Get Chinaman company, then sure whole week off for their staff 

Bless all those who got stocktakes on Christmas and New Year days

Actually that is right. But isn't there an assistant finance manager that helps (normally experienced). Its because finance manager directly reports to financial controller/CFO like budgeting, forecasting, analysis of GP, .......etc.  And AP/AR/GL,...... normally got their own accoutant to supervise which reports to finance manager, s(he) only have to review it for significant movements or errors. I think most MNC have shared service centre ? then its even easier transition.

Internal audit is audit done for the purpose of management. Meaning in lay man term, Me (as a boss) hire an internal auditor to check where my operations has gone wrong and rectify them. I determine their scope of work and what to check. They report to me. As such internal audit is rarely outsourced to other companies being nobody will do such a thing due to nature of job. Its rather they just hire the staff straight into their internal audit dept. Those firms you hear like Big4s are more into external auditing.

But internal audit is a non-obligatory job and if its part of the firm's offering it may fall under advisory.

Advisory is basicly a value added service which centres on advising client what to do, rectify problems and offer solutions. The post are normally suitable for experienced people as they are more mature in thinking and experienced in daily life and work. Do you want a 25 year old telling a 40 year old what to do even if he is a MBA graduate ? Some people can but due to egoism, this is quite difficult. This is where art of communication comes in which are advisors / consultants forte.

One advisor once told me what is like. Imagine a datuk/director/CEO ask you something like "What will happen to my company's profit if I implement this or that?" Consultants will need to think of something in less than 5 seconds and come out with an answer. Real time reaction he called it or bluffing skills. Act as though you know eventhough you may not know. A popular insider jokes circulating among consultants is the word consulting comes from the word "con".

And the first thing to become a good advisor/consultant you also need to be a good researcher. Your attitude evidently is uninspiring at the moment but things aren't easy anyway.

The moment has come! I can start to feel about the stresses, pressures.....ahhhhh~

Really SALUTE to those seniors and people who can stay in Audit line for so many years.

In oversea (especially western countries), auditing is purely audit work.
In Malaysia, auditing is audit + everything else. Just see how we treat our maid you will get a rough idea.

It makes a difference when you are manager level and above when client asks for the CV of the team members, and scrutinise the qualification of the team in addition to the firm.  Not something that happens often, but when it does its usually key clients/appointments

Gahahaha, I've always liked guy staff more than ladies. They are always hardier and more capable of taking shit.

And this may sound sexist, I'm always more willing to mentor fellow dudes, because I feel like it's a brotherhood thing, where bros help out bros. LOL   

I don't like ppl who can't think for themselves. I value the ability to solve their own problems, which generally speaking, guys are better at this.
There are a few very lovely female staff who are very capable of solving their own problems too, but these are few and far between but when u get them it's really nice

If the girl got brains + looks + attitude, screw the guys. But i agree they are not many, but when found most really treasure 

Guys are generally ok (rarely got mood swings) but their quality is more varied compared to girls. Some are damn good while some simply vomit blood. But i prefer guys since can talk shit, discuss problem, pijak client, sapu the rubbish, go bar, watch football, play games and talk bout girls (client and internal).

Your last statement indicates like the girl "was" in your team ?

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Added on February 26, 2011, 3:53 pm

I normally guide people who is either older/same age as me. To me age is not an issue as long as willing to learn. If you have some sort of ego then your problem la. If I can learn from a junior about certain skills also, I wouldn't mind cos it will help me. Strangely most if not all the girls in my team are tough like nuts (there is only 2 or 3 dudes) so I never encountered your issue 

Sigh, for some reason the manager has higher expectation of the guys do deliver on work and socially too as in you have to become the bodyguard, chaffeur, despatch, luggage carrier, tapau man and among others.

Personally if that person sit there and do nothing, I will be the first person to grill.

I met people from all different culture and background, so just adjust accordingly lo. Find a common ground and build from there. If not its not going to be easy to work until midnight everyday. Guys are expected to be the "gentleman" type. The maid thingy cannot avoid la if you are the youngest male there. Feedback for KPI on the balance le if you get my drill 

For some reason, the females in my team are more open of those stuffs than me, so kinda weird.

Isn't that normal in the first month or so? Even me as new joiner have to run up and down to get files and do the photocopying..

no tips. just be yourself. that's all i can say. that's because u cannot predict what questions will be thrown at u. some people say 'oh u need to know all the FRSs, guaranteed to be asked'. well i can prove u wrong cause all my interviewer asked was about my life in UK.

but yeah like morgana said, just be confident and one important tip for ya. Get to know who is your interviewer and great him/her by her name and followed by a firm handshake. After you're done, thank them again for their time makes a good impression that u've went all the way out to find out who is your interviewer

best is if u happen to know someone inside..that would b much easier..otherwise its all about luck..cos u can imagine those graduating will be coming in thousands and the resume sent in are overflooding...

I am in the CF / Transactions / Corporate Advisory Department of one of the Big 4s, Considering my 5 years of working experience in both Advisory and Transactions, let me share some of my thoughts about corporate restructuring and see if you might be inspired in some ways.

There are generally 2 types of corporate restructuring: the one where the company is facing distress situation and the management / shareholders wish to initiate a voluntary / involuntary arrangement with the creditors / lending banks to come up with a scheme of arrangements. In this exercise, an accounting firm will be engaged to conduct an assessment to identify the break-down value of the assets in the company and from there, derive a scheme of payment to respective creditors / banks based on their priority of claims. Tough negotiations and hostility may ensue.

The second corporate restructuring is where a healthy group of companies intends to reorganize its group structure to achieve certain strategic intent (i.e., spin-off, prepare for IPO, tax efficiency) where the accounting firm is being engaged to provide them with different options available highlighting the respective pros and cons of the options. depending on the complexity of the group exercises, knowledge of consolidation accounting and tax knowledge is essential, as well as some aspect of the Companies Act. In this regard, auditing experience may seemed helpful but I doubt anyone with less than 3 years audit experience will have such level of exposure to provide any value to such exercise. Besides, I have manage to come by without one anyways.

Unlike in audit, corporate advisory job of such nature are usually unstructured and different deliverables may be requested by the client on an ad hoc basis. In one of the job I was involved in, the client also requested a valuation and business modeling services and we ended up conducting market approach valuation and DCF valuations for them as well. In another case, while I was preparing the financial statement implication analysis for the client, I was obliged to explain and highlight the relevant sections of the equity guidelines and Capital Market Service Act (which was not my area of expertise) because the client wish to conduct a reverse-takeover as part of a corporate restructuring. I presume this will turn into the sort of financial advisory services which you highlighted in your queries above?

In short, you must be comfortable or very much excited with these kind of ad hoc encounters. Your seniors / managers may not be able to provide the most timely guidance to you because they may be forced to learn on their own as well when new situation arises and you are expected to contribute, rather than just learn only. In short, it involve steep learning curve but it is a different ball game altogether as compared to audit. Strong people skills will be helpful as you are expected to consult a lot of technical experts (i.e., tax / audit, lawyers) to deliver your job. Nobody knows everything, it is a concerted effort.

Cheers. Hope that gives you a flavor of things?

To be fair, audit experience will be well-received but not crucial, according to some of the people I talked to, there are a number of instances where ordinary auditors are ill-suited for our line of job because they are too comfortable following structured steps (audit methodologies and steps in that regard) and fail to demonstrate the ability to improvise depending on situation. However, this is just some of the general observations and we do have auditors who joined us and performed very well in fact. However, auditors are well-suited for due diligence work due to the similarity (to answer the question if audit experience is required, it is a 'Yes' if you are planning to join the due diligence services, 'No' for the rest of the service lines but it can be a rather selective process, judging from the backgrounds of the candidate we hired so far)

Technical skills wise, in addition to what I have mentioned and what you have repeated, I also wish to emphasize that sometimes it is not about mastery of individual technical areas (accounting, finance, law), but more of showing the ability to integrate and consider the various technical aspect in a transaction. I personally do not think we expect too much from a freshie in terms of technical skills. Instead, we emphasize more of the soft skills such as confidence in presenting point of view and independent thinking. Then again, people with these kind of qualities are generally academic high performers as well though we have seen exceptions.

We will definitely provide our junior colleagues objectives, briefing in executing a job, but you can pretty much forget about organising a schedule because client always change their minds and move their deadlines (earlier sometimes).

For the benefit of the earlier question, I think the pay offered in CF department is generally the same like those in the audit department, though there is a possibility that some firms may be higher. I am not too sure about the rest but I am pretty confident the difference is merely marginal compared to auditor's pay. CFA is not a must but it is sponsored. Based on my personal experience, you will find your CFA studies much more applicable if you are doing valuations, instead of business restructuring (where accounting is much more applicable).

Think in the long run and experience you will be getting. Once you have served your mandatory sentence at big 4, a better life awaits you (if you leave for commercial that is...but I might be wrong so yeah..)

Hahahhaa awesome you're like me! I'm hitting 4 years this Aug too!
Strangely though, I think if you stick to accounting line (aka shared service centers, accountant and consolidation roles, it's fairly easy to look for a job. Apparently banks are hiring too (have you tried robert walters malaysia? They arranged for a few posts at ambank/cimb). I think they'd give you at least a 10% increment ! (I applied a few places and did get some news back, but I'm just being picky)

Schlumberger SSC/IBM Finance/BP/Shell/HP are all also quite aggressive in hiring so you can try them! (unless you're not into that function)

Hahaha! I think most of us who go past the ES/AM/Supervisor level are actually very comfortable just doing audit, and frankly I think i've got cool friends.. Really kinda sayang to leave them! XD