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Hi All,
I was laid off from a finance team due to the difficulties faced by financial services following the EU referendum vote.
I am really trying hard to get a new job and it’s very difficult ( London, UK). I do apply for all sorts of jobs, including contracts and temporary roles but it’s still hard.
What I find is that the vast majority of jobs (both part qualified and qualified) are advertised by recruitment agents who often skim you out if you have let’s say professional services experience but you apply for an assistant management accountant role in the charity sector. Seems like there is no flexibility around the various industries or your experience.
I was trying to google whether I am being unlucky or it’s just tough for junior, part qualified accountants in general. Also I have 6 years of experience with one of the top accountancy, professional services firms and it’s still hard to get a job for my level, i.e. not an entry level job but not a qualified one either, kind of inbetween the two.
I found the below AAT forum conversation where someone summarised exactly what I experience too. If anyone wants to read it, below is the link and some quotes from the text:
“The result though seems to have diluted the profession and what was once seen as a prestigious career (on par with doctors and lawyers) is now seen as something on par with a position in general management.
Because there are more accountants than jobs, this has forced down the salaries of accountants and you now find qualified accountants having to take part qualified roles which means that part qualified ones are struggling to find work or having to take lower level jobs such as ledger work.
Employers know they hold power over the job market which is why they can offer lower salaries and dictate specific and ridiculous criteria and if you don’t meet the criteria, you don’t get a look in. There are so many accountants out of work that an employer will always find somebody that meets that criterion.
Recruitment agencies don’t help either because they will screen you out straight away if you don’t meet the criteria set by employers. Around 95% of vacancies are advertised through recruitment agencies.
Recruitment agencies are filled with sales people that are single minded and are unable to think outside of the box. If they are recruiting for an accountant in the medical supplies industry, they will only select candidates for interview who have medical supplies industry experience.
What they don’t realise is that the job of an accountant is the same whichever industry they go into and accountants can easily adapt to a new industry and don’t require specialised training to be able to go into that industry.”
“To summarise the above:
• The profession is not as prestigious as it used to be.
• There are far too many accountants in the business and not enough jobs.
• Salaries have been pushed right down and competition is very intense.
• The profession has been destroyed by recruitment agencies over the years.
• Employers don’t seem to see the true value of accountants”Here is the link
https://forums.aat.org.uk/discussion/33145/do-we-really-have-a-lot-of-unemployed-accountants
I think it’s important that we talk about tips on how to get the experience to become qualified because you can pass all your ACCA exams within a few years, it’s all worthless if you have zero experience.
What are your experiences?
Thank you.
Agreed with the post.
Firstly, Its a real struggle to even get a job! Second, its a whole other struggle to get into a position where you can work to your full potential. I have seen many Accounting/Finance professionals working in jobs that are not relevant to their study. I know of people who don’t always mention ‘ACCA’ in their resumes, the only reason being that recruiters fix their mind into one specific role as soon as they see you have background experience in Accounting or Finance. That you are basically fit for only that one specific role of Accounting in that particular industry. To tackle this, I find it useful if you make a different resume for each position and each industry / sector that you may be applying.
For example, you could make a detailed Accounting resume for a position say within an Professional Accountancy Firm, or Big 4 or Big 10. Detailing, Sales, credit Control, AR, AP, General Ledger etc etc…
The other would be a brief and more General experience you have had over the years in all sorts of jobs you have had previously – this would be more applicable in roles such as Financial services industry (which isn’t much to do with accounting, but more towards a sales / client-consulting view like banking, insurance, treasury products, commodities etc)I work in an Accounting role, but we are a small – medium sized company, a small team handling day-to-day Accounting functions and Admin related work, we manage the HR too.
I have been working here for three years now and struggling to move on. At times I think its a nice idea to switch roles, start fresh. There are a few companies that recruit for Graduate programs, but in doing so you can be sure that your ACCA qualification has not been of much use afterall. Employers would want you to pursue their own qualifications, take Real Estate – they’d want you to get your RICS and pursue your career from there on.. Financial Advisor – Chartered Financial Planner qualification, Wealth Management – Chartered Wealth Manager qualification etc..
I think with the over-growing population of professionals in almost every field with limited jobs around, anyone who has a Job firstly and secondly in an area of their expertise is really blessed, should be thankful and is really privileged. I know of people being Aeronautical Engineers working as HR officers, Accountants working as customer and sales representatives, engineers working in banks as tellers etc.. sadly this is the current state of affairs and isn’t much one can do about it!
Good luck with whatever you are planning next, as for me i believe competition is fierce in the job market and to stand out, you just cannot stop, you need to keep going, for now I am probably going for a Masters or an ACA (ICAEW)..
I do not use recruiters. I search by myself and I contact companies directly. This is easy to do today.
Agencies they work for themselves not for you and they will only make you more expensive to your employer.
I echo what holdon said. Do not use recruitment agencies. Avoid recruitment agencies like a plague.
I know recruitment agencies flood most of the job postings on web sites, thats why I only ever used web sites like Reed or Indeed where I could remove agencies from my job search.
Secondly, searching for the next PQ account role is a numbers game as well as a waiting game. Numbers game as in apply to as many suitable roles as you can. And then it is a waiting game meaning it normally takes time to get that job offer. My waiting experience has ranged from 5-12 months. With your level of experience you shouldn’t have to wait anywhere near 12 months like I once did, my experience level was low at that time. Perhaps some people appear lucky and appear to move jobs easily. But I reckon most people in the finance job market will find that a waiting game is the case.
Firstly, Im so very sorry to hear about being laid off from your previous position.
My own little bit of insight / assistance would be:
Never underestimate the value of a well formed CV, spend time scouring articles/websites for further information around creating the “perfect” CV.
Along with your qualifications and experience a well formed CV is at the very least your ticket into an interview. Find out what HR departments look for when it comes to a CV.
From how the file should be named to what should your opening line be?
Long gone are the days where one sends a CV with the full front page in bold reading
“Mr XYC ACCA Curriculum Vitae”.Secondly, once you have an interview you have a fair chance at getting the position.
Analyse the requirements for the position as you will likely be quizzed along these lines. Prepare your answers and verbally practice them.Do extensive research on the company, know their history / financials if available, read into their Corporate social responsibility pages, read news articles. Show that you have done your homework.
Thank you to every single one of you for your responses. I’m glad I am not being paranoid about my experience re finding a part qualified junior/assistant accountant role or similar.
I am pretty sure that the Brexit it vote makes the situation a bit worse than what it would be anyway but of course there are many other factors making it difficult for us to move roles or get a job after being laid off.
Also, my experience with recruitment agencies overall is not good but you do have a very few agents/agencies that are actually proactive in helping you get a great job. These tend to be the more prestigous, more “posh” recruitment agencies – I am registered with one of them and they are pretty much the only lovely, friend, not pushy, proactive agents who regularly stay in touch, do their 200% to help prepare for an interview etc but the majority of them push you into attending a registration interview, photocopy your passport etc, promise to keep calling you to check on your status etc, they are all nice until the moment you register and then after that they don’t care about you anymore and they force you to be registered else they won’t pass your CV onto the potential employer who would otherwise be likely to love your CV and happy call you in for an interview. So yes, agencies can ruin our chances big time and they often don’t select great candidates for interviews etc.
Yesterday I had a 15min job interview with a large fashion retailer and although I loved their office ,their employees, the athmosphere, I found out after the interview that the recruitment agency would charge me £1.50/hour after each hour that I work and the money offered was rubbish anyway and the fact the agency would want to charge me after each hour for the entire duration of the contract makes me dismiss the job should they offer it to me in the next 24-72 hours which is a shame as everything else was okay, the location etc. Basically, I am not being picky but I am not going to work 37.5 hours/week to go to a job which doesn’t pay my basic living expenditure, and I really mean basic life necessities like food, bills, crazily expensive London rental price, Oyster travel card to commute plus crazily expensive childcare costs. I worked out that job would only cover approx. 75% of my living expenditure – I am a single mum so that makes life more expensive anyway. Eventually I will move out of London but it’s not an option at the moment for another couple of years or so.
I do apply for jobs on companies’ websites or I send my CV to them but it’s just more time consuming compared to using Reed, Indeed.co.uk, Jobsite.co.uk etc because I have to think about company names and look up the Careers section on each website and have to create an account on most of them etc so yes I am guilty of using reed etc as it’s quicker and more convenient but I will definitely apply directly to companies more so from today I am changing my job hunting strategy.
I will also do some more work on my CV although I already had 3 professionals helping me with it but I guess there is always room to improve in order to stand out, right?
I also agree that the London area – though it offers more jobs compared to the countryside like small towns – is extremely competitive as it’s not only Londoners applying but some people travel like 1.5 hours on the train to get into London for a job (if the person has no child/family to take care of and does not mind to travel 3-4 hours a day). I know people who commuted from Northampton, near Birmingham to work in London in financial services every single day Monday-Friday every week. Crazy!!!
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