From Big 4 to Big Tech with Mike Manalac

In episode 5 of the Big 4 Transparency podcast, we're joined by Mike Manalek, Accounting Manager at Google and the author of No Flux Given, the playbook on how to land your dream job in accounting. Mike shares learnings from his journey to landing his dream job at Google and how years of preparation were needed in order to get him to where he is today. Mike shows the type of foresight, planning and determination that is needed to land the most competitive positions and shares what he learned along the way so you can save years on your own journey. The episode is also sponsored by Pluvo by Rain Technologies. Pluvo is a one-stop shop for business owners and decision makers to plan, strategize and project their finances with unparalleled efficiency. Pluvo integrates directly with QBO, offering you a smoother process and includes a suite of FP&A tools supporting forecasting, scenario planning and financial reporting. Reduce the amount of time you're spending on manual tasks and focus on strategic decision making instead. Pluvo is a great addition to your firm if you're looking to step up your game in virtual CFO services with clients. Check them out in this episode's show notes and enjoy the episode. Hello and welcome to another episode of the Big 4 Transparency podcast. I'm joined today by Mike Manalak, who is an accounting manager at Google and the author of No Flux Given, a guide on how to land your dream job in accounting. Welcome to the Big 4 Transparency podcast, Mike. Yeah, thanks. Excited to be here, Dom. I know you're putting out a lot of good stuff lately, so excited to be a part of it. Yeah, thank you. So we've had some discussions in the past, so I definitely have a little bit of a understanding of kind of your career path and what you do. For this podcast, I did a little bit of digging into your LinkedIn and you have quite a gambit of experience. So eight and a half years, roughly, of experience in public accounting before getting to where you are now. So why don't we start there and talk about what made you decide you needed to explore the world beyond public accounting, essentially? Yeah, yeah, sure. Public accounting is great. Like I obviously stayed there for a very long time, but eight and a half years is a long time. I know you did some time there, but I kind of consider it like dog years, you know? Eight and a half real years is like, I don't know, it's got to be like a hundred dog years or something. But I don't know, I did enough busy seasons, I kind of felt like I knew what my life would look like in another 10 years if I were to keep doing it. I also thought that if I stayed too much longer, it might be hard to do anything else other than public accounting. And then I had this idea, whether it's true or not, I still think it probably is true, but if you do leave public accounting and maybe jump the industry, you'll probably come back. So worst case scenario, I come back and do that. So it was really just kind of trying something different and the grass is always greener no matter where you sit. So that was a little bit of a draw for me too. But yeah, just trying to do something different and see what else was out there outside of public, the busy seasons were getting old and things like that. So I'm sure a lot of your listeners can relate to some of that. Yeah. And I mean, personally as well, right, like to me, part of it was, yeah, having that comfort that I could probably boomerang and then kind of saying, you know, if I progress here this whole way and then I'm always going to wonder what if, whereas now I can just go do it and then go back if I decide that, you know, it was, it was not the right choice to leave and all that. And you can maintain those relationships. You can be really intentional about it as well. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I definitely understand you on that. And when you left, were you kind of aware of some of the upsides of continuing down the public accounting avenue? So like potentially becoming partner or MD, was that something that interested you? Uh, yeah, I feel like that, you know, the partner track is kind of one of those things you aspire to, even as a student, like, Oh, you know, one of the big firms and you'll make partner one day, you'll be millionaire kind of thing. And, uh, and all that's true. It's, it's fun to follow some of my colleagues now that are partners, uh, you know, living a good life there too. So I knew the upsides were there, but the lifestyle I felt like I wasn't thrilled with in that you're still going to do busy seasons, you know, uh, there was a business development side that came with it, which at the time I, I wasn't all that interested in that trying to go win clients and stuff. Uh, looking back at it now, I think that might've been a fun challenge, but you know, at the time it didn't necessarily feel like something that, that, you know, I was going to really be into, but yeah, the upsides were there. And I, again, I always figured who knows, maybe if you get industry experience and come back, maybe that, that path is actually even easier. Uh, you know, I wasn't entirely sure. So, uh, but yeah, I mean that the partner track, I feel like it's still the gold standard. I think for a lot of accountants out there, it definitely was one where if I jump off the track, how much am I setting myself back? You know? And yeah. Uh, so you had to weigh all that stuff too. Yeah, absolutely. So kind of probably mostly like the lifestyle, I guess, right at the end of the day, like you were aware of the financial benefits that were out there. I think I probably wasn't even, um, but definitely the lifestyle is pretty apparent where a lot of it is like you, you see that they're, they're still working super hard. And there's been recent surveys actually that, um, as you progress to partner for a lot of people in the U S anyways, I know that it was the survey responses showed that they actually work more and more. So the partners are even actually kind of like working more than a lot of the staff are on average in these large firms where again, like, yeah, now you're being compensated properly for it, but like, is that what you want if you don't have the time to enjoy everything you've worked for? Right. So, um, that's definitely like a draw to kind of seeing what else is out there. So, um, so when you were leaving, like I personally felt a lot of uncertainty. Um, like I was like, I really hope that I don't regret this down the road. Um, and by the time you left, you were at manager level. So I feel like you're starting to have some of like the autonomy that makes the role a little bit more interesting. Um, and some of the compensation kind of more in line with your firm. So can you talk me through kind of like what was in your head when you left? Was it really like, you know, was it like a high certainty move or was it like very kind of anxiety, uh, anxiety inducing? Oh man, especially, uh, you know, the top 20 firm that I started out with, it's there for eight, you know, seven something years or something. So that's a big change. You know, I built my whole life kind of around that. And, uh, so leaving was very, you know, anxiety, uh, anxiety driven. So, but a lot of kind of the ways that I, that I kind of thought through it, well, one, I had just turned about 30. So you know, there's always this thing of like, you start reflecting on stuff and I wanted to have a family and, and what does my future look like from here? And that's where I started to think, uh, I could see some of my friends, coworkers having, uh, you know, starting a family. And I was thinking I can actually see exactly what my life would look like. And you know, that's kind of where I was a lot of the life balance side of things where I was like, I don't know if that's, that's what I want. Um, and then the other thing too, was just feeling that maybe my window of opportunity to leave was, was closing fast, fast, because once you have a kid, right. And you get married and you have a kid very hard to just uproot your life or like quit the job that you've had forever. Stability becomes a bigger thing. Whereas I was, I was still able to play a little risky, I guess. You know what I mean? I, I had a girlfriend at the time that became, you know, later became my wife and I had a house. But other than that, like low responsibility compared to like taking care of another person or, and things like that. So part of me felt like if I was going to do a change, it should probably be that, uh, or, and don't wait too, too long. Cause one, I didn't want to pigeon hole myself into I'm only the public accounting guy. Right. Um, but then also I didn't want life to catch up with me to a point that like you mentioned, not wanting to have some regrets too. I didn't want to get to a point where I later said, Oh, I wonder what it would have been like. I at least wanted to know. Um, yeah, but it was, it was tough and, and even harder, I think when I started looking at exit ops and they weren't necessarily as good as I thought they would be, that made it even harder. Cause then it was like, geez, I thought I was going to jump and they were going to be knocking down my door to give me these sweet offers. And, uh, that wasn't the case. To your point, like I was a manager, so, you know, income was good and I felt like the responsibilities were better, uh, you know, overseeing not just interns, associates and seniors. So you weren't necessarily having to do necessarily all the grunt work of, uh, what you might be doing as an associate and rolling over work papers or sending confirmations, like those things you didn't have to do. So I actually liked it. I liked the work. It's not that I necessarily disliked the work, but yeah, I always kind of wanted to see like what else is out there. And if I'm going to go test the waters kind of now is the time to do it. So, yeah. And so speaking of kind of what's on the other side, what is it like being an accounting manager now at Google? Um, so I mean, at least we used to see a lot of glamorous, you know, day in the life videos coming out of people at Google and similar positions in big tech. Um, does this kind of ring true to roles in accounting or like what's the, what's the day-to-day look like? Yeah. Uh, I mean, I'd still say you might see things in the news about layoffs and things like that. Um, and they, and they impacted accounting and finance teams, uh, last year, like in 2023, about a year, a year ago. So, you know, those kinds of things happen. Um, but if you were to compare the life at Google compared to almost any other accounting job that's out there, it's still very much a, a very cool gig. Uh, the offices are really nice. The flexibility you get working autonomously, transferring across teams. The, the work is interesting. I work on a Google search and YouTube ads products. So, um, there's a big chunk of my day to day that's, that's partnering with a lot of cross-functional teams. So like legal and compliance and sales and eng and FP and a, and all those teams. And, uh, that's really fun too. You know, it's a, it's a unique side of the business where we're trying to grow the investment of our top advertisers, um, to adopt our latest products and, and grow their investment on their advertising, uh, spend that they do with Google. So very cool to be working on, on stuff that I feel like is tangible and working on products that like a Google search and a YouTube that I use myself. And, uh, so all of that is very fun. And it may be some of the, the, the pixie dust has worn off from like the Vince Vaughn Owen Wilson days of, uh, the internship, but still very much, uh, a great, a great gig. I say it was my dream job when I went for it, uh, you know, six, six or seven, six years ago now, but it's still very much is. I mean, that's refreshing to hear. You're like two years in or something, I think at Google. Uh, no, six, six years. I think a little mixing up some other experience. Oh no. Yeah. Yeah. So, uh, two years before Google, I was with Walmart. This is, uh, in the e-commerce team I did about two years there. That was a kind of one of those stepping stones. A lot of people that, that leave public, you go into industry and, uh, it was one of those stepping stones where I probably wouldn't have been able, I definitely wouldn't have been able to jump right to Google from public accounting. Some people that are better than me, I'm sure, uh, that works out for them, but it, it, it's no cakewalk, I guess, you know, you have to kind of have to do a few, a few other stops before, uh, the gates opened up for me at least. So. Yeah. I mean, it makes sense. A lot of the postings for kind of yeah. Manager plus industry jobs at desirable places will want industry experience. Right. So again, yeah, that, that belief that I'll do my time in public and everyone will just be there with opening with open arms might not be a hundred percent the case. It's a good, it's a good background, but yeah. Well, that's, uh, what I had mentioned, the exit ops being a little more disappointing. That was part of it. I was thinking, oh, I have to do a few more things before I'm going to get somebody to reply to my, uh, you know, my LinkedIn connection request or before my resume just doesn't hit somebody's like auto recycle bin or something like that. So a little bit of a harsh reality there. Yeah, but Hey, it worked out. Like it's nice hearing you that, you know, it's still kind of in dream job territory and you've been there for six years. So that's, that's good to hear. Um, so you're also clearly a very creative person with everything you do on the side and we'll get into that. But, um, personally, like I'm a huge fan of the kind of the, the images that you create and some of the articles that you share about accounting. Um, are you able to make that kind of creativity work for you in your day-to-day role? Um, because it's a little bit contrary to what a lot of people assume about the accounting world, right? Yeah. Yeah, no. Well, first of all, thanks for saying it. I, I like to draw and, uh, trying to incorporate that with, with things as much as I can. I think I like to talk a lot about finding like the fun and fulfilling side of accounting. And a lot of that fulfillment comes from being able to take the things you're interested in and the things that you're working on and, and marrying those two together. So if you see the posts that I have out there, they're always on like a topic of accounting or something like that, but it also incorporates like the, the drawing that I like to do just kind of fun and, and, uh, kind of have a lighthearted, but also helpful kind of approach to those things. So, um, those are the types of things that you'll see maybe on LinkedIn or, or on my website and things like that. But I actually try to incorporate it as much as I can, uh, during my day to day too. It is a little counterintuitive because what, you know, how do you introduce creativity into the accounting space? But I feel like there's a lot more to it than I think people might think of on the surface. Like even in, even in the audit days, uh, people like to talk about don't do Sally don't do same as last year, look through a new lens, but you know, to come up with an alternative procedure or something, you have to be able to create like a new path. You got to be pretty creative to say, just cause we did it last year, I got a better way of doing it and it might save time and it might be this novel approach. So those are things where I think creativity is, is very important. Um, yeah. And I, it actually separates, I think a lot of, uh, you know, uh, what you might consider the traditional accountants to the ones that can maybe knock it up a notch and do, do a few different other things. The creative side, I feel like you don't, you don't check that at the door when you log in for work or, you know, scan your badge and to go to work like that comes with you. And, um, I've always, I've always said too, like, I want, I want that to stick with me. I don't want maybe a profession that isn't so creative to somehow bring me down from the creativity point rather let me try and use it to my advantage. So, uh, a lot of things like, as far as like coming up with different projects or if you're familiar with like SQL and things like that, like doing different code, uh, coding, different scripts and workflows to join data sets, to automate some processes or procedures, that's all. You have to be pretty creative to even do that. And you need the technical know-how of the accounting and the ability to do some, uh, some scripting. So, uh, bringing all those things together, I feel like I do get the used creativity side, uh, quite a bit. Um, as far as the drawing, I, I've, I do a lot on the digital whiteboard ever since COVID kicked off, uh, sent everyone in like a work from home frenzy. I think most people gravitated to, I'm going to use zoom and, uh, team chat, like I'll be pinging people and maybe Google docs. Uh, but a lot of people don't use the digital whiteboard. So that's something I've incorporated, uh, with my team. I lead a distributed team across the country. Uh, that's something that I use. So that allows me to kind of sketch things out live and have other team members use that. And, uh, that's been a nice, a nice sort of marriage into, you know, my, the hobby stuff that I do as well as like the work stuff. So, and Google is a place that really appreciates, uh, some of those creative ideas and, and doing, going for the moon shots and things like that. So working with a lot of really creative people just almost makes you more creative too. And, and I don't feel stifled in that regard at all. So I do feel like I get to use it a lot. Nice. Well, I'm happy to hear that. Like I, I, I think it's all the more impressive when creativity is displayed in the place where you don't expect it. Right. And increasingly I think people are coming around in the finance accounting world to maybe there are different ways of doing things, right? Like I think recently there was a court case where there was like a, someone was trying to sue an auditor for like misleading something. And then basically I'm a little fuzzy on some of the details of it, but basically the auditor was deemed not responsible because people were like, nobody's basing their investment decisions on that anyways, which is kind of scary for the accounting profession, but it does sort of beg the question of like, okay, well, are there more creative ways we could think about this that would add more value and would be more useful to people? Right. Yeah. Um, in the scrappier entrepreneur space, you hear of a lot of people making their update something really cool or they'll like, they'll, they'll do it in a completely different manner than what's the norm. And I think again, like it's very refreshing when someone pushes the envelope, obviously, if you need to generate an audit report, don't go like, Hey, what if we added glitter all over this? Like that's not going to be well received, but finding the places where you can fit those things, I think is going to be, you know, all the more impressive again, when the bar is no creativity at all. Um, you know, and so, you know, kudos to people like you who are willing to try to bring that forward and bring the profession up rather than lower themselves to the level of what is expected. Right. So, yeah. Um, really refreshing to hear that and not letting it crush your creative mind. So, yeah, I would like to think it's a, it's a trend and, you know, especially with like AI and automation and things like that, like at a certain point, those mundane tasks that are repetitive, that's not going to, that's not going to employ us anymore, right? There's going to be something else that's already doing it. So what are we really bringing to the table? You know, and I think this, uh, shift from just like the, the number cruncher to more of the advisor, uh, has been going on for a while now, but I think a lot of that is, you know, bring something new to the table. And I think firms are starting to embrace that, uh, more and more and getting creative with how they even attract talent, you know, because I think a lot of the talent today, they don't want to do boring stuff, right? So they, they want to bring new ideas to the table. And I think the, the firms are starting to embrace that. I think that's pretty encouraging. Nice. Thanks. Yeah. I'm happy to hear that. Um, so if you're comfortable sharing some of this, this being big for transparency podcast, how does the compensation compare at a big tech company versus in public accounting? And I guess as a followup to that, if we could also contrast versus the lifestyle in each as well. Yeah. Uh, as far as the pay goes, I mean, I guess in big tech, it's, it's maybe a little different than, uh, maybe any other smaller company, but at a company like Google or the other fan companies, uh, if you're familiar with that acronym, they all shoot for paying within the top 10% of the market and things like that. So, uh, very much feel well compensated, you know, even on the finance side and, and not that I wasn't at the firms too. Like I know, especially once you make manager, you know, the paying fees goes, goes up pretty well. The bonus structure is really, really well too. Um, I'd say the base salary might even be close to the same, but the bonus is, is much higher, the percent of your salary, you know, uh, the bonuses tends to be higher and then you get the equity component. So if you're working for a company that gives you stock, that's something that, you know, the firms don't even try to touch really. And, uh, you know, if you, if you break the compensation down into those three sections, stock ends up being a good chunk of it, you know, um, now that's at a company like Google, uh, but there are also some companies, like I know when I was living in, living in San Francisco, if you're familiar with, uh, electronic arts, they do like the EA sports games. Uh, hopefully nobody gets offended by this, but like they're known in the Bay area to pay super low, very low. That's because they don't have a hard time getting people to join the company, you know, so every little kid goes, Oh, I love, you know, 2k. I want to, I want to work for that. Right. I imagine that's part of it. Yeah. Yeah. It's that it it's that. And, and that's, uh, I don't know how that translates into their finance teams, but I imagine if that's true of the company as a whole, like it's true for them too, but you know, a lot of those it's super competitive and, uh, the companies want the best talent, so you have to kind of pay for that. And, um, so I'd say it definitely within big tech, I think it's still. A great, a great situation from like the compensation, uh, compensation packages. Now you will have to, you have to kind of have an impact, you know, it's not just show up to work and close the books and you get your pay, like you're pushed pretty hard and I think that's, that's reflected in across the board in big tech, like I think, uh, Amazon, when I was interviewing Amazon had, uh, in the, in the offer package, which I think is common knowledge now, but, uh, they do like a two year sign on bonus. Everybody knows you get a bonus when you sign on, but why do you do it for the second year too? I mean, a lot of that as a retention tactic, like you're, you're pushing people pretty hard. Uh, maybe if you dangle this carrot of a sign on bonus at year two, you'll, you'll stick around. So you're, you are paid very well. Uh, but it's a demanding, it's a demanding role. And I think even as like a manager, a people manager, the expectations are very different than something in what you would see at like in public accounting firms where you're, you're managing the work, you're managing people doing the work, uh, but you're not really managing necessarily your reports, careers, uh, and making sure that they're growing and getting the most potential out of them. And you're pushing them to, to, uh, be, be the best accounting professional that there is, uh, or that they have inside themselves. And at Google, that's very much a big piece of it is, you know, really getting the best out of people and drawing that out. And sure. You're also managing the work, but there's a whole other side of the people development side. Um, and you know, I think that's part of the compensation too. You know, uh, my team's success is my success. Like being good, being good at your job is kind of table stakes, right? You need to be able to, especially at a management side, uh, on the management side of things, like you need to be able to push your, your team to do big things too. So, uh, no, but that's definitely one of the draws at these big tech companies that is the compensation package. And you touched on the, not to like continue rambling on, but you talked about the lifestyle change and, um, it's a fun, it's a fun environment. Like the offices are cool. There's all these lounge spaces. I'm, I'm hardly at my desk. Uh, hybrid work is kind of the norm. You're working with really smart people, creative people. Like I mentioned, uh, I'm located in the West loop in Chicago here. And the office is really, is incredible. Got like a music room and size chairs and like, you get your nails done. If you want it to, there's a gym, there's a jump in the pool if you want and breakfast and lunch is free. So like, you know, those perks, I feel like are pretty well documented and I wouldn't say suggest that anybody joined for the perk, but again, they're trying to make you comfortable, you know, but on the flip side of that is kind of have to earn that salary too, you know, and earn those, earn those perks. I think that's a fair trade. Yeah. And so like, what's the kind of, you know, workload like in comparison, right? Cause I think that's one of the biggest complaints you hear about public accounting. So it's useful to kind of contrast it right where public accounting people feel a lot like they're as a baseline working at least the full week, if not already a little bit more, and then you get just smacked with this huge busy season, which depending on what you, you know, what stream you're in might be more or less intense and more or less long. Right. And so how does that kind of generally compare to your experience so far, like in industry? I mean, the hours are definitely normalized, you know, so a 40, 45 hour week is is the norm. It does get busier at month end. So instead of concentrating everything into three and a half, four months during busy season, you're really you're kind of impacted at the end of every month and then at the end of every quarter, you know, when you've got your SEC filings, of course, at the end of the year, you've got your 10K. But at big companies like at Walmart, too, and at Google, the expectation is you close really fast. You've got to get the financials out the Wall Street. Right. So I think the close is a three or four days. So you are slammed during that time, but it's not drawn out. Sometimes I'll hear accountants at other companies that their close is like like 15, 20 days. And, you know, I kind of feel like I don't want that to be my whole job, you know, so it takes up about a week of of your month. And then the other three weeks are on doing different projects and automation projects and partnering on different launches of different digital advertising features with other teams and things like that. So the hours are better. I feel like the work is less repetitive outside of close month and close, which is nice because I feel like everybody needs the right balance of routine work versus like ad hoc project work. But if you're somebody that likes less routine work, you know, big tech is really good with that because it moves fast. There's always new things to do instead of maybe the workload in the audit side where, you know, it might be a different audit, but you're still doing the representation letter and all the financials and you're still doing the disclosure checklist that's 50 pages long of checking box after box after box and the footnotes like that's pretty repetitive, I'd say. And, you know, maybe there's some people in public that I always suggest, like you work in different segments of the industries, your client base, try to diversify your client base. But that's it for the sake of keeping it fresh and new and different different clients have different challenges. So you get some level of change, but it's you're still doing audit procedures. You know, that's not completely going away. I think where it gets tricky is you roll out a busy season and then, oh, by the way, you're on a 630 year end client or, you know, a 930 or 1130. And then, of course, both, you know, year end 1231. That's where it gets that's where the value proposition really starts to erode. But I think I think public accounting, the firms are acknowledging that now, too. And they're they're trying to get back to, hey, you work work your butt off for busy season and we'll kind of be able to ease off the gas pedal a little bit for the rest of the year. So that's a little bit of the comparison, I guess I'd say. Nice. I mean, a lot of that rings true in my experience, kind of leaving PA as well, where I got exposure to a lot of like really interesting kind of tax work when I was there. And I say this a lot. Like, I think I got dealt the best possible hand I could have gotten dealt with my big four experience. And still after a while, I was like, gotta be more than this. Right. Or as an analyst, I was trying to get involved heavily in business development because I was like, I just I just can't file another return. Yeah. Whereas as soon as I left, it was like, hey, like, let's implement this new thing. Like process improvement is one of the biggest parts of my job. And then just looking around with your eyes open, right. It's like, OK, what what can we fix? Right. And and being the person with the financial lens looking through things essentially becomes a huge part of your job. So, yeah. So how did you land that role at Google? Because you mentioned, you know, you're expecting to leave the big four or just accounting in general. You're expecting to leave PA and kind of like be greeted with open arms and everyone just laying down the red carpet. And that wasn't really the case. You mentioned not being from a prestigious school and not having any connections or referrals. So how did that work out for you? Yeah. And to add to that, like I'm from I'm from Baltimore, too. There's there's not any HQ Fortune 500 there. A lot of the companies that I said when I leave public, if I had to list out the top 10 on my list, for some reason, they were all located in the Bay Area. A lot of them were tech companies. But like so part of the how I think was saying, hey, I need to get closer to the to the action. So I actually when I left public accounting and joined PwC, I joined PwC in San Francisco's office. But a lot of it was just being close to where the action was. You know, but then even leaving PwC, I was still only had public accounting experience. So I had the same type of of feedback from the different interviewers. Oh, you were in audit for financial services. Well, what does that have to do with managing like a team at Uber or Salesforce or Tesla or Twitter and things like that? So, you know, I I really struggled with that pretty heavily. But I also looked at all the companies that I still why I moved across the country like stakes were high. Right. So I didn't want to to not succeed at that. And I kind of looked looked across all those companies, all the open positions. And I look to see what are the job requirements. They all start to sound the same. Big four preferred month in close experience. Do you know any ERP systems? And so kind of what I did was come up with a career checklist based on all of the the hot ticket items that I'd see time and time again. The ones that I didn't wasn't able to check the box on, they kind of became my career checklist. And part of that was why I did big four after so many years at like a national firm. And then even jumping over to industry, it was it was very it was actually pretty easy to get a job in industry if it was a more a more typical conventional company. But I really wanted a Fortune 500 role. I wanted to be able to say I did things with big data. And I'm also a believer that if you do, you can go big and then go smaller, but it's much harder to go small and then get into a big company from there. So so I really kind of shot pretty high looking at the Fortune 500 list and Wal-Mart sits at the top. They've been there for a long time. They had their e-commerce business in San Bruno, which is just south of San Francisco. And while that might not have been a dream job necessarily at that time, like the the scale at which like Wal-Mart sits and the diverse income streams and everything and then being part of e-commerce, which is super hot and them going toe to toe with Amazon. I knew that if I were to land a role there, I'd be able to collect a lot of really good experience that I could then leverage to get to a company like Google. And that that still wasn't necessarily easy either. Like I remember at Metta trying to try. I went through I got the three final rounds at Metta, failed each one of them. This is what a lot goes into the playbook. But those those are all learning lessons. You know, you take something away from each of those. But I remember at Metta them really giving me a hard time saying, like, can you drink from the fire hose like we do at Metta? And I'm like, well, I mean, I'm posting entries in the billions here over at Wal-Mart, but, you know, they don't necessarily look at it that way. You know, big companies kind of want to see that you're you're at a competitor or, you know, something like that. And big tech doesn't necessarily look at big retail the same way, you know. So it's it's kind of funny. I needed to do the stepping stones. And and really. Getting back to the how, like, how did I do it? A lot of it was failing, you know, I think in the in the playbook, I cover 15 interviews, but like when you're talking about like Amazon and Nike and Google and Metta and Twitter or Salesforce and Uber and all of those companies that I was interviewing at. It's hard. It's super hard. But you learn very fast because the failures hurt really bad. Yeah. And and over time, I realized what to say, what not to say and and a lot of those things. And that's where I started to really fine tune my approach that I put in the playbook saying, hey, I'm actually getting repeated success with this. Maybe I'll put something out there in case anybody else wants to use it as a resource, because there definitely was no resource when I look to say, hey, you're looking to jump to industry. Like, what's how do you go land your dream job? You know, that doesn't that doesn't exist. So that's that's sort of where I was like, well, you know, I I was put through the ringer and I came out still alive. So maybe I'll put out my process and see if it can help somebody else. Yeah, I mean, I think that's a tremendous idea, right? And it's it's such a good resource. So you basically. Pretty early on, by what it sounds like, like potentially by the time you were leaving that first firm, you had your sights set on kind of one of those fang or fang adjacent companies. So it sounds like that was kind of like a three year process almost. Right. Because you did your time at the big four and then you did your time at the Fortune 500, which I'm sure checked off to kind of major points in the application. So you really played the long game there, which I mean, understandably for Google, like, you know, it makes sense that that would be what it takes to get in there, because I'm sure there's hundreds, thousands of other applicants who are willing to do whatever it takes to get in as well. So beyond that kind of checklist approach in your in your book, which we'll call out here, No Flux Given, which is on Mike's website, which I'll make sure I link here. Are there any other like kind of sneak peek or key tips that you can share with the audience? Let's say that they want to make moves similar to kind of what you did moving out of PA and getting that dream role. Yeah, I mean, I kind of break it down into like an operational way of actually tackling, tackling the landing the phone screen. And then how do you nail the phone screen and then getting the on site and how do you nail the on site? So there's like some operational kind of tactical things that are out there. And then there's the whole once you're in the room, it's a performance. You know, these interviews are very much performative. And so as far as like on that performance side, there's there's a lot of different things of, you know, being able to kind of tell a good story. You know, I think a lot of accountants do a lot of really cool work, but it's easy to make it sound boring when you talk about it. Right. And your interviewer doesn't want to hear that. So a lot of it is storytelling or even if you're familiar with like mirroring techniques of, you know, matching someone else's energy and things like that. And then and then just the whole idea of being likable, you know, like these are people that are going to sit side by side with you, maybe go on some trips and things like that. You you need a little bit of charisma. You don't need to be like Sinatra here and you don't need like to be a comedic superpower like a Will Ferrell. But you got to be able to get people smiling and leaving a good impression. And those are things that really have nothing to do with your accounting background or what, you know, and they go. I feel like they take you really far. So that's more on the performative side. But then as far as like the tactical piece of that, too, I really tackle each stage, you know, because these, you know, if you're talking to a company like Amazon, you're interviewing with over 12 people. There's like six or five or six like interview interview rounds like it's it's a lot. So I kind of tackled each one individually from the just getting the phone screen. And a lot of that can start on LinkedIn and trying to get a connection with a recruiter from there. You have your resume set up. You can email the resume, but you don't do that at you have to do that at scale, right? Because it's only one percent chance that you're going to land an offer by sending your resume at these big companies. So you got to do it at scale. You got to play the numbers. You got to hit hit all of the all of the companies. I'm a big fan of like the shoot for the moon, land in the stars approach. So you've got all of your fangs that are all the top companies. But then your tier two companies that are also very good and you put it all out there and see what comes and you end up getting flooded when it works. You end up getting flooded and maybe only 20, 15 percent of those even get back to you. But at least you have some traction. And I feel like a lot of people I've heard a lot of people try to be too selective about where they're applying. Right. Of like, oh, well, I don't apply there because what if I hear back from this other place? Yeah. And, you know, with with big for transparency, I've been launching this podcast. Even like I've spoken with some people who've had a lot of success in doing this and they say kind of like, give yourself those problems. Like those are the problems that you want to have. And don't worry about them ahead of time. Worry about them when you're in it. Right. Like, yeah. Yeah. Maybe you'll have a really hectic lifestyle for a little bit, but that's the good type of problem to have. And you're just not going to know if that's even an issue until you really commit and give yourself that problem. Right. Like I was worried about that for podcast guests. Like I was talking to these people, like, you know, being really choosy, trying to go just for like the top, top voices. And they're like. Like if these people aren't answering you, reach out to more people. And I've given myself the good problem where like I've had this flood of like just fantastic people kind of coming back for this podcast. And I was almost scared of that at the beginning. I was getting in my own way, being like, I can't do this broad outreach to everyone all at once, because what happens if they all come back to me? And and like a lot of people have come back to me and I've been shocked. But like, it's the good type of problem to have. Right. And I think. Yeah. A lot of a lot of us kind of get in our own ways that way. And it's really self-sabotaging. So it's it's interesting to kind of hear you put that out there, because I've I've noticed that a lot lately, even with myself. Right. Yeah. I'm just like, oh, I can't I can't do that, because what if what if this other thing happens? And then I'm just overwhelmed because I've gotten both things I wanted. You can't you can't be thinking. You can. I think you brought up a good point about like being too selective. If if you don't cast a wide net and you don't have any podcast guests coming back to you, you don't have a podcast. Right. So like and I think a lot of people do that. And and actually, once you get the ball rolling, you need to get you get more practice. You get better at stuff. You fail a bunch of times. And and then you start to get to a position where once you get good at it, you don't have to chase as much. People start coming to you. And I think a lot of people forget that aspect of it, where it's not always the chase. You have to really put your best foot forward. But eventually, if you're out there, things will start coming your way. And what you really want is when you start to stack those potential opportunities, even if only 10 percent of them move you to the next round. Eventually, once maybe you do get an offer, you can leverage that offer to something else. Like and maybe maybe they didn't like you before until they knew another big company likes you. Right. And then they're willing to move fast. And, you know, that blow that's blown up in my face multiple times, too. I think at Salesforce, I tried to position my offer at Walmart. And I was like, if you come right in now, like, you know, maybe if you make an offer quick and they're like, oh, good luck. See, this is after like six weeks of interviewing, too. So like, oh, quite an investment. But then but then a company like Tesla had had heard I had an Amazon offer and all of a sudden they were ready to fast track, you know. Right. Whereas Google could have cared less that I had the Amazon off. So but you never know how those things play out. Right. And and I think you're only going to you know, it's a little bit of an overused phrase. Now, this whole idea of failing fast and moving fast and breaking things. But like, that's how you learn. That's how you get better at things. And so the more opportunities you give yourself to fail, the better off you're going to be for it. And, you know, I know that that was a lot for for anybody to do, especially in the accounting space to go on to put yourself out there and and do all those things. And but it did it did really help. And that's sort of why I said, I don't know that that many other accountants are going to do this to this extent. I might as well share what my takeaways were from the experience. Yeah. Yeah. And I you know, I think letting someone else do do the hard thing for three years is a great way where you can kind of fast track your own learning. So, I mean, it's absolutely worthwhile. And I think I think it's great that you've created this playbook and again, that you're sharing on that knowledge without other people needing to go on that three year journey and maybe even not having the success you had. Right. So I'm really happy to know that there is that playbook out there for everyone. One last kind of topic here. But you obviously have a lot of love for the accounting game with all the articles you publish and you kind of you really stay on top of things. And I think it's really refreshing, first of all, to have such a positive voice about the accounting industry when there's a lot of negativity right now. But what drove you essentially to start publishing these articles and then what pushes you to continue doing so? And what sort of benefits has it really brought to your life? Yeah, you know, I think a lot of it was the negative perception that's out there. Accounting has a perception problem, an image problem, you know, and I have what I consider to be a pretty cool accounting job, you know, and I feel like a lot of people don't talk about the cool accounting jobs that are out there. And the things that you hear are usually negative. So it was one of those things, too, where, you know, I felt like maybe I'll be a different voice for, you know, what's been my experience. And I've got a few things that, you know, up my sleeve that I think can help other people, too. And maybe maybe just get them to see that, like, oh, there's a different world out there, because, you know, for the most part, like starting in college, public accounting is talked about. It's not talked about, oh, go do small business accounting or go start your own practice or go jump the industry. No, no, no. Public accounting. You want to make partner. That's what you want to do. Right. And you can find you can there's plenty of people beating that drum. And, you know, there's a few people beating the drum of starting your own practice. There's not a lot of people talking about the fun side and fulfilling side and on industry, you know, for industry now. So part of me was to fill that void a little bit. And I kind of got tired of hearing it go the other way so much. And and then as far as like sharing the illustrations and things, I felt like if you're going to say things are fun and there's a there's creative opportunities here, you kind of have to show it. Right. And like do it yourself. And and then I just I like to draw, too. So like being able to put something out there that's like showing, hey, I'm I'm right. I'm writing some things out there. I'm drawing some pictures, illustrations that go with it. I feel like that kind of makes it makes it fun for anybody who's who's looking for something other than the doom and gloom that that kind of dominates the news. So and then as far as just sustaining that, I think it kind of started as a maybe I'll put some stuff out there, see if anything sticks. And I found some pretty, pretty cool opportunities again, like you're not going to get any opportunities if you don't put yourself out there, getting back to like what we just talked about. And, you know, even just making new connections, I think on LinkedIn, like that's how we met Dom and like opportunities like this podcast and a few others that I've been able to do or guest posting on like newsletters or a paid writing freelance gig. That kind of came my way from this and lining up a webinar coming up in a few weeks. So like, you know, those are things that you weren't just going to come knocking on my door if I didn't put some stuff out there. So I've seen some pretty good, pretty big or pretty good opportunities come from that. And to be honest, I'm just kind of having fun, you know, too. It's not a I'm one of those people that always has an opinion. So it's not hard for me to share an opinion and put it out there with a fun kind of illustration. So I've really just had a good time doing it. Nice. And were you doing that at the time you got your role at Google or not yet? Because I've heard from some people who've interviewed there being like, oh, man, Google and a lot of kind of the more creative places like they love like a side passion project that you've done. Right. Were you doing that at the time? No, no. I mean, I always kind of like to doodle and sketch and stuff, but that's not like I wasn't part of like how I got the role or anything like that. But it definitely is a big piece of like showing your creativity and standing out and doing something different. Like there's you won't find anybody else on LinkedIn kind of doing the type of stuff I'm doing. And there's it goes a long way just to be do something that nobody else is doing, you know, and I think that's how you stand out. That's how you become memorable and also play a handful of other instruments that I taught myself. And that was part of like some of the creative things that I would breadcrumbs I dropped during the interviews just to get people to say, like, hey, I want to hear more from this guy. Like, he seems pretty interesting. And you're not going to get that if you're if you're heads down, you know, conventional accounting talking about anything boring. You kind of have to jazz it up a little bit. And and to your point, like they want to see like you're bringing, if not side projects like you're bringing up, you're more than just where you work, you know, because I think people want somebody with a big voice, with a lot of opinions to share and and doing a lot of different things. They don't they don't necessarily want somebody who's just going to come in and sit in the back room and heads down all day like at some companies that works. But I think for the most part, I think the accountants that really shine are the ones that kind of break that mold and and kind of do things differently. And if you ever wonder, well, how did they get such a crazy opportunity? It's it's not always a handout. It's kind of just breaking the mold a little bit, doing something different. And and so that didn't necessarily help get into Google. But on the same token, like that creative side was definitely one where I was trying to put it on full display in whatever way that I could, because you're going up against a lot of other candidates that also had public accounting backgrounds and, you know, also had their CPA. You got to need it. Yeah, you need to differentiate. Yeah. Yeah. I found it to be almost like self-screening where I've I've had kind of some interviews and potential employers I've spoken to where they're like, oh, my God, this project you've got going on with Big Four Transparency is incredible. I bet you there's so much you can apply to this role. Or I bet you you learn so much that this will will carry over or even just like, hey, that drive to do something different will probably make you really valuable here. And then there's been other people who are like, oh, you know, you got to be all in can't have that side thing. And I'm like, well, that's not really someone I'd want to be working for anyway. So it kind of gives you that self-screening. And I found like the best opportunities I've been presented with have all been people who are excited about some of the other things I have going on than just the basic resume itself. Yeah. Well, I mean, thank you so much, Mike, for everything. You've really been super interesting. This is going to be very unique compared to a lot of the other podcasts I have on here. A lot of them are kind of firm owners. And I think it's really important for accounting professionals to understand what's out there in industry and how to get there if they're interested. Yeah. So you've got more than just kind of the no flux given playbook. I think you're kind of working on developing something new. So do you want to plug that as well as maybe the best place for people to follow you and get in touch if they're interested in what you've got going on? Yeah, yeah. No, this has been a ton of fun. Yeah. Putting out a course, I think that'll come out in February. And it's all about virtual collaboration and leveraging the digital whiteboard, which is a pretty underutilized and underrated tool. But yeah, it's all about how accounting and finance professionals can sketch out their thoughts and ideas as a way to really thrive in this disrupted work environment that's being disrupted by AI and remote work. And I'm a big believer that now, if you really want to be relevant, I think you have to be able to upskill yourself to do what AI can't do or excel where AI struggles. I think that's going to be really important. The focus on virtual collaboration is mainly because it uses a lot of uniquely human skill sets, leadership and soft skills and creativity, critical thinking. I've been managing a distributed team now for five years at Google and leveraging the whiteboard has kind of been the secret sauce to I feel like a lot of my success and the team success. I thought it was a good time to kind of share that recipe out there. For any accountants that are maybe looking for a fully remote role, which is a lot of accountants out there, they're really hard to get to. You need to be able to do more to show that you can really hack it in this virtual environment. I think anybody like that might want to check it out or even if you're trying to get promoted to a manager to lead a team. You're not sitting side by side with people anymore. The way that you work as a team has completely changed. To be honest, the firms, the companies, they're not training anybody on how to manage teams in this virtual environment. I think we have to take it upon ourselves to kind of upskill in the right ways. That course is coming out in a couple of weeks. It's called Sketchy Business Practices and again, all about sketching out your thoughts and ideas on digital whiteboard. Thanks for letting me share. I put all my stuff out on my website, mikefromaccounting.com, so if anybody wants to check that out, I have a bunch of articles. I've got the playbook on there, No Flux Given. I'll have the course up there as well and then I would love to connect with as many of your listeners too on LinkedIn. Feel free to reach out to me on LinkedIn. Awesome. Perfect. Thank you so much, Mike. Yeah, this has been great. Thanks, Dom. All right. Thanks for having me. All right.