Do I stay or do I go?

Hi all!

Happy hump day! hehe

So as most of you may or may not know, I started blogging because I needed something to keep me occupied while job hunting. Wait? Job hunting did I hear you say? Surely I didn’t resign from my role as a full time auditor with nothing lined up… umm… yeah I did!

So, why would someone quit their job without having secured a new job? Probably a crazy person... right? Well, possibly… but I wouldn’t call myself crazy… just hear me out!

Working in audit. It’s a tough industry. There are heaps of challenges. Working long hours. Meeting crazy deadlines. There’s always a chance, a high chance, of working on more than one client. We arrive at times when clients are doing their month-ends, then we have to co-ordinate with them to ensure we can get the information we need, while still allowing them to do their jobs. We ask a lot of questions. We probe. We delve. We need our trial balances to balance! There’s a lot to do and it can be very demanding but also rewarding. The experience and exposure you get from audit and working in a corporate environment is actually quite good. But I think the biggest decision you can ever make when working in any profession is, whether to stay or go.

The one question which we can possibly ask ourselves in our every day job is – do I stay or do I go?

Photo sourced from source (via Google images search)

I think throughout our careers, there will be different points where we will ask ourselves if we want to stay or move. I know I asked myself this about three times during my entire time as an auditor.

What made me think about moving on?

Early on in my career, I think I already made the conscious decision that audit probably wasn’t for me. Don’t get me wrong, sometimes I did find joy in the audit. I loved the challenges of investigating complex accounting issues. Yes, I sound like a nerd, but the satisfaction you get from resolving something complex and challenging, it’s rewarding. But when I thought about the long-term, I knew I wanted to move into commerce. Basically working for a company in their finance division, or to some people, working in the back office area.

With this in mind, it was pretty much a matter of time on when to make the switch. I actually had this discussion with my manager as well and he was supportive and understanding, which to me made him a pretty great manager and mentor.

The three times which I wanted to move

First time - Two years into audit I wanted to switch. This was pretty much after deciding audit wasn’t for me. But I wasn’t qualified as a CA (Chartered Accountant) so I thought, it’d be better to make the move after qualifying, pretty much like every other auditor out there.

Second time - After getting my CA, I figured now was a good time to go. I just qualified and well… there was nothing else on my radar which I wanted to do. UNTIL, the secondment opportunities came out and well YOLO right?

Third time - So this was a year after coming back from SF. Now I figured, CA + SF secondment = good time to move.

However, fate had other ideas.

For some reason, I had decided to message a former SF manager, to see how her secondment in Amsterdam was going. At the time she mentioned that her office was looking for a secondee. I passed the message on to my manager, who insisted that I apply it. This was not part of my plan. My plan was CA then secondment then resign. But this was an opportunity to work in Europe. When am I ever going to get a chance to do this again right?

Knowing when the time is right

I think it’s hard to know when it is the right time to move. For me, it was more asking myself, have I achieved everything I wanted to achieved. Was there anything which I wanted to do at my current work place?

My goals were;

1.       Get my CA – check

2.       Go on secondment – check

I was just lucky and managed to go on another secondment, which was a plus. But after this, was there anything else I wanted? My next step was being promoted to Assistant Manager, was this something I wanted? Did I have the drive to work towards this promotion?

Basically when I asked myself these questions, I answered no, the drive just wasn’t there. From this, I kind of knew it was time. Before making any drastic decisions, I also talked this through with my manager and he gave great advice and was understanding. It was good to have a mentor to talk this through with.

What do I want to do in commerce?

This was basically what I needed to figure out before resigning. I had a lot of discussions with my manager about the possible roles which you can have in commerce. Like most people, I preferred to be a forward thinker, didn’t really like looking at the past or processing. When I had resigned, I was pretty sure that I wanted to either land a job as a financial analyst or management accountant.

Taking the risk

Having achieved all my goals and kind of knowing what I wanted to do. I resigned. I got to finish on my terms and when I wanted. Also, I actually asked my manager what he thought about someone resigning without having secured a job. He said it can be a calculated risk, but he has known people who have done it and they don’t regret it.

I don’t regret this decision. It’s human nature to feel a bit antsy when there’s no job security, that fear of the unknown. Not knowing what will happen in the future. It’s natural. But, I’ve been taking this time to talk to more people in commerce and I’ve been able to get a clearer picture of what I want work wise, which has been great!

I mean I don’t recommend everyone take this route, but I thought I’d just write about what I’ve gone through. It’s hard to know when it is the right time to make the switch, but I think a good question to ask yourself is;

“What do you see yourself doing in 5 years?”

Asking this question generally helps with figuring out where you want your career to go. Do you want to be promoted to Finance Manager? Do you see yourself settling down? These things define what your goals are and will help with what you are looking for in your job. Everyone is different and everyone has different goals. At the end of the day, as long as you are happy, that’s all that matters. (Remember happiness is how you define it yourself).

Things happen for a reason, trust your gut and everything will fall into place.

Well I hope you all enjoyed that little read.

Until next time!