Lessons Learned: #1 Experience vs Salary

When I started out with my career, I had it easy.  Easy in terms of finding a job, that is.  I didn't have to go to an interview of sorts.  I had the good fortune of having a scholarship during my university days which helped out a lot in starting my career.  The scholarship was sponsored by one of the big auditing firms in the country.  So after I passed my board exam, the only thing asked of me was "When can you start?"

Thus I started my career in public accounting. There wasn't a clause in my scholarship that required me to join the firm but early on, I've set my sights on joining the firm.  The salary was embarassingly low, and I had to spend god-awful amounts of overtime every day just so I can have some sort of a decent take home pay.  I also happen to belong to that portion of society that had to somehow help out the family to send some of the siblings to school.



Working for an auditing firm was doubly hard, financially and physically.  The hours were terrible and again, so was the pay.

The great with working in an auditing firm was you learn a LOT.  You also get to work on various aspects of accounting that you won't normally get to work on if you decide to work as a loans officer in a bank, for example.  Just this aspect alone opens your options when you decide later on as to where to branch out to in your accounting career.

I also got to talk to people at all levels in the accounting space.  I talked to company accountants, finance managers, as well as CFOs.  I saw what their day was like and etched what I saw in my mind and tried to picture myself in their shoes.  Do I really want to spend my career running after month-end closing?  I knew early on that it wasn't for me.

With my work as an auditor, one of the perks was I get to travel a lot.  I travelled all over the Philippines.  It was something I couldn't do on my own.  With the salary I'm getting?  Forget about going to Boracay.  Even a holiday in Puerto Galera didn't cross my mind.  All I did was work when I started.  I worked 7 days a week.  A 100-hour work-week was just me clearing my throat.  I did that for at least a year.

Then tragedy struck-- two of my siblings are about to start college.  As a managing director of my family's finances, my salary as an auditor just won't do.  I had to find a new employment that would provide me with better compensation.

This is when experience and the added bonus of working in an auditing firm showed their merit.  When I started reaching out to my contacts, I got three job offers.  One even offered a huge (at least to me) signing bonus.  I decided to go to a big bank and tripled my current compensation.

Had I started working directly in one of those companies looking for accountants or loan officers, I would have enjoyed a nice salary right at the onset.  But by foregoing those benefits and worked like a dog at an auditing firm, gaining valuable experience, I came out a bigger winner after less than two years.

So the big lesson here, is that when you're just starting out, don't go for the low-hanging fruit of a bigger salary.  Always go to where you'll have a good foundation and gain lots of real world experience.

Truth be told, I would have loved to stay at the auditing firm for a couple years more.  But life sometimes forces us to move towards directions that we never thought we'd consider.