Chartered Accountant - Career and Job Analysis - Resume/CV Example

Employment Portfolio Unit Career Analysis The career of my choice is accounting. I desire to be a Chartered accountant. The field of accountancy in the United Kingdom is one of the lucrative fields that deal with keeping records and preparing financial statements of an organization, government or any other body that has underlying financial implications. In order to practice accounting there is no specific license that is required. However, it is a requirement that an individual should be registered with one of the professional bodies in United Kingdom. Accountancy is one of the professions that follows a strict code of ethics due to the sensitivity of what it handles, money. In order to qualify as a chartered accountant, on-job experience together with the educational qualification is mandatory. Four professional bodies have the mandate to provide accounting examinations to graduates from whichever field of study. These bodies are the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales (ICAEW), Institute of Chartered Accountants in Scotland (ICAS), Association of Chartered and Certified Accountants (ACCA), and Chartered Institute of management Accounts (CIMA) (Inside Careers 2012). Undertaking an exam with any one of these bodies and having relevant work experience is what is required for a chartered accountant. The field of accountancy is wide and has many opportunities. Before considering accounting, it is important to consider whether one would prefer to be in the public or private practice. The major employers of accountants are Deloitte, Ernst & Young, PwC, and KPMG. However, other auditing companies employ graduates that are interested in accounting and ready to do the professional exams. The chartered accountants mainly prefer specializing in either assurance or auditing. Auditors ensure that the financial position presented by an accountant in an organization is fair and true. The less considered positions include in tax, risk management, consultancy, actuarial, corporate finance, or technology. Depending on the exam body chosen, the timing for the accounting studies varies. Most of the graduates that prefer management accounting find themselves doing CIMA exams. For the ACA exams, the minimum amount of time that is required for full qualification is three years. Besides the academic qualifications, graduates are required to have strong Excel and financial modelling skills, excellent communication skills, presentation skills and good written skills. In addition, one should be ambitious, logical, analytical, patient, and persistent in order to secure a place with the large companies. Accounting is a standardized profession in the United Kingdom. The preparation of accounts for any organization or body is guided by principles that are entrenched in the Generally Accepted Accounting Practice (GAAP). These practices regulate on how an accountant is required to conduct their accounting work in order to effectively record transactions and prepare financial statements. These standards are developed, monitored and repealed by the Financial Reporting Council (FRC). This council is responsible for the issuance of the Financial Reporting Standards (FRS) (Inside Careers 2012). Having a career as a chartered accountant has several personal benefits to me. I am a good at mathematics, with very impressive analytical and presentation skills. The career is well paying with a startup salary averaging at £29,000. This indicates that with more experience and further qualification, the career guarantees good returns (Graduate recruitment bureau 2014). Chartered accountancy, which is my preference, entails providing of professional advice to organizations on a number of areas relating to business and finance. This role is more or less like that of the business adviser but inclined more on the financial aspect. Chartered accountants provide a wide array of services including auditing, forensic accounting, financial reporting, taxation, dealing with accounting systems and processes, insolvency, or business recovery. A chartered accountant is ever growing with the profession. This is something I like about this career. When one opts to engage with the public practice, which means that they will not be employed, it is mandatory that one have to be licensed. This means requirements such as regular inspections and purchase of adequate insurance is important. Job and Job Analysis I endeavor to get a position in one of the largest audit firms in the UK to get concrete experience in accounting while being exposed to local and international accounting procedures. My first consideration will be PwC, the actual vacancy is provided below (PwC website): Vacancy: Management consulting (Ref No. VAC12439) Location: Aberdeen Intake: 2014 Start Date: November 2014 Vacancy Description: Youll learn and develop the specialist skills our clients look for and value most. Youll have the option to look for new challenges, perhaps in others areas of the firm to deepen your knowledge, or you could choose to stay put - whichever suits you best. Its your choice. Your continued personal and professional development will be ensured through a structured and comprehensive development programme that will facilitate your career progression and support your technical specialisation. Management Consulting delivers quantifiable benefits in times of change. Our role is to create value by deploying the best mix of people, systems and technologies, to better enable those organisations to capitalise on opportunities and minimise risks. We do this by combining the intellect and insight of our industry-leading consulting team in designing, managing and implementing change. Typical projects we manage - and on which you could be gaining real responsibility right from the start of your career with us - include helping our clients to: Gain leverage from the intelligent use of finance to create and protect value, and identify and minimise risk - as well as developing appropriate governance and reporting systems Grow and improve profitability by focusing on business efficiencies to achieve operational excellence Make the best use of their people by enhancing their existing management capabilities and helping them to engage their employees in change, generating performance improvement Implement and manage their employer brand through development, reward and retention strategies - vital in the face of chronic skill shortages - and through empowering HR teams to operate more effectively Use innovative and powerful technology solutions for a host of purposes, from project management to finance, from risk management to data management and security Analysis This vacancy of a graduate management consulting is a full-time opportunity that will require that I fully engage in job. The job has a number of learning benefits. Consulting requires some specialist skills that will facilitate the ability to communicate to the clients while providing viable solutions to their businesses. The position comes with the challenge to learn and keep abreast with changes in the corporate and the business sector. The organization offers a structured and comprehensive staff development programme, this is meant to ensure that career growth is a top priority for the organization. This means that as a consultant I will be fully supported in developing technical skills as well as other aspects that relates to career progression. This role provides a great opportunity for personal growth in the profession. The opportunity presents a chance to keep abreast with management issues in organizations, the latest technologies, and networking with professionals that have a good capacity to handle management issues. Embracing a positive change is a requirement in this field. The change to be introduced in an organization should be well designed, efficiently implemented and proper implementation is done. This job opportunity comes with a huge responsibility on my side. Learning and keeping abreast with change is almost inevitable. The work in consulting starts immediately after the recruitment. I will be required to have skills that will help an organization to generate and protect value. This will entail financial advisory to the organization in terms of ensuring that they are able to generate value using the available resources. In addition, a focus on minimizations of risks is an important aspect that I will put into perspective as an employee of PwC. The role further requires that the advisory issued to an organization should be able to facilitate their development of reporting and proper governance systems. This role comes with another set of responsibilities. The need to grow the business profits falls at the center of the consultation that is provided to the client. Integration with the rest of the workforce at both PwC and the client’s organization is vital (Beattie and Smith 2012). This means my social skills will need to be put into task. The facilitation of their preexisting management potential is a major role that a consultant is supposed to engage with. The employees should be motivated to embrace change whenever it is required and should be motivated all the time in order to demonstrate improved performance. Personal innovativeness and technological-consciousness are great skills that facilitate the achievement as a management consultant. These competencies are to be achieved through personal initiative, learning, and experiences. This vacancy does not have any restrictions in terms of the first degree done. Any graduate can apply for this position. However, in order to qualify for the position, the candidate is supposed to have a minimum of 340 UCAS points. For a degree at least a 2.1 result is required. Skills and Capabilities I am a logical thinker hence I don’t easily accept people’s opinions without analyzing them first and establishing their credibility. This very important aspect is required in management since all the decisions made have to be rationalized. I have engaged in debates with my colleagues on various occasions, sometimes I agree with them or present my own thoughts that I logically argue out. I have superb communication skills. I have the capacity to articulate my points in a systematic and organized manner; this can be very beneficial in delivering of presentations. I was able to persuade a local youth group through my good communication skills to embrace a project that I had proposed. My mastery of computer applications a very important skill. Though almost universal, the skill provides the ability to work in any technologically challenging environment. I remember when I was doing my computer exams, I chose a challenging project which involved developing a data management system for a multi-departmental organization. I am very knowledgeable in terms of current affairs and industry operations. I have learnt this through constructively getting in tune with the media, love for travelling and watching documentaries. I have knowledge of how some of the popular industries work and some of the management issues behind them. I vividly remember engaging in a personal research to try and understand the operations at Ernst &Young, I had to interview a few managers and one of the directors. I am very organized; I ensure that I work on my activities based on the order of importance and urgency. A very important skill that is required for efficient management of an organization. This is a skill that I have grown with since I started schooling and have grown with it until now. I am a very social person. I have very many friends, both young and old. These individuals provide a wide network for constructive networking in the organization. There are many occasions where I have met strangers but at the end of a short conversation, we end up becoming friends. I have some basic accounting skills; despite being untrained in accounting, I have learn the basic accounting skills from my father’s business. I am at a position of developing the financial statements without assistance from anybody. This forms the foundation of my accounting and the ultimate dream of being a chartered accountant. On several occasions, I have been called upon to audit the books in my father’s business. Most of the external auditors usually agree with my audit reports. I am a fast learner. This quality helps me to grasp new concepts easily and hence there is no much time that is required before implementing the ideas that come up. This ability can easily facilitate grasping of concepts and share them with others. I remember back in high school when we were given random mathematical questions, I was always the first to figure them out and give an answer. Career Action Plan In the next nine months, I would like to achieve a number of things towards career progression. Throughout this period, I will require to polish my mathematical skills. It will also be vital to register for the professional exams, here I prefer doing the exams with ACCA, and this will facilitate my start-off to the career as an accountant. This means that apart from working, I will be required to be studying in order to get this professional qualification. While in pursuant of the professional qualification, I will not lose sight of personal reading in order to be conversant with management aspects and current business trends and technologies. I also endeavor to create a pool of professionals through networking. Though I have several professional mentors, I will seek to engage accountants from various organizations on the accounting practices and the strategies employed in the profession. References Beattie, V. and Smith, S. J. (2012) Today’s PhD students – is there a future generation of accounting academics or are they a dying breed? A UK Perspective. CIMA focuses on creating business leaders instead of traditional accountants. (2012, Nov 19). The Financial Express. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/1170404494?accountid=45049 Graduate recruitment bureau, (2014) Industry profiles: Accountancy industry profile for graduates. Retrieved from http://www.grb.uk.com/accountancy-industry-profile#qualifications Inside Careers, (2012) Chartered Accountancy. Retrieved from http://www.insidecareers.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/ACC-complete_interactive.pdf PwC website, (2014) Vacancy details: Graduate, Aberdeen, Management Consulting, November 2014. Retrieved from http://www.ukcareers.pwc.com/PwCGradWeb/Searches/VacancyDetails.aspx?VacancyId=03a58124faf24336962aea8244a3e146&LoggedOut=True&Site=Graduate&EntryRoute=572F857BD7C5492787E57AA4269C5D16&BUArea=8CC8BDED55144291B82934C1DF10E30C&IntakeYear=7926317E454D4C4D9FD0961B8758B110&PageNo=1&StartPage=1&OrderBy=loc Read More