Welcome to the good-riddance-2010-hello-busy-season edition of Accounting Career Emergencies. In today’s edition, an E&Y tax associate is considering a move to another Big 4 firm but wants to know if she’s pulling down fair scratch after “an irrevocable slip up.”
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Back to our New Year job hunter:
Hi, I’m currently working at EY FSO NY in Tax and considering going to one of the other big 4 firms but am wondering how much the going rate is these days for hires with the MST in my market. When I initially signed on here I was offered 70k with the MST but due to a huge irrevocable slip up I’m not being paid that. Understandably if I’m going to be slaving away through a 9 month busy season with these financial clients I want to at least get paid the going-rate hence the reason I’m exploring my options. Btw, I’m a staff 2 now.
Naturally, we had to ask about this “irrevocable slip up” because we pictured something along the lines of DUI, an inappropriate email or something even more serious but unfortunately it was just a college credits issue.
ANYWAY, this problem you have – ordinarily, we’d think that you’re shopping the job scene simply because you think you’re underpaid but since your situation is special, we’ll make an exception. We asked around and 70k is right in the wheelhouse of where you should be so at the very least, it wouldn’t hurt to ask some recruiters what openings the other firms have. On the other hand, if you like working at E&Y, it wouldn’t be presumptuous to explain your situation to a performance counselor or partner, the idea being that you’re happy but because of mix-up, you’re down the pay scale compared to your peers. Do this after speaking to recruiters so you can substantiate your claim.
Keep in mind that the downside is that tax associates with a MST and FS experience are a dime a dozen in New York, so we advise moving sooner (i.e. now) rather than later (i.e. April) when all your burned out colleagues are calling recruiters. If you wait a couple of weeks, before you know it, you’re swamped with work and missing for a couple of hours in the middle of the day will look pret-tay, pret-tay suspicious. Good luck.
