What they don’t tell you about your “firm” job
Most people become either numb or hate it
“My life has got to be like this — its got to keep going up” — The Great Gasby.
I remember it very clearly. Going to my first recruiting event with all the other young professional hopefuls. I had done everything I researched (and was told) I was supposed to do. Good grades? Check. Top school? Check. Member of the *insert school club here* Check. Decent interview skills and personality? Check and Check.
It really doesn’t matter what type of firm job I was recruiting for — like history this story repeats itself endlessly across all of the professional firms (most notably in law and accounting). I was sold an amazing story by my accounting professor (who at the time I deeply respected) that a job with a Big 4 accounting and auditing firm would secure my career into business greatness. Like school children with no frame of reference or experience we eagerly told each other how experienced, intelligent, business professionals we would become.
I was fortunate enough to obtain employment with one of the leading global accounting firms, and spent three years in the trenches honing my skills as an auditor of public companies. Wow — this is exactly why I traded my young adulthood in business school to allow me to do *sarcasm*! I have so many stories and thoughts for you that I cannot come close to documenting them here but I will leave you with the most important points.
Most people going through professional recruiting don’t even know the job they’re recruiting for. Sure — you want to be lawyer? Do you have any idea what a securities lawyer even does? Nearly the entire portion of the job is reviewing legal contracts for punctutuation and disclosure. It’s not the Associate / Partner relationship you see in SUITS with hot assistants and cool bosses who you hit the strippers with. Unless you really love proof reading legal contracts in your spare time, do you really have a passion for this? And truthfully — if your going to spend 6.5 days a week doing it — it’d better be something you’d choose to do in your spare time. If not — you really don’t love it. It’s just a job and a paycheque. That’s it.
People who are promoted in firms are non-creative, non-entrepreneurial and generally not business minded.
All of the people who were promoted at my old firm had no understanding of business outside of regulations and disclosure. Yes — they were very good accountants, which means they know financial statements notes and US GAAP like no one’s business. However — you don’t run a succesful business on financial statements. Businesses are created, and grow based on uncertainty, risk taking, and forward thinking — none of these skills which are rewarded in a firm environment. All of the firm’s Partners that I remember were number crunching monkeys — very strong technically at regurgitating and analyzing the past, extremely weak creatively or anything that concerned the future.
The Truth Comes Out — If I had to do it all over again — I would. It was only three years, and I learned a lot. Looking back, I basically picked up an insurance policy for the rest of my life that says — if my business building ideas don’t work out — I’d be covered. I could always go back to work for Company A counting beans and pretending to care so much about minute details that no one understands. I’m not bitter or upset — but I belieive it would be helpful if I received advice like this at the time I was recruiting, not after years of having to experience it first hand.
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