To cut to the chase - I joined a top accounting firm in their IT audit and assurance/risk team as a graduate. Just a few months in I feel like I can't do this any longer. I am yet to start my ACA and the idea of doing this for a further 3 years just to exit in to another job I'll probably hate (no interest in working in Finance) is soul destroying. You're probably asking yourself why am I still there/did I join in the first place? Well I tried to get in to management consultancy but failed, often getting to the final stages of the application process. Additionally, the role itself was slightly misleading, advertised as a consultancy-type role in the advisory service line.I'm really not sure what to do now - I understand that the grass is not always greener on the other side but I feel like reapplying to consulting which is where I've always wanted to be. Do I stick this out and try and enjoy it? It would be great to make Partner, etc but surely I can't do well in a job I hate. I want to like it and sometimes I get a boost of motivation for a few days but it doesnt last; the pay as a graduate is also awful. I guess I'm after thoughts on how to regain some motivation, what to do and perhaps a reality check from those with years of experience working.

Hi,Can you describe your background (academic, past internships)? Which stage did you fail previously? What firms did you apply to?I would assume that the top accounting firm is a big 4?

Firstly,Chin up! http://i.imgur.com/sxol2KG.gif <- happy gif :)!At worst it&apos;ll be 3 years of your life, which is nothing, to exit with a GREAT foundation. It may suck but stay with it.THEN you can move to anything you want. Go to industry? Defence? Some cool start up? You don&apos;t have to stick with audit level finance! Worlds your oyster buddy, seriously. I work in a large defence company, and our finance guys just have a laugh. Sure they arnt well paid as audit etc, at all, but maybe you dont want that anymore?

ITRA type work? If so, I feel your pain. I started in a graduate job (back in 2004/5), 3 months in and I hated it. It didn&apos;t have a lot of relevance to my degree and the work was boring. I decided to stick it out for 9 months and then see how I felt about it. Why did I do this? The first job out of uni is a complete culture shock. The work isn&apos;t always intellectually demanding but it&apos;s hard. I decided I couldn&apos;t truly decide whether I liked it for another 6 months. My advice to you is to look at what type of work you&apos;ll be doing after a year, two years etc. In a years time you may be able to move into more of a supervisory role on the IT audit work, which would involve more interaction with the client. If you think you can stick out each incremental year then this may make your decision easier. I quite like the ITRA guys/gals who manage to transition into Advisory after their first 2/3 years - they generally have good attention to detail, able to produce good quality work - so it is a good grounding. Try and find someone who you can trust inside your company and chat through your concerns - it&apos;s likely they were feeling similar things as you. If not, keep the questions coming and we&apos;ll do our best to help you

[i]"The work isn&apos;t always intellectually demanding but it&apos;s hard."[/i]I think I know exactly what you mean here, and I feel your pain dude. But please do expand on it...

To cut to the chase - welcome to the world of work. At the moment everything will be hard work and joyless - when have you ever enjoyed anything you weren&apos;t good at? It wouldn&apos;t matter if you were in consulting either - you will still be on here, posting the same thing, and wondering whether you should have gone after an ACA instead, learnt something for the future. Enjoyment comes from two things in the world of work - knowing enough about what you do to be good at it, and therefore enjoying being good at it, or having choices. Both take hard work and time to get there. The ACA will give you choices.To keep your motivation up, go grab a coffee from your preferred corporate vendor. That person who made your frustratuccino would love to be in your shoes. Probably also had a good degree and aspirations, just didn&apos;t get a break yet. Or stand outside any half decent bar, restaurant or car dealership. Stand outside cause that&apos;s where the dreamers live, while the ones who get on with it are inside.For now, stick at it. Get good at it. Then decide you hate it all, when you have choices.

Willowsbillows: 2.1 at a top 15 Uni; good A levels; year and a half work experience in a professional environment which helped me land the job. On most occasions I failed at the final stage, i.e. case studies. Tomo: I&apos;d hate to just be a finance guy who &apos;has a laugh&apos; - but I take your point about being able to move in to other roles following my ACA. Although as I mentioned in my OP I&apos;m not sure if Finance is for me either. Never really thought about working there, certainly not as an accountant. Perhaps in a Corporate Finance like role...Frio: Yep, ITRA. I know in my current firm I will be doing what I currently do for the next 3 years until I qualify, there&apos;s very little movement up until this point. I can imagine the advisory side is actual quite interesting and although not strictly advisory, the internal audit side is a lot more varied. I currently sit in a very good mid-tier firm but I feel like the Big 4 might be an option afterwards to move in to the advisory side (bigger practice, service line, demand and clients). Mars: Thank you, that&apos;s sort of what I was looking for. I know how lucky I am and I don&apos;t want to just quit. I hear a lot about how much the ACA will do for me but job boards generally seem to be loaded with accounting jobs for post-ACA folk. Perhaps this is because of my regional location.I have thought about qualifying then trying to move in to an advisory service line (either internally or with another firm). I&apos;m a little worried about struggling though. Even with my ACA, I feel my IT experience just seem irrelevant to TAS, Restructuring in comparison to those coming out of audit.

I did audit for a bit. I didn&apos;t exactly &apos;hate&apos; it, but I didn&apos;t enjoy it either. I jumped ship early and got a management consulting gig off the back of the experience. Make yourself an expert in something and you&apos;ll find doors that were closed as a grad will open up.Whatever you decide, don&apos;t leave the job you have without having something very solid lined up.

[quote][i]"The work isn&apos;t always intellectually demanding but it&apos;s hard."[/i]I think I know exactly what you mean here, and I feel your pain dude. But please do expand on it...[/quote]I thought about this...and was going to answer that it was worse when I was just starting out, but actually I think it&apos;s equally true now. 1) I need to achieve a with a client, the client needs to do b & c to enable me to do a. We&apos;ve assumed that they will do b & c in their costings. However, getting them to either do b & c or agree to increase our scope of work and therefore fee so we can do b & c for them is hard. 2) The client wants me or one of my team to provide "ah-hoc" support, a warm body or whatever because they recognise the value that support can bring, however they&apos;re not 100% (or even 50%) sure of the scope of work and challenge me with producing hard deliverables that they want me to sign-up to. Hard.

Nice shared..

[quote][quote][i]"The work isn&apos;t always intellectually demanding but it&apos;s hard."[/i]I think I know exactly what you mean here, and I feel your pain dude. But please do expand on it...[/quote]I thought about this...and was going to answer that it was worse when I was just starting out, but actually I think it&apos;s equally true now. 1) I need to achieve a with a client, the client needs to do b & c to enable me to do a. We&apos;ve assumed that they will do b & c in their costings. However, getting them to either do b & c or agree to increase our scope of work and therefore fee so we can do b & c for them is hard. 2) The client wants me or one of my team to provide "ah-hoc" support, a warm body or whatever because they recognise the value that support can bring, however they&apos;re not 100% (or even 50%) sure of the scope of work and challenge me with producing hard deliverables that they want me to sign-up to. Hard. [/quote]1. Dont assume. Make it a point of the SOW from the beginning that outcome A is dependent on client completing task B and C. Tell them they need to complete B and C before x juncture or the project scope will automatically expand to cover B and C (thereby enabling A). This is a matter of getting expectations aligned early on and keeping people to them.2. Push back. You want value for your client, so the scope needs to be agreed. If they see a longer term need for a &apos;warm body&apos; put this on a staggered schedule of work, review at 1 month or whatever is appropriate. That way project creep remains the problem of the client, and with it an imperative to deal with it.

[quote]To cut to the chase - I joined a top accounting firm in their IT audit and assurance/risk team as a graduate. Just a few months in I feel like I can&apos;t do this any longer. I am yet to start my ACA and the idea of doing this for a further 3 years just to exit in to another job I&apos;ll probably hate (no interest in working in Finance) is soul destroying. [/quote]This is the single reason why I just don&apos;t like current young people. They have no grit, no perseverance, etc. They don&apos;t know how to plan their lives. They enter the workforce thinking that they are "special", but don&apos;t realise that there so many others like them!See:http://www.huffingtonpost.com/wait-but-why/generation-y-unhappy_b_3930620.htmlSoul destroying? You stupid idiot! You wanna know what soul-destroying is? Try being diagnosed with cancer.

.....I read a decent blog post/article written by a lad (in his 20s) for Vice news last year when it was doing the rounds. Below is a snippet:"This is my generation; the generation who have no real incentive to grow up. No kids to feel guilty about, no mortgages to pay off, decent enough healthcare to keep them alive, jobs that let them scrape the money they need to feed, house and wash themselves, and only the screams of their bosses and the worried phone calls of their families to tear them away from the noble pursuit of getting on one. An army of first-world wasters trapped in an Escher maze of immaturity.":)

[quote][quote]To cut to the chase - I joined a top accounting firm in their IT audit and assurance/risk team as a graduate. Just a few months in I feel like I can&apos;t do this any longer. I am yet to start my ACA and the idea of doing this for a further 3 years just to exit in to another job I&apos;ll probably hate (no interest in working in Finance) is soul destroying. [/quote]This is the single reason why I just don&apos;t like current young people. They have no grit, no perseverance, etc. They don&apos;t know how to plan their lives. They enter the workforce thinking that they are "special", but don&apos;t realise that there so many others like them!See:http://www.huffingtonpost.com/wait-but-why/generation-y-unhappy_b_3930620.htmlSoul destroying? You stupid idiot! You wanna know what soul-destroying is? Try being diagnosed with cancer.[/quote]I agree, but they have years and years of people telling them they&apos;re special, especially (in my view) if they&apos;ve been fortunate enough to go to public school."We&apos;re trying hard to make sure we leave a planet suitable for the next generations, but pay little attention to make sure the next generation is ready for the world"It&apos;s a bit harsh calling out the soul destroying comment, there&apos;s always something worse. I mentor some 15 to 16 year olds from poor areas in London, and a couple of times a year go to their school and hold mock interviews. They can "apply" for a number of jobs, ranging from a Doctor to hairdresser and I have to tell you Camster that there are some incredible children there, with incredible drive and they most certainly have a plan. Talking about job satisfaction etc etc, my two most satisfying days of the year are going to that school meeting children from extremely diverse backgrounds and quite frankly being in awe of them.

At worst, the OP&apos;s situation is demoralising. To call it "soul destroying", that&apos;s just crazy.To the OP:Here&apos;s a "reality check". There are loads of young people worse off than you. They would love to be in your current position, with your current role. If you don&apos;t like what you are doing, then find something that you do like. Even in MC, newbies do "soul destroying" stuff. Don&apos;t believe me? Ask the others on here.The work you currently do, you can actually gain a lot from it. Use this opportunity. Do the ACA. Get a solid qualification. Then, if you want to move into MC, go do an MBA and then join an MC outfit.3 years is not long. Look up the best ever thread on here. This top thread is nearly 3 years old. Again, 3 years is not long. P.S. Here&apos;s another thing I will call out. "The pay as a graduate is awful". What did the OP expect? A 6-figure basic?

I find myself agreeing with you, I was going through a rare moment earlier. What was your first "proper" job like Camster? My graduate position typing up notes, making decks, doing excels etc was far better than the jobs I had during Uni and Uni holidays. - Nestle factory - Labourer - carrying piles up ladders for the brickies- Mobile phone shop- Supermarkets When I&apos;m bored with my work, I just think back to any of those jobs and thank my lucky stars (and my hard work and bloody determination) that I&apos;m doing the job I&apos;m doing now.

First role after first degree was in telecoms. A lot of effort went into the many applications I made. Back then, applications were all paper based. If you remember, these applications were many pages long. It was basically getting that thick book off careers service, which listed all the employers. Then, going through and selecting the relevant ones. Then, making applications.During uni days and holidays, I worked as a security guard. I particularly liked the night shift from April onwards. It meant I was able to study throughout the night. I miss my uniform :)You know what, Frio? Doing Excels was really useful :)

Doing excels was extremely useful. I showed a client how to do a vlookup the other day and it was like I&apos;d introduced magic into their life.

I agree with Camsey,However, every generation thinks that "the new generation has it much easier than we did"... Think of the guys who fought in the 1940s, they thought the hippies in the 1960s had it way too easy compared to them.and so on.Lets give the noobie the benefit of the doubt due to his inexperience. The main theme coming out here is "no, do not suddenly give up your career. Keep working andget the quals. Thereafter make a change".

I hated my job too! It was horrific, then I got some advice, and went to see a careers consultant then helped a lot.[url]http://careerminds.com/[/url]

[quote]I hated my job too! It was horrific, then I got some advice, and went to see a careers consultant then helped a lot.[url]http://careerminds.com/[/url][/quote]Yup that&apos;ll do it. If you really hate your job try talking to someone who has an even worse one.

[quote][quote]I hated my job too! It was horrific, then I got some advice, and went to see a careers consultant then helped a lot.[url]http://careerminds.com/[/url][/quote]Yup that&apos;ll do it. If you really hate your job try talking to someone who has an even worse one.[/quote]Which is why I&apos;ve always said... be a pornstar!!!

Do what you like,otherwise it will be a burden for you.

Find out the reasons for it.

Even with a Job you may not like, I would work on creating experiences that are Transferable i.e. you can use it in another job or industry. These experiences do not have to be provided by e.g. Management, but you can identify problems and work with your teammates/work colleagues to solve a problem. However big or small. It is not entirely true that our companies will create the opportunities for us to enjoy our work. I say go an try to build experiences, side projects etc. that help you add more skills/experience to you CV.