This post applies to accountants or people working in accountancy who have finished in their articles and are looking for find work in industry or are now about finding jobs. Most article clerks usually look for employment with businesses that they audited during their auditing days, but there are also a few that either did not like the idea of having a job with one of their former clients or are not welcome at these businesses. Whatever the reason once you are a chartered accountant, the world is your oyster and almost any industry sector will need an accountant, whether qualified or not to help run the finances for this business. This makes getting an accountancy job quite easy really – it is the universal/ global discipline that every company needs. So given that you are demand, does that mean the jobs are going to simply roll in? I am afraid not, especially if you want a good job.
When I first arrived in London, the first thing I did was go register with a few of the bigger London accountancy agencies to see what they are about. I registered with Michael Page, Robert Walters and a few others and found that while some were pretty good, quite a few of these recruitment agencies were not actually that accountancy-educated. I mean come on – you call yourselves an accountancy based recruitment agencies and these guys struggle to tell the difference between a trial balance and set of accounts! This makes knowing what their client is looking for a little harder, me thinks. Anyway, after losing the will to live, I looked for other ways to find accountancy jobs and I think I found another way for job seekers to really broaden their job search.
Job sites are online places where job seekers can register their CV and get found by either employers or recruitment agents looking on behalf of their clients. Jobs boards come in all different shapes and sizes, and some are easier to use while others are not. Within that you also get job sites that cater for accountant professionals. Some examples include: accountancyagejobs.com , gaapweb.com etc while some of the generalist sites like reed.co.uk , totaljobs.com , careersandjobsuk.com offer the same serve and functionality really. I didn’t find that I got better responses from the specialist accountancy jobs sites. My recommendation to anyone looking for an accountancy job, go both routes if you want to maximize your chances of getting the best opportunities