I had offers to work for all the big 4 out of college and even got 2 offers from the big 4 I interned with bc I wanted to switch to advisory. But in the end I just couldn’t see myself living the lives of my coworkers (they hated the hours/job and it was very negative overall). So I decided to do consulting for a smaller firm (top 20) for a better WLB and better team environment and sometimes I worry I made the wrong decision and I won’t be marketable later. Any advice?

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Do you like your current position? Are you getting a broad variety of experience and learning? If so I would not say you made a bad choice. You could try to make a switch later if you wanted

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I don’t love my current position but we are understaffed on my current project so there’s not a lot of time to learn the details of what we are doing and I sometimes just feel like I’m going through the motions. But it’s just one project so the others may be better. I do feel like I’m learning a lot broadly otherwise, but simultaneously worry I’m not specialized enough in one area of consulting/advisory.

Tell your favorite of the big4 you made a mistake and would like to change your decision. You should definitely try going with one of the advisory offers, much better WLB and get paid more. Also don’t worry about specialization until wayyyy down the road.

Yeahhh, top 20 tells you they have better WLB, but overall they have the same hours and depends on luck of the draw with scheduling and staffing. Big 4 also typically provides more PTO. Deloitte 1’s advice is good, or maybe wait til you get 12-18 months experience and then start looking into big 4. I think big 4 usually likes to see at least 9 months to a year of experience before they consider an experienced hire candidate; if you’re looking to get out after just a few months, that may be a red flag for them.

If your decision was made for better WLB and team environment, I'd say it was the wrong decision. You probably have similar or slightly less workload but less resources, benefits, prestige, and exit ops.

Stay for about a year and see if you're happy. If not, you can easily jump to the big 4, especially if you've received offers there before and have connections there.

Thanks for the advice, I really appreciate it. I think the idea of staying for a 1-1.5 years to feel it out and then jumping back to big 4 might be the plan. It’s just hard to really want to do that hearing about how horrible big 4 is for a lot of people on this app (I know that’s not everyone’s experience though). I honestly maybe just struggle to see what the future in advisory is for me at all so maybe a whole different career conversation lol

I work in what is generally known as accounting advisory across the big4. The work we do is pretty broad, I do mostly transaction type work (non-due diligence).

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