It's been 8 long years in External Audit at Ernst and Young (EY) and 11/30/07 marked the last day of my long career as a public accountant (or maybe not), cause you can always go back to public accounting!! The most important think to ask myself is what exactly have I learnt being in public accounting? Was it worth the 8 years? If I had a choice, would I have taken another path (i.e. leave EY earlier)?
Right after graduating from QUT (Queensland University of Technology) in Brisbane, Australia, we were told that the best start to an accountant's career was to join the Big 5 ( way back then it was the Big 5) accounting firms. The wealth of knowledge gained from being in public accounting would be valuable. But no one prepared us for "slave labour". Why slave labour? Cause you worked 12 hour days for 7 days straight with no additional salary, let alone recognition from the partners of the firm or the Senior Managers or Managers, for the hours that you put in (for free). Ask anyone who has worked in public accounting before and 8 out of 10 would let out a huge sigh before telling you that it was a learning experience.
In a nutshell, public accounting firms work like a pyramid scheme. The guy on top of the pyramid gets all the "dough" while the guy below works real hard, thinking that there is going to be a pot of gold at the end of the tunnel (i.e. the harder you work the likelihood you would make it to partner). Thus began my frustration with the way things are run at a public accounting firm. It's ultimately a business and the owners need to enrich themselves at the expense of their employees. That was when I knew I had to get out to get my experience in industry.
As a new Staff person at the Singapore office, I knew I wanted to audit banks and I pursued this relentlessly. I approached Harsha, who was then the Senior Manager on Maybank and requested to be put on the team. Your guess is as good as mine what the answer was. NO!! Why? Too many people on the team and they need to watch their budget. So if I am not getting the experience that I desired, then why am I in public accounting. I knew auditing banks was a niche and it was a specialized skill and therefore I wanted to do that, but there were no opportunities for me then. Fast forward 8 years later and EY Singapore is scrambling for auditors to audit banks. What a twist of fate. I surrendered to the fact that God may have a bigger plan for me and financial institutions were just not my thing.
I moved up the ranks slowly but surely and through my years there I noticed one thing. If you put in long hours without question (i.e. do almost anything that may not seem logical, like fold workpapers to fit the file in a japanese origami style or print out tonnes of workpapers in hardcopy just cause the partner cannot review workpapers via the computer) then you're the favourite. But to my surprise, a lot of these so-called "favourites" do not last long in the firm. Why? They get burnt out from doing japanese origami all day and night. To survive for long, you needed to be smart. That to me, meant that I should strike a balance between working hard (i.e. doing things that do not make sense) and pretending not to know certain issues so that you do not get picked on tough jobs which would guarantee early exit from public accounting.
As a Senior it was time for me to move out to industry and I began looking at the Straits Times classified ads like every other Singaporean. The Saturday edition was not to be missed cause every employer would place their need for resource there. Equipped with my 3-odd years in public accounting, I thought this was my big break and applied to almost 50 job opportunities over the course of 3 years. But someone forgot to tell me that if I wanted to be an accountant in Singapore I had to be Chinese. Why? Cause all the advertisements have this 1 line that I can never forget. To be a accounts assistant you would need all the essential accounting skills plus "the knowledge of Mandarin". Last I checked, 1,2,3 was 1,2,3 even in Mandarin. The politically correct explanation was that they had business in China and needed people who could speak the language. Err!!! but I am applying for the job of accountants assistant not CFO. It was clear that I had to find a way to move out of the country or stay in EY Singapore. That was when I started speaking to HR asking for a way to transfer to other EY offices in Australia or the US.
2004 I started applying to EY offices in Australia and the US. I landed an offer with EY Philadelphia and was on the verge of accepting the offer when Pauline told me that she was expecting Shaayla. My move to the US had to take a back seat for now. In 2005 I tried again but this time I tried San Jose, California and accepted the offer and moved in May of 2005. Being new to the country, EY San Jose did a rather poor job of preparing us for life in the US.
For anyone who moved from anywhere else in the world would agree with me that this country has the most complicated system which only adds to the cost of running the country. EY did not prepare us for a lot of things (e.g. Credit History, Loans, Credit Cards). I was surprised that they still had that tagline "People First". But luckily for me, I knew fellow Singaporeans and Malaysians who were really helpful and we got through all that hurdles.
After getting all that administrative stuff done, it was time to focus on work and get the "valuable" experience I needed to move on with my career. But there was one problem, my salary was not enough to cover our living expenses in the US, plus I had to go back to Malaysia for my sister's wedding. After our trip back to Singapore/Malaysia, we were in debt. In addition to that I crashed the car while driving up to Sacramento for an audit, which added on to the debt. I had to make a series of balance transfers just so that we do not miss a payment, which would affect our credit score. In the US, credit score is everything. It's the difference between paying 11% or 7% on your car loan. We liquidated our investments in SGX, to help pay off some of our debts. But it was not enough. The only way out would be for me to move out to industry and make more money.
In early 2007, I started connecting with recruiters who told me that I should wait for my title as Audit Manager before making the move out of public accounting. Apparently, industry thinks that if you're an audit manager you're suppose to be smarter than someone who does not have the title of audit manager. If only they knew how EY promotes someone to Manager!!
From what I gathered, through my conversations from a number of recruiters and friends in industry, my market value as an Audit Manager in EY was worth around $115 to 125K per annum. What was I getting as an audit manager in EY, you may ask? A miserable $83K. But before you choke, please understand that the disparity is for the "valuable" knowledge that you gain as a public accountant (i.e. ticking and tying, using different coloured pencils to mark work done, etc...). To be honest, 3 years in EY US and I have not learnt anything new in terms of accounting skill that I did not already know coming from Singapore. I picked up US GAAP knowledge ( which may become obsolete with globalisation) and SOX 404 (which is a compliance thing). So in essence I paid a tuition fee of over 32 to 42K per annum for the "valuable" experience when I could have received it in industry for free!! Go figure!!
I started going for numerous interviews with various organization and after 4 months of intense interviewing, I landed an offer with NetApp Inc., (Network Appliance). An up and coming data storage company which saves organizations tons of money storing, archiving and efficiently moving data in the organization as an Internal Audit Manager.
With the salary I received from NetApp, we were able to clear all our debts and start our lives fresh in 2008. This would probably be the year that would determine if I had made a good choice in picking a career in Internal Audit or is it back to the drawing board for me. But one thing for sure is that we are out of debt and that is the single biggest relief for me and Pauline.
