About 4 years ago, I did 2 busy seasons at a Big 4 firm. I was rated a 3 – met all expectations as a final rating for both years. On one particular audit in my 2nd year, I made a couple of bad, stupid, immature decisions and got a 2 (bad) on the "operations excellence" rating but still received a 3 – met expectations for the rest of the ratings on that engagement.  Needless to say, I was not promoted to senior and got put on a very lengthy PIP.  My counselor, who was newly assigned to me because my old awesome counselor went on maternity leave, nitpicked my reviews (ignored all the positive things written about me) and basically said I was not ready to be a senior. The seniors I worked with on the different engagements felt otherwise but at the end it did not matter. Since I was being coached out of the firm, I decided to jump ship and joined the industry as a staff accountant with a pretty nifty company. The company did well for a while but now, it's on the brink of bankruptcy and I was laid off recently. I worked my way up to senior when I was there and I learned a lot about accounting. I now have a choice to either go back to audit, internal audit or continue in the industry. The B4 firm I worked for doesn't have any senior audit positions available but other Big 4 firms do. Also, the B4 firm I worked for most likely wouldn't take me back because of the PIP. I was not a big fan of audit but I now realize how much more I learned in audit than in industry. Don't get me wrong, I learned a lot in industry too since I worked in different roles. The biggest difference is that in industry, I learned a lot of a little whereas in audit, you learn a little of a lot. So my issue now is, should I take a $15-20k paycut to go back to audit, hopefully as a Senior 1, or keep the same pay and continue in the industry?