- Eddy Gramajo landed a job at Deloitte as a low-income, first-generation college graduate.
- At Deloitte, he was too focused on grasping corporate culture rather than his actual work.
- Gramajo was fired after 1.5 years but has since built a successful accounting career in tech.
This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Eddy Gramajo, a 32-year-old accountant based in San Diego. Business Insider has verified his employment history and salary details. The following has been edited for length and clarity.
I wasn't a great student in high school — I had a 2.4 GPA. Even my guidance counselor told me that community college would probably be my best option.
Yet, I managed to land a job at Deloitte after college. Eighteen months later, though, I was fired.
I studied accounting in college to make a better life for myself
When I was growing up in California, my mom didn't make much money as a hairstylist, and she raised my brother and me as a single mother. I remember coming home from school and not knowing where we'd be sleeping because we'd been evicted.
Despite not being a great student, I got into the University of Redlands, a small school in Southern California, with generous financial aid and multiple need-based scholarships from local nonprofit organizations.
I decided to double major in business and accounting because the people I knew who made money and lived in nice houses were accountants or in finance or business. I wanted to help my mom out, do better for myself, and not worry about the lights being turned off or how to afford meals.
I was told I didn't look professional enough
Throughout college, I tried hard to make money — I resold my classmates used textbooks and worked multiple part-time retail and service jobs.
I knew other people who got internships, but I didn't manage to land any despite going to many Meet the Firms events, attending presentations, doing mock interviews, and submitting applications.
I remember thinking I crushed my first Meet the Firms event since I'd met many people and had gotten a stack of business cards. I was excited to follow up. Then my professor, the head of accounting, pulled me aside and told me that one of the Big Four firm's employees had mentioned that I needed to clean up, shave my beard, and be more presentable.
At another event, I remember one of the Big Four recruiters telling me, "I'm not even going to take a look at your résumé because your GPA isn't high enough."
It was harsh feedback, but I started working to fix those things. In my junior year, I became the president of the Accounting Society and started a chapter of ALPFA, the Association of Latino Professionals in Finance and Accounting, with another classmate. I also improved my GPA, even graduating with honors.
In my senior year, a Deloitte employee gave a presentation on campus. Afterward, we hit it off by talking about baseball, and I later reached out to him. He helped forward my résumé to a recruiter.
That fall, I landed a job offer from Deloitte. I knew that working at a Big Four firm would offer many opportunities and allow me to set myself up for an accelerated career, so I took the job.
At Deloitte, I focused on looks and personality instead of work
I thought for hours about what to wear on my first day. I chose a tie, dress shirt, and slacks, and I remember walking in and realizing I was the only one wearing a tie. After being told in the past that I didn't look presentable enough, I over-benchmarked my presentation.
In my starting class of 13 people, I was one of only two people of color. I didn't want people to think I didn't know what I was doing or shed light on the fact that I was different.
I felt like the others in my starting class knew how to move in the corporate world better than I did, so I just tried to observe and learn.
I was so focused on grasping corporate culture that I didn't focus as much on the actual accounting work — that was my mistake. I focused on becoming buddy-buddy with the higher-ups because that was what I thought I needed to do to get ahead and accelerate my career.
When I got to Deloitte, I was surrounded by people from Yale, the University of California, San Diego, and all of these schools I didn't get into, so I clung to what I thought my strength was — my relationship-building skills — because they had always gotten me to places where my smarts couldn't.
I had some performance issues and was fired
I was promoted about 12 months in. But between then and the next review cycle, it became clear that it wasn't working out.
I missed a deadline or two and received more review notes on the Excel workbooks I turned in than expected. I wasn't submitting projects quickly enough because I was afraid to ask questions.
My senior manager asked me what was happening a few months before I was let go. I told her generally about some personal stuff I had going on because I thought I could be candid with her. She basically was like, "Hey, I know you're going through a lot, but everybody goes through stuff in their life, but they all end up figuring out how to get things done on time."
I started getting assigned lower-level work, and by my 18th month there, I stopped seeing stuff on my calendar. I took the lighter schedule as an opportunity to study for the CPA exam.
One day, I went into the office and had something scheduled on my calendar that morning. I went into the meeting, which was with the lead partner at the San Diego office and the HR person, and they told me I was being let go because of ongoing performance issues.
I took it on the chin. I'm never one to make excuses. I could see how I hadn't been producing good quality work, so I understood.
Even when I was getting fired, I was just super thankful for the opportunity. I knew how important it was to have Deloitte on my résumé, even just that 18-month experience.
I've made a career for myself
After Deloitte, I created an app with a former Deloitte colleague to teach financial literacy to low-income families and students. The project ended up not working out, but at one point, we reached 5,000 monthly active users.
I moved back up to the Bay Area and slept on my brother's couch for a few months while I applied for jobs in tech companies, partly because I knew that was where the money was. I interviewed at 25 places and got an offer at Pandora in revenue accounting.
After Pandora, I worked at Glassdoor, started my consulting firm, Gramajo Consulting, joined Calm as their first hire on their revenue team, and have been at Dropbox since June 2022.
This is the longest I've ever been at a company, and Dropbox is one of the best places I've ever worked. The culture is great, and it's fully remote. My total compensation is nearly $300,000, and Dropbox offers great benefits — they provide six months of paid parental leave, so I got to spend six months straight with my child when he was born.
I don't look back and think about things I wish I had done differently. I feel like everything happens for a reason. Maybe if I hadn't gotten let go, I wouldn't have started the financial literacy app or gotten a job at Pandora.
Now, 10 years later, I'm focused on making sure my team is clear on the goals we set. I don't want anybody to feel the way I felt at Deloitte, so I always provide a lot of transparency to my team in terms of giving feedback and discussing career growth.
I really focus on psychological safety for my team because I think that's important for groups such as first-generation white-collar employees, women, and people of color in the workplace. Two of my team of three are women of color, and I try to elevate them and give them recognition.
Mentors along the way supported me, and I want to pay it forward
I wouldn't have gotten here without the support of some great mentors along the way, including Nancy, the woman who ran a program called the College Dream Team and who was the first person who told me that I could go to college; Becky Mangiardi, my high school librarian, who would always be a listening ear and paid for one of my $75 college application fees when I was trying to brainstorm ways to come up with the money; and Laurie Mitchell, my accounting professor, who lent me $1,200 to be able to move to San Diego for Deloitte because she knew how important that was to get my career started.
I share my story on TikTok and try to be more transparent with my team because I want to pay forward the knowledge I've gained throughout my career to others.
I want others not to struggle the way I did and to learn from my mistakes so they don't have to make the same mistakes.
Deloitte representatives did not respond to requests for comment.
If you worked in a Big 4 firm and would like to share your story, email Jane Zhang at [email protected].