I was trained in industry so I can only repeat what I have heard from my colleagues who have joined from practice. They said a vast majority leave audit soon after qualifying, industry pays better and you work less hours in comparison.
Apparently external audit is like a huge pressure cooker. You are constantly travelling, working long hours, face hostility in many cases with difficult clients who don't prepare anything for you so you end up working to meet impossible deadlines as you have other audits lined up...
On top of that, what you learn isn't really that interesting and can get really repetitive. You are just doing a lot of testing and you don't learn anything new after a while.
And god forbid if you have to audit any clients with American subsidiaries or parents... Sarbanes-Oxley sounds unbelievably tedious and time consuming.
On the other hand, they speak of it as a real experience, making great friends and contacts on the way. You are richer for the experience and have good knowledge of the financial accounts obviously, if you want to go down that route. And obviously having a big name on your CV is helpful in securing other jobs!
This is of course just me relaying back to you the opinions from 3 people I know at work (BDO, Deloitte & PWC trained)
That, and the fact that our external auditors (KPMG) pitch up and live in one of our smaller meeting rooms 5-6 months of the year, often in there from 7.30am to 9pm, many of those nights taking their work home with them I'm sure. Not that I ever stay that late, but on every occasion that I do, they are without fail still there. It doesn't look like much fun.
I don't mean to sound so negative.. As I said this is purely just a collection of opinions of people now working in industry, so hopefully someone in practice currently who enjoys their job has a different view to provide more balance.
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