Career advice
Hi everyone,
I just wanted to get my thoughts untangled a little and hopefully hear some different perspectives that might help me find a solution or two.
I’m currently an undergraduate and should be finishing my degree this November.
I’ve been working at a small public practice firm based in Brisbane on minimum wage (1.5 year experience so not a lot), doing around 30 hours per week during university and full-time for about two months each year.
Since July 2025, I’ve consistently billed an average of $20k per month, and recently I’ve started becoming more involved in tax planning and client engagement work so I can absorb as much knowledge and experience as possible.
I recently had a meeting where they talked to me about giving a raise to 75k exc super (verbal)
The firm is trying to put more structure in place, but I’ve noticed that some graduates and employees in the past did not receive what was originally promised. That feels like a bit of a red flag to me. On top of that, the team I work under is regularly under budget, which makes me question my long-term future there and whether I’ll continue to have room to grow and learn.
At this stage, my main focus is not the money but it’s gaining knowledge and experience so that, hopefully within the next 10 years, I can build something of my own.
I also genuinely enjoy performing well and achieving results. With that in mind, would it be unreasonable to ask for a 10% bonus structure one every dollar exceed my budget targets based on the new salary as this will help my drive in the long run and can help the team maybe? Or would it make more sense to start exploring opportunities elsewhere while I’m still young and early in my career where I can interact with people with similar drive so it will push me even further.
I know i don’t have a lot of experience or knowledge but I hope you can share some of your with me in this post. thank you