusively focuses things that improve your situation. This is also an important distinction. You must recognize that the company you work for has one major stated purpose: maximize shareholder (owner) value. Every salary, benefit, perk, office space, employee, pencil, and 10-key is expected to produce more value than its cost, directly or indirectly. It logically follows that the company, in its pursuit of maximizing owner value, will in all cases do what’s best for the company financially. To disadvantage the firm financially would be to directly oppose the “maximize owner value” maxim. The company will not intentionally sin.
When the company has an insurmountable advantage over you financially, you cannot win. This is the quickest way to recognize when you should get out. The company is compelled to act in its best interest, and you must therefore be compelled to act in your own self-interest. If you do not, the company will successfully take advantage of you (financially) every time.
Signs that you’re in a bad spot:
- Your performance reviews are lackluster
- You’re significantly missing your KPI targets
- The company is announcing hiring freezes, layoffs, or reductions in force when their competitors are not*
- Your CEO has announced an ambitious new plan to spin off 40% of the company at the height of a decade of economic growth.
- Your partner has announced an ambitious new plan to sell 40% of his book of business to his 24-year-old son.
- The industry has suddenly dried up due to sensible global tax and audit governance principles.
Generally speaking, any time when the value of your work is worth less than it was before, you’re in a bad spot. This happens if you’re underperforming relative to your peers, if the company is in a bad spot financially, or if the leaders are taking the company in a new direction that leaves you behind.
Just because you’re in a bad spot doesn’t mean you need to immediately start applying for jobs though. Some bad spots are temporary. You can improve your performance. Maybe the partner who has it out for you gets caught sharing client financials with her pool boy. There are perfectly natural, temporary situations which can leave you set up for success after weathering them.
The trick then becomes to differentiate between temporary and permanent bad spots. In the public accounting world, everyone eventually gets to know the big players. If you’re having a problem with a specific person – and they don’t seem likely to leave, and you don’t think that problem can be reconciled – that can quickly become a permanent bad spot. Getting away from an enemy, especially if that enemy is in a position of power over you, is generally a worthwhile endeavor. The earlier you get out, the more likely you can become cordial again in the future. Always try to leave your bridges un-burned in public accounting.
Temporary bad spots usually involve things related to technology (it can be improved), incompetent subordinates (you can PIP them), or team building exercises (you have to take your daughter to her curling lessons). Permanent bad spots usually involve things like your firm being acquired (new rules without explanation), incompetent superiors (you cannot PIP them), or being passed over for promotion several times.
Ultimately, a bad spot is when you’re being valued less than you’re worth, and you don’t have control over when that situation shifts. It doesn’t mean divine providence won’t deliver you from betwixt the stone and the hard place, but it does mean that you may find yourself in a position where the only thing you can control is when and how you leave the firm.
Signs that you’re in a good spot:
A truly good spot will just feel right. You’re actively learning on the job, you enjoy and appreciate your coworkers, and you feel almost a sense of excitement coming to work. Truly good spots don’t last forever though, so it’s important to enjoy them when you find them. Tend them like a garden, and you will reap incredible rewards.
A good public accounting practice generally has a few common features:
- Significant autonomy, and almost by necessity, influential partners. Good partners exercise a lot of influence within the firm. Significant autonomy is most often a result of influential partners.
- An active market tapped into by a strong sales team.
- A strong network of affiliate firms, fellow consultants, subject matter experts, and support teams to help you do your job effectively.
- The money and desire to invest in the practice. This includes above-average salaries, benefits, technology, bonuses, etc. All that stuff that makes you feel valued.
Realistically, if you experience even three of those bullet points, you’re in a decent practice. A strong public accounting professional coupled with a good practice can make both parties wealthy very quickly.
*Public accounting companies generally don’t behave independently of each other. If one company if doing layoffs, you can bet that half of its peers will be doing the same within six months. The FOMO** is real.
** “Fear of Missing Out”