Say you’re an Assurance Senior 3 and want to transfer soon as you hit Manager back to your hometown office. Should you secure the manager promotion at your current office first or go ahead and initiate the transfer at S3? I’m scared that they won’t accept me over their current S3s and so I think the safer bet is to make manager first then transfer. Deloitte EY PwC
Also, how desperate are firms for Managers these days? I know seniors and staff are in demand but I rarely hear about Managers.
I’d wait for promo
Chief
Yup. Exactly what I was thinking too but I felt maybe I was being insecure/not confident. Thanks for the advice! :)
Def wait for promo. The firm is going to make a million excuses for why they can’t promote you in your hometown. They will also make a million excuses for why they can’t transfer you once you’ve made manager. Either way - it’s gonna be hard. Might as well get a promo out of the headache.
Also, if the firm is trying to decide whether to promote you or not - and then they find out you want to leave - you might not get promoted 🤷🏼♀️
If they know you want to leave, they might not see a “business case” for promoting you.
Chief
thank you so much!!! My lips are sealed!
If you’re in a national practice or transferring within the same region, this shouldn’t be a problem.
If you’re transferring between two different regions, you need to make sure the receiving region wants you - which I doubt will be a problem right now.
P1, out of curiosity, how difficult would it be to transfer between service lines as well in this scenario.
If you’re in audit and have your CPA, manager promotion is pretty much guaranteed. Unless you transfer offices as a senior 3 and do a terrible job on your new clients, you’ll get promoted. And unless the office is very small, they could probably use a manager. We aren’t hiring experienced managers like crazy (the way we are desperate for seniors), but if you’re a high performer, the transfer would probably go through.
This was my exact concern a few years ago. I waited for the promo before I transferred.
Also check to see if you have to be in your position for a year before you can make an internal transfer.
If it is just office transfer, you don’t need to wait. I transferred as senior 3 around June and still moved to the other office by August and manager by Oct. it shouldn’t affect your promo.
Chief
Thanks but I’ll take the safer route as majority suggested.
Hi OP - as someone that was personally burnt over it this year (S3 to M1), secure the promo before talking transfer. I tried taking the moral high road by discussing transfer to be transparent with my teams and ended up not getting promoted over it — felt very political, but this was the only reason provided to me on why I was not recommended by my team despite being above peers in every category and reviews explicitly mentioning readiness.
Chief
Keep it documented and when the transfer gets approved talk to the new office leadership. They can pull a few strings and bring you in as a M1.. Atleast I hope so.