Do the most successful CPAs stay in public or leave? I get the feeling high performers leave early from PA ( usually as senior). How true is this? Is it because of their confidence? Or something else? Your thoughts?

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A lot of high performers leave early because in public the better you are, the more work you get, for equal or marginally higher pay. Public doesn’t reward high performers so unless you really love it there’s no reason to stay

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High performers get overworked because everyone wants a piece of their time. That leads to burnout and exit.

Theres also many people who might be good at the technical and adminstrative aspects of PA but don't want to stay in what is a sales job long term.

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I think the top accountants stay in public. That would be my guess

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High performers leave because they work their asses off and realize it was for nothing cause they are still valued the same. Then they realize they short end their career once they leave and become the miserable client contact you deal with on a day-to-day basis.

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Orrrr they become the client contact that pays your bills / determines your workload

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People who enjoys a certain lifestyle stay in PA.

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So I guess just have to commit to making tha that happen? Seems like potentially a bit of a gamble?

I think most of the top do leave due to there being an ‘anti-meritocracy’. Pay is not measurably different based on performance for the first several years, and actually work load/stress increases significantly the better you are perceived.

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Think the argument can easily be made that it’s far more than “first several years” that pay to performance ratio is out of favor for higher performers. Pretty much until partner (maybe one level below too), high performers make marginally more than a non-high performer

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From what I’ve seen, high performers leave early and follow one of two paths. (1) chill job in industry after getting burned out. Career progression slows but life gets better. Probably will make it up the ladder since they’re smart and hardworking, but just at a slower pace. (2) similar workload, better career prospects. This is usually in the form of a transfer to advisory, consulting, or some other fast-paced professional services environment. They grind for a little longer but can exit to much better roles

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I think it depends on your definition of high performer. Many do leave but it also depends if you stay to partner. High performer as sr or manager may not make it to partner. The roll changes near partner to heavy leadership and people skills with a base of technical. There is a lot of flexibility as a partner and the pay level is equal to CxO levels. Yes one may be able to get more equity if they get lucky in a company that is pre IPO but overall the average partner pay in all the large firms salary base is more than the average base salary CxO. But remember. Generally , there is only one CEO, CFO, etc in each company. Yes it’s very hard work for a lot of the years but so is private industry when you are successful and move up. In fact my friends who are in private travel so much more than I do and they have children. They have also moved several times for the company in order to move up. You have to weigh what is important to you.

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In PA - if you’re a high performer relative to your peers, you’ll most certainly be overworked and burn out. High performers are punished by receiving more work as everyone wants to work with them.

The model is set up that way and it’s flawed. Hence the high turnover levels.

We have as much information as ever at our disposal, that’s why there’s been a mass exodus from the industry. We, unlike our predecessors, don’t accept the lies and false narratives as truth and industry leadership hasn’t realized it yet.

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Yeah absolutely. You’ll typically see people try to switch into TAS/Deals from audit. Banking and consulting can be a little tougher but I’ve seen it done by people who are ambitious and put in the time to make the switch happen

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I think most look at this wrong - all the comments say high performers are “punished” with more work. If you like accounting and the role of a partner is appealing to you, then you have to accept that there are years of challenges and hard work to get there. There is a big payoff in PA if you’re willing to hustle and put in the work. If not, there is a short term pay bump to leave and feel more valued... but that is short lived for most.

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Short term pay bump and feel more valued. Idk. There are other very lucrative options outside big 4. In fact many companies specifically try and recruit big 4 for high end positions. These can be lucrative careers as well just like big 4. There are also companies with much better incentive compensation where you can earn much bigger bonuses if you work a lot.

From my experience on my teams, the best performers either go to advisory or leave for other careers, mba or law school. Unless you truly love accounting people don’t stay.

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Yes, usually one of the two

I’ve done both. Partner at big 4 and now in industry. It really comes down to what you want to do. Both are great career paths and no matter where you go, you will have to put in more work than others if you want continuous advancement. In fact, in PA, advancement is arguably easier. Once you are in industry, advancement depends on headcount, open roles and opportunity. You can’t just get promoted because of time or good work. The role has to be supportable by the org. Again, I can’t emphasize enough on what you want to do. Making partner is just the start of your career. Whether you stay or pivot, it’s a long and challenging road ahead. Figure out the day to day you want, your end compensation threshold, whether you want to stay in accounting and could you see yourself doing what a partner spends his time doing. Industry is no walk in the park. There’s also a lot of diversity with what people actually do in industry (even if you stay in accounting). Depends on role, team, company size and stage, industry and culture.

Do you consider becoming a partner in public successful?

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