I had a really tough experience moving from larger firms to a very small firm (~18 people) after ~8 years in public accounting. The expectations and culture were very different, and it ultimately didn’t work out—I was let go after busy season.

Has anyone else struggled after moving from a larger firm to a much smaller one?

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Small firms are a crap shoot - they can either be really excellent or terrible. It depends on who’s running them and what types of clients they have. Some have clients as complex as larger firms, some turn over high volume cheap 1040s and very small business bookkeeping (not what you want).

That said, the expectations are different. You need to be more well rounded to succeed. Knowledgeable in a lot areas, expert at nothing, able to research and use good judgement on areas you’re weak in, strong communication skills, etc.

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Sorry to hear you were let go. :(
It can be difficult especially if you're on a toxic team. I pivoted to a smaller firm - still technically mid-size (~400 employees in total) but my industry group was small (~30 from intern to partner and that's including tax side) - environment was tough. I went from international firm to small firm to international firm. I got out of the small firm within a year.. it was difficult. Literally everything is on you. There are no other resources.

I’ve been at both, first at small, then large, then back to small, and go back to small was TOUGH! There are no specialist teams or technical resource center to help, you just google things or use a research website. And the type of clients are completely different so technical skills don’t even fully translate. At the small firm it felt like nobody but the owner (who came from big4) understood my skills.

Yeah, my technical skills didnt really translate and the partner I think expected me to come in like a unicorn in retrospect.

what was the exact difficulties of going from a large firm to a small firm out of curiosity? i interned at a small CPA from (less then 10 people) and it was pretty terrible since the owner of it made everyone on edge and there was so much odd politics behind the scenes

that really sucks. I’ve heard small firms are very hit or miss and it basically all starts at the top. When i worked at this small CPA firm the owner would brag to me about certain employees he got to fire in the past and i was so lucky to just to be intern so i could get out of there lol. Granted not every small firm is bad but its just very hit or miss

When talked about small firm, how small are they? Big 4 vs top 10, top 20 small or top 100, top 200 small.

OP said 18 ppl. So tiny.

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