I live in a low COL area (i.e. AZ) and got an offer from a franchisor (i.e. Yogurtland) as a Sr. Acct for 77K (10% inc. in pay).

I really hate PA so I’m considering it, but am I selling myself short?

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Only you know if it’s the right move. 10% increase would be too low for me to leave, but to each their own.

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You should hold out for at least $85k to $90k in a low COL area

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^ seems high for low COL for a senior...

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@AS1: I’d leave for a 10% raise for the following reasons:

1. I’m absolutely sick of the condescending way my clients, managers, and partners speak to me. One of these days I won’t be so professional in my response when someone tells me, “If you read your audit program and saw how we did things last year...”

2. The endless status update meetings where urgency is feigned but one week later my engagement goes on the back burner because the client still isn’t delivering some PBCs.

3. The 97 levels of review each engagement goes through. I feel like half-assing my workpapers because the manager, then senior manager, then partner, then EQR will just rip it to shreds. I’d rather, cut out the middle men and get the file right to the partner so we’re not losing one or two weeks due to clearing comments.

4. Most importantly, I’ve missed out on way too many things outside of the office for clients/engagements I don’t even see to the finish.

All in all, I’m burned out and checked out at this point. The list above is why I’m strongly considering the position. I may end up turning it down, but goddamn the grass on that side looks like Augusta in early April.

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Is yogurtland a real franchise?

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Why would you leave for 10% increase? You will easily get that much in PA every year. Industry raises will be 3-4% every year

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For what it’s worth, I’m at a regional firm and was previously at a local firm for three years up until this past June.

@PwC 1: Yes, Yogurtland is a real franchisor with over 300 locations.

I think you could get 20-25%

To all: Do you think there’s a risk of “pricing myself out of the market” or pigeonholing myself (as most of my audits are now private companies and government entities) if I can’t find a position before getting promoted to manager (which may happen within the next 12 months)?

Many regional firms don't do 10% YoY raises. However, I'd make manager. I don't think you'll price yourself out of the market at all.

1. You should always check prior year to see what our approach was. There is no use in reinventing the wheel every year. We can certainly make it better, but last year should be our baseline. If people are having to tell you to look at last year, you are not utilizing all your resources.
2. We cannot Control when clients give up PBC’s. If we have PBC’s, it should be priority, but if client doesn’t provide them, let manager and above take care of it. Sit back and relax. Nature of the business.
3. If you went straight to Partner, the Partner would probably fire you for lack of work. It’s a good thing it goes to multiple levels of review before it goes to Partner. Also, reviewing and clearing those points is how you learn so you don’t make same mistakes twice. Review notes are great. Also it’s not 97 levels of review, I imagine it’s more like 4 - senior, manager, SM, Partner.
4. Come up with your priorities and set boundaries. As long as work get done, no one cares when you work, within reason.

1. That’s the thing...telling us in planning to use last year as a baseline, then saying it’s not enough (or “did we consider doing XYZ this year because we didn’t consider it last year”) when it comes to review time really fucking grinds my gears. I’m sorry but it has happened way too often at multiple firms. There’s no consistency in that regard. Either we SALY it completely, or define something new to be done for the CY during our five planning meetings.

2. I hate that I have to continually pester the client for the majority of fieldwork for PBCs (because the manager/senior manager/partner are engaged in other jobs), and get items on a piecemeal basis until the last week before an arbitrary deadline (for my non-SEC clients). A deadline that’s communicated to me two weeks in advance. Where was the urgency two months ago?

3. I was using a bit of hyperbole, but I agree, staff should have every level of review comments as possible as they need to learn as much as possible. However, I think seniors such as myself don’t learn much when managers and senior managers are leaving very similar review comments. Just skip the manager and move it on up to the SM.

4. This one frustrates me the most. I always do my best to set expectations with my engagement team and the client. “This is the status of the engagement, here’s what we need to complete the engagement, here’s our availability for completing the engagement." Every single time, every single engagement I do that. However, once we leave the field my engagement gets pushed to the back of everyone’s minds. Client’s stop responding to emails, managers/SMs/partners stop pestering me because we’re all waiting on the client. That happens until days like today where we’re 18 days out of a deadline that did not exist until yesterday. This happens often and I’ve missed a lot of things because of it.

Sorry for the rant and you don’t have to read all this, but I’m completely disenfranchised at this moment. I know I’m not the only senior in this position, and I won’t be the last, but I can’t subscribe to the idea that if I were to do XYZ things will be much better for me in PA. Because I’ve honestly tried to implement your suggestions in the past and things have only improved for me marginally. As a result, I’m ready to bail out of PA.

I honestly appreciate your insight though. Thank you for taking the time to respond and at least get me to think critically about the move I’m trying to make.

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