Destroying My Career

Were you mislead or misinformed during the interview process?

Would you leave to go to another firm, doing the same thing?

Do you like accounting enought to do it in an environment better suited for you?

Three mos does sound impulsive but we don't know the particulars.

Miserable wrote:

Fellow Letsrun Readers,

You have never failed to give inspired advice before, so I thought I would reach out for some help.

Started a job at a Big 4 accounting firm in August. Within a few days it became obvious that this job is destroying my soul. I hate nearly everything about working here, except for the gold star on my resume. If there is such a thing as a quarter-life-crisis, this is it. I have worked several jobs that I really enjoyed, so this isn't about work in general. This is just pure torture.

Do I quit right now and show only three months at this company on my resume? Or, do I stick it out for a year or two and go from there?

Thanks in advance for your honest advice.

option a) start looking for a new job now. it looks ok if you leave current job and immediately start a new one. you may sell it as 'I have found a better opportunity'. you might get into job that you also dislike because you will be in a rush to leave. be prepared to be asked by interviewers about what is the problem at current job. think twice about what you are going to say, it matters a lot.

option b) hang in there for as long as you can then quit. start looking for a new job after. take your time. be prepared to be asked by interviewers about what went wrong.

Hang in there for at least 1 year - get some references and try and find a job elsewhere or even ask for help from someone internally you would consider a mentor.

Good questions!

I wasn't mislead during the interview process, I just assumed it would be similar to what I did in school, and the accounting I did for a small company during school. But I quickly learned that there is a big gap between the accounting done in school/small firm, and the accounting done for Fortune 500 companies. The latter being much more boring and tedious in my opinion.

If I left I would either totally change my career, or work at a local public accounting firm that works on small clients as I do enjoy accounting in that setting.

If you don't hate accounting, get a new job right away. If you think your current job is boring and tedious now, wait until March when you will get boring and tedious 16 hours a day.

You sound young -early in your career.

I wouldn't worry about hopping jobs, but the next job you should stay for a year minimum. And...you might like that job less than this one. The main issue would be if there was a pattern of short employment. If you next org is significantly different, smaller dif location, different market, it will make sense on your resume.

Better answers can be provided with more information.

Are you confident of being able to get another job in a reasonable amount of time (good resume, good ugrad/mba school, good gpa)?

Do you find it impossible to finish 1 year?

Miserable wrote:

Fellow Letsrun Readers,

You have never failed to give inspired advice before, so I thought I would reach out for some help.

Started a job at a Big 4 accounting firm in August. Within a few days it became obvious that this job is destroying my soul. I hate nearly everything about working here, except for the gold star on my resume. If there is such a thing as a quarter-life-crisis, this is it. I have worked several jobs that I really enjoyed, so this isn't about work in general. This is just pure torture.

Do I quit right now and show only three months at this company on my resume? Or, do I stick it out for a year or two and go from there?

Thanks in advance for your honest advice.

Let me give you the standard two-faced boomer response:

"Oh waah waah, another entitled millenial brat. You're not a special snowflake, sweetheart. Get used to it. Oh by the way, you should follow your dreams and do what you love. Do what makes you happy!"

Knowledge of accounting is relevant to a lot of interesting fields. Stick it out for now, and soon enough you'll be able to apply everything you've learned to something that is a lot more fun.

I worked with a lot of former accountants when I worked in real estate development. Especially with tax credit financed development, their ability to understand the complexities of various regulations made them huge assets to our company. I know they had a lot more fun building stuff than they'd ever had doing pure accounting work.

I wouldn't quit right now, but start to think about where your knowledge could be applied. Plenty of options are available.

I'm going to advocate for sticking it out for a longer period of time, say, 9 months to a year or even 18 months. Yikes! I know that sounds like there will be little soul left, but the truth is, if you begin NOW to scope out other openings, it won't be that much longer until you find something new and orders of magnitude better.

There are two things missing here. One is ...what is your compensation? Are you being paid so well that you can simply suck it up, bank some money and maybe have the coin to take a real vacation between jobs to do some soul restore? If so, it is well worth it to hang on a few more (or say ten more) months. If the bank is good, you should be able to supplement your sh*t job with running, fun with friends, and get by, not indefinitely but for long enough to deal with my second issue:

Why didn't you make the effort to SERIOUSLY check out the organizational culture, norms, workday realities and workplace soul suck that you are now complaining about? Truly, some organizations will hide this from you, and maybe you did make a concerted effort to learn about the realities, but it's my experience that when we want something badly enough, we don't look for all of the downsides, we just plunge in. that's ultimately it is often possible to ascertain just how bad a workplace is, going in. You can interview people who have left, ask actual questions about the workplace culture, norms, boredom level....go online for reviews. i assume that you did these things but if not, you're going to drill down deeper next time.

In all my time hiring, I saw relatively few people who didn't have an OOPS job or two. If you decide to move on, cut your losses in a way that leaves no bridges burnt. Simply say it's not a good fit, thank them for whatever they taught you, but no need to be a jerk about it -- which is sounds like you would never do anyway.

I'll give you my perspective from being an accountant for four years at a large company.

First off, your entry level, you get all of the grunt work and need to earn your badges. It sucks I know, everyone has been there. I think this is something college professor's fail to tell students or students fail to absorb. You're not the one who is going to be picking apart or building the company's main balance sheet or income statement for the next earnings release. You need years and years of experience to earn your right to maybe make it to that level.

Secondly what you learn in college is not what you'll actually be doing in the real world. It gives you a foundation for what you will be doing. Fortune 500 companies are massive and complicated beasts. They need hundreds of accountants doing minor details and jobs that can't be streamlined or automated. The area I worked in accounted for .001% of my companies revenue and we had 50+ workers on that project.

I say give it a year or two and than focus the job hunt on a smaller firm or find a nitch. When I worked at a big Fortune 50 company, most college grads left in 2 years and got the company's name on the resume and left. Company expected that as well.

The challenge is you will find most companies want people with 4-5 years on their resume not 0-2.

Golden Time wrote:

Better answers can be provided with more information.

Are you confident of being able to get another job in a reasonable amount of time (good resume, good ugrad/mba school, good gpa)?

Do you find it impossible to finish 1 year?

Finishing will be nearly impossible. I feel pretty confident about my resume. I have a decent ugrad, and good work experience.

Stay put. It will make it harder to find another position. But start sending out your resumes to smaller firms like the ones that you worked in before. Then make it a goal to stay there for at least a year like someone else said. During that time, figure out what you really want to do.

But get out of the job you hate ASAP. If you really hate what you do every single day, chances are you will do or say something stupid that will screw up your future career options.

Miserable wrote:

Golden Time wrote:

Better answers can be provided with more information.

Are you confident of being able to get another job in a reasonable amount of time (good resume, good ugrad/mba school, good gpa)?

Do you find it impossible to finish 1 year?

Finishing will be nearly impossible. I feel pretty confident about my resume. I have a decent ugrad, and good work experience.

It only matters if you plan to change companies on a regular basis.

If you find a new job and stay there 10 years, no one will care what you did 10 years ago.

But if you hate your next job, you're setting yourself up. If I interviewed a guy who had 3 months at one job, 1-3 years at his 2nd, and my company would be his third, I'd be asking him some tough questions. If I interviewed him at all.

0/10. Hard to believe that accounting is life-sucking.

Godwin wrote:

0/10. Hard to believe that accounting is life-sucking.

What do you do for work?

On a side note, if I decide to pick another career path, what is best for work/life balance. Fitting in running, etc.

Miserable wrote:

On a side note, if I decide to pick another career path, what is best for work/life balance. Fitting in running, etc.

Honestly, if I were you I'd stick it out for 2 years. You can handle it. Make sure your life outside of work is enjoyable and just grind through it.

You are on one of the best career paths. If you stay 2 years, go to a CPA firm and work your way into partnership. You will be crazy busy for 3 months of the year, make a lot of money, and have a great work/life balance the other 9 months. My uncle is in this situation, and he leads a great life.

If you decide to quit now, there is no reason you have to tell anyone that you ever worked for this company. You could tell employers you went on an extended vacation.

Employers like to hire people who have been doing the same thing. The longer you stay at your current employer the more likely it will be that your next employer will want you to do this identical type of work. If you wait too long you could be stuck in this line of work forever.