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Mentor
Feel free to PM me as this is nuanced. Is your past experience 4+ years only in deals or split between audit and deals? An SA1 at A&M is not equivalent to an M2 at B4, but an SA3 at A&M definitely is operating at a B4 M1 level. Understand title is important at this stage of your career, but would you rather have an SA title and make 50%+ more in TC and wait 1 year for the M title, or have the M title sooner and be paid less? Just notice how A&M people don’t go back to B4 even though they could easily do so in this market.
What is A&M?
Mentor
I personally kept my senior title when switching, but I’ve never understood people who were hung up on the title switch. Managers I knew in B4 FDD were making about 140k-150k all in. The average SA at A&M last year made $215k. Would you rather have a slightly better title or an extra 70k?
Additionally, if you’re focused on “exits”, which I feel zero desire to do, I get better opportunities now in my inbox than I did before.
People can also move up the ladder very quickly. If you’re good at what you do, you’re rewarded for it
Mentor
I’ve seen IB, PE, Corp Dev, controller, and early retirement lol
Short answer is yes to your first question. Our levels generally have more experience than avg Big4. Titles are less important to us so don’t stress about where you’d come in at. The key is to come in at the appropriate level (so that you’re a good fit for project budgets so people keep you busy… and therefore you make a killer bonus)
I work at A&M (haven’t changed titles so I still have access to KPMG bowl lol).
From what I’ve seen, even if you get pulled at your level or get “demoted” a level from what you expect to be, you have every chance on your own to get promoted as quickly as you want to be. The recruiters will talk about entrepreneurial spirit and they don’t joke about that. You want to get promoted? You let ppl know and you hustle to get promoted. There’s no set timelines for promotion here, I’ve seen ppl get promoted a level every 1-2 years and others who stay at their level same timeline as if they’d stay at B4.
Your A&M experience is going to be a lot more flexible than B4 will ever give you and you make $$ while doing it.
Coach
Totally agree with the A&M comments. Join as a senior and you should get promoted next year if you’re really good - they try to set people up as best as possible. You won’t regret it - you’d only regret not coming sooner.
Coach
From my experience they are very hesitant to bring people on at their new expected rank. I was up for SM and they wouldn’t bring me on as a director. Didn’t love that but it wasn’t the deciding factor in not making the jump.
AM4, which office are you in? I’ve heard due to the lack of offshore teams, folks at A&M and worked like dogs so the hours are crazier than B4. but guess it directly translates to bonus so people are okay with it :/
If you really want to make manager, I’m sure McDonald’s will take you?
(Just trying to highlight that it’s a tad silly to worry about these things.)
Mentor
Yes agree with what everyone else said. B4 when I left was promoting people to manager with 1 year of experience in deals. They could not actually manage a deal at all. So it really depends on your actual experience level and skill in deals, I would just jump asap though.
Mentor
I’d want more experienced A&Mers to respond, but tbh from the heavy lifting I’ve seen some SA’s do, I’m sure their role/responsibly is pretty tangent to manager level.
Also agreed with @Assoc1, comp is also a pretty big factor. Pretty sure SA base is close to Manager at B4 but bonus would just blow comp out of the water
Mentor
Agree with all A&M comments here
This may be the funniest thing I’ve read. 😂 B4 discounts non B4 experience, not the other way around.
D1 - implying that the only way you can retire at 55 is by working at Deloitte… icing on the cake. Pls fix by EOD.
Thx,,
A&M pays more, has leaner structure in projects and has lesser range. However, money matters a lot because both options are sweat shops- might as well get paid more irrespective of titles