Careers

When you are nearing qualification, many questions about your future career prospects can come to the fore. Brian O'Connor answers the most common queries from students In 2022, over 1,000 accountants due to finish their training contracts in 2022/2023 have attended the CASSI & Barden Finance Leader events. Inspiring leaders from companies such as Kerry Group, Mandiant and Paddy Power Betfair shared their stories and gave their career, CV and interview advice. They answered many questions, but you had more. So, we put your questions to our resident experts. Practice vs industry Is it better to stay on in a Big 4 firm after qualification or go out into industry? Is it better to get your post qualification experience (PQE) within a training firm or in industry? It's hard to get objective advice on this one. A partner will always want you to stay on, and a recruiter will likely advise you to move. Let's try to get an objective opinion by looking at the questions through different lenses. You should seriously consider staying on to become a manager post-contract if: you wish to become a partner; you'll gain exposure to a different client base; or you get to move into another department that will help you eventually move towards your preferred position. You should not consider staying on to become a manager post-contract if: you don't wish to become a partner; you plan to move to the client-side or industry in the long term; or you weren't fulfilled by the work you during your training contract. We regularly hear people tell recently qualified accountants: "You should stay on to become an audit manager, and then you'll be able to move to the client-side or industry at a higher level." This statement is fundamentally incorrect. Suppose a company is looking for a financial controller or finance manager, for example. In this case, they will (99 times out of 100) look for a qualified accountant with 'x' years of post-qualification experience outside of practice because their first choice will always be someone with practical experience as a financial controller. For the vast majority of hiring managers, there's no contest. Practical industry or financial services experience post-contract wins.  If you stay in practice, you'll increase your salary and benefits as time goes by. You'll become increasingly valuable, but you won't appreciate the same value for client-side roles – your peers who moved straight out of a training contact will.  As a first or second-year manager in external audit, you'll still be able to compete for positions in internal audit, technical external reporting and project-based transformation. Broader financial accounting or analysis will likely become increasingly difficult to access. I work in industry and don't have the knowledge one could gain in practice. I think this may undermine my career potential. Should I get practice experience? Ultimately, it should not matter if you are trained in practice or industry. What matters is the calibre of the people you trained with and the calibre of the training you received. Some job specifications will say "Big 4 trained", which means "big company trained". If, however, you have trained in a small company and want to work in a larger corporate, a stint in a big practice will stand you in good stead. Is age a factor for recently qualified accountants looking for a move into industry? Broadly speaking, it is not. A newly qualified accountant is a newly qualified accountant. As long as your salary expectations and attitude align with being a newly qualified accountant, the vast majority of employers will look at you as such. Would you have any tips for moving from a small practice to corporate finance after qualifying?  To be honest, this is not a move that typically happens in a single step. The 'like-with-like' principle matters here. You are more likely to access a role that has something in common with your current or most recent role. You've likely had small company exposure if you're small practice trained. Most corporate finance (CF) activity takes place through larger companies. Getting exposure to larger companies (be that in audit, restructuring or similar) is likely a good first step. Then you can look again to move internally to a CF or related team in 18 months. A diploma in CF is not a prerequisite. It can't hurt, but it also does not guarantee you anything. If you're serious about CF, get into a more prominent firm first, become an expert with Excel and financial modelling, and push internally to get into CF or a related area, like transaction services, valuations, etc. Working abroad What is your view on working abroad after your training contract, and what would be the best way to get work abroad?  I am a big fan of working abroad – world and life experience are hugely valuable (and the earlier you do it, the better).  Maybe take a contract in industry locally for 12 months before you go to give yourself a shot at the better jobs when you move, but working abroad in your first couple of years post-qualification in a good role with a good company is never a bad thing. It's best to connect with a local recruiter in the target country to get a feel for things on the ground before you go. Other alternatives might be to work with an Irish company and move internationally with them in time or work in internal audit and travel the world while remaining anchored in Ireland. Are Irish tax exams useful if you move abroad? A: The tax exams here are specific to Irish tax legislation, but many tax professionals secure roles abroad in jurisdictions with similar rules (e.g. the UK and Australia). Some of Ireland's tax qualifications have international recognition through affiliate networks. Of course, some tax consultants who move abroad also choose to complete the relevant tax qualification in the country they are working in, but it's not always a requirement. Finding jobs and recruiters Where's the best place to find job opportunities? A good expert recruiter in a reputable firm should always be your first port of call. (Of course I'd say that!).  Ask around to get referrals. A good recruiter is going to provide better insight on getting access to the right job than any Big 4 partner, auntie in HR, or friend who moved jobs recently. LinkedIn, IrishJobs.ie (and similar) and your own network are other credible sources. What experience would you look for in a recently qualified accountant?  The answer depends on who's looking. Relevant exposure to similar companies and organisational structures is typically number one on the list. Companies might also look to see if you have worked with the firm's more high-profile clients. (If you have, don't be shy about it.) From there, hiring managers look at performance ratings, FAE results and general academic background. After that, they typically look to see if you took on any special projects, secondments, or if you were involved in any extracurricular activity at your firm. For niche roles, they will look for niche experience. (Technical exposure to a particular IFRS, for example). All of the above should be clearly stated on your CV. What's the best way to find out if a company's culture is a good fit for you? The simple answer is to meet the people there. Company culture is defined by the people that work in the company, not by some set of values on a website. Find people you like, admire and respect, and you'll be on the right track. Setbacks Will newly qualified accountants who struggled or took longer than typical to pass their exams be affected when they interview or apply for a job? In reality, this can be a challenge and can make it much harder for you to access some larger corporate teams. Sometimes there are mitigating personal circumstances. If this is the case, you should make it clear in your cover letter and during the interview.  However, your flexibility on the nature of the role you take to lead you into the right company and make a fresh start can make all the difference. The further post-qualification you are, the less relevant this becomes. What is the best way to present setbacks in your career, like exam repeats, training contract terminations, etc.? Do you try to gloss over them or dissect the situation? Setbacks are an opportunity to show how you have overcome them, learned from them, and are stronger and wiser as a result.  Overcoming adversity is an asset. Do not hesitate to talk about setbacks if they come up in an interview. Some hiring managers will specifically ask for an example of a setback, how you dealt with it and what you learned. No contract What advice would you give someone on the flexible route who is not in a practice/training contract? To be honest, I'd give the very same advice as I would to people in practice.  The like-with-like concept does mean that you will have only gained exposure to one (or two) types of companies/structures rather than many types as you would in practice. That said, your practical accounts prep experience could give you an edge. Brian O'Connor is a Chartered Accountant and an Associate with Barden's Accounting & Tax practice

Having spent several years training as an accountant, now is the time to think about your earning power. What kind of salary can you expect? Is the highest number always the best? Ed Heffernan crunches the numbers.   As a newly qualified accountant coming out of a training contract in 2022, you will no doubt have a lot of questions about what lies ahead. For some, money will be top of the agenda.  If you’re one of them, it’s hardly surprising. You have, after all, worked hard and sacrificed a lot. It’s only fair to be compensated correctly for the value of your time — nobody wants to be short-changed. So, what’s the going salary for a newly qualified accountant? How can you benchmark your salary against the ‘going rate’ out there? What information is accurate and what can you rely on?  What are salary surveys really saying? Most salary surveys give average pay rates or ranges. Depending on the sample size, however, the average figure can be skewed, and often won’t give you a true reflection of the actual base salary. Sometimes (more than you might imagine) the numbers are not based on surveys, but on sentiment.  For fun, we tracked the base salaries of newly qualified Chartered Accountants in Dublin over the last six months (yes, that’s what we regard as fun here at Barden!) and created some real-time data points.  We do this every year, but this time around we noticed a few anomalies. Instead of grouping the six months of data as normal, we broke it down into Q4 2021 and Q1 2022, just to see if there was any noticeable shift in numbers over the past six months.  What we found surprised us! The results A median salary in Q4 2021 was €55,000 (the same as it had been for several years previous). This median shifted from €55,000 to €58,000 in Q1 2022. This is the most dramatic shift in median base salary we have ever seen, and it has occurred in an incredibly short timeframe. €60,000 salaries were outliers in Q4 2021, but have become increasingly common in Q1 2022. It is worth noting that group accountant type roles in Plc teams have held steady across the market at €57,000 in Q1. Roles offered at €60,000 have tended to be either more niche roles in larger teams or roles with an internal audit or heavy stat element. We have seen evidence of base salaries at some companies going as high as €65,000. These are very much outliers, however. We’ve only seen them in larger lessor environments and one telco in Dublin. To include these figures would distort the broader market norms. Hence, we have left them out of this data set. Outside Dublin, you would typically apply a 10 percent reduction on-base +/- 2.5 percent depending on location.   The caveats There are two big caveats you must consider before taking in the rates listed above: Base salary is only a part of total compensation (i.e. base plus package). Sometimes, people will get paid a higher base for the same job at a different company. Why? It could be that one company offers additional benefits and the other doesn’t. It could be because one role involves a lot of travel and the other doesn’t. Equally, it could be that one company finds it harder to attract accountants than another – or it could be down to a whole host of other variables. When it comes to base salary, just make sure you’re not comparing apples with oranges. It should not be “all about the base” in your first few moves post-qualification. You may not have prepared a set of accounts yet or a month-end management pack. In fact, there are probably a lot of areas in which you have yet to gain practical experience. Your first few years post-qualification should really be about getting good experience working with great people while also getting paid fairly at the same time. It’s not really about your base salary right now. It’s about what your base salary will be in ten years’ time and for the twenty or thirty years after that. Earning follows learning, not the other way around. Ed Heffernan is the Managing Partner at Barden.

After two years of remote working, it’s time to head back to the office, but hybrid working will bring its own set of questions and challenges. Lisa Hughes, Team Lead for Recently Qualified Accountants at Barden, asks are you ready? Make-shift desks constructed with the ironing board; sticking a painting on your wall to give your Zoom calls a professional look; having your crisply ironed shirt tucked into your GAA shorts under the desk – the COVID-19 pandemic well and truly submerged us in the world of working from home.  As workplaces begin to reopen and we re-commence our morning commutes, many of us are asking ourselves: what do I need to consider when it comes to hybrid-working? Remote vs hybrid It is important to distinguish between the remote and hybrid working models. Remote working offers employees complete flexibility over their working location.  Employers do not care whether you work from Balgriffin, Biarritz or Bangkok, if you complete your work within your deadlines.  The hybrid model incorporates both working at the office and from home. Most organisations have implemented a three-two split for the working week.  Thus, your home should be in relative proximity to the office, as commuting three days a week from Bangkok to Grand Canal Dock may be a bit of a logistical nightmare.  Five hybrid-work considerations  1. Learning the ropes Settling into a new role can be challenging for any finance professional. Learning new processes, getting familiar with different systems, and building relationships with your co-workers can be even trickier when you are not in an office environment.  If you are in a new role after qualifying as a Chartered Accountant, aim to spend as much time as possible in the office, so you can absorb as much as you can for the first three to six months. People learn more when they are surrounded by people.  2. The limits of location Before the pandemic, the time needed to accommodate daily commutes was a significant factor in the decision-making process for many career-movers.  Some abandoned the offer of a dream role with a great organisation simply because the location was too far from home. Even these dream jobs could not trump long commutes.  The hybrid model means we now have access to roles in a wider catchment area. Having the flexibility to work from home some of the time could make up for having to commute a longer distance two or three days a week. For job-hunters, the good news is that this means greater access to more potential career opportunities.  3. Work from home supports Organisations are starting to look more seriously at how they can best support their employees in the home office setting. While some are still using the BYOK (bring your own kit) model, many are now moving beyond this and taking steps to ensure their employees are equipped with the necessary infrastructure (desks, screens, headsets, etc.) to facilitate the best possible home working set-up.  If you are starting a new job and joining an organisation with a hybrid working model, it is worth asking how they support employees working from home during the interview process.  4. Remote education While hybrid work is becoming the norm, remote education has been around for years, and opportunities to engage in virtual learning have flourished since the onset of the pandemic in 2020. The combination of hybrid working and remote learning provides a unique opportunity to upskill. Use extra time saved avoiding commutes on home-working days to invest in yourself.  Get your priorities straight  If the hybrid model does not appeal to you and your ambition is to work remotely all the time, consider the following. While not impossible, the likelihood you will be able to bring your full Dublin salary to Mayo, or your London salary to Cork, is pretty low.  Be realistic about your salary prospects as a fully remote worker, bearing in mind that working this way will mean you no longer incur commuting costs.  It is also worth asking yourself if remote working would hinder your career. Building in-person relationships and absorbing information from your colleagues in an office environment can advance your learning opportunities and career prospects. Is your priority your career or having flexibility in your work location and schedule? As we move deeper into this relatively new era of hybrid and remote working, you must figure out what working model best aligns with your work style, priorities, and career goals. 

Once you qualify, you might want to look for new career opportunities, but a new organisation might not have a hybrid policy that meets your needs. Ed Heffernan explains what you should consider before making a career move. In 2022, we’re going to see the forced work from home/hybrid working models of past years bed in and become normal practice for the future. While there will always be outliers – those who decided to work fully from home or in the office – most companies are likely to land on three days in the office and two days at home model.  Hybrid models of this nature might be rigid or fluid, while others may be fluid at a company level but take on some rigidity at a team level (leaders might want specific teams to spend time in person each week). Regardless of the specific policy, hybrid working models are set to become as important a variable in package consideration as more traditional elements, such as base salary, pension and bonus. It’s important to reflect on some of the following factors when you are considering (or in the process of considering) a job move in 2022. Flexibility Like all trading variables, hybrid working policies will have weight for you in terms of your decision. Before you start looking for a job, make sure you are clear as to how important this variable is for you as it will have an impact on your options. For example, if the norm in the market is three days in office and two days at home, and you expect to work fully remote, then you will likely have to compromise on some other variable like the role or salary. The more adaptable your approach to flexible working is, the more opportunity you will access. The less flexible, the less opportunity.  Before applying to any job (or in the first stage of the process) make sure to ask the question around the company’s hybrid/flexible working policy. If it’s important to you then it’s important to know as early on as possible. Be prepared for hybrid negotiations Negotiating with a company on their working policy can be tricky – if they have a highly fluid policy then there is no real need for negotiation, but if they have a structured policy with some rigidity built in it’s highly unlikely that they will be in a position to create a bespoke schedule.  Flexibility will take on different forms in different companies and your approach to negotiation on same will vary. Negotiation on flexibility will always be best done when you have tenure and trust build. If it’s not appropriate to try to negotiate on flexibility at offer stage, ask the hiring manager if it’s possible for new hires who build up good will to access more flexibility in terms of the location of work. A hard no is a hard no, but even a “maybe” lays the ground work for raising the question again in time. Negotiation is all about timing. Try to get into the office When you start in a new role, it will be in your best interest to spend as much time in the office with people as you can. You’ll pick more up when you’re in the room with them than when you’re on Zoom.  It’s likely that some organisations will take a staged approach to flexibility, perhaps looking for more time in the office in the first six months (maybe four days) and less after the first six months. It’s also highly likely that people with tenure and who have built up trust will, over time, earn the right to enhanced flexibility beyond company norms. This, however, will likely be earned over time rather than granted on day one. Do you have enhanced flexibility in your current company because you have tenure and trust build up? If so, is it reasonable to expect the exact same flexibility on day one from a company/hiring manager that you have not banked good will with? If the answer is no, then you might end up losing some flexibility in a move – prepare yourself for that potential before you start to look at jobs. Ed Heffernan is the co-founder of Barden.  

The path of an accountant can go many ways, and one direction is towards the public sector. Sinead Henry explains her move to the public sector and what it has done for her career. After graduating from Queen’s University Belfast with a degree in Politics, Philosophy and Economics, I wasn’t sure what to do next. I worked for a year in the Students’ Union, before taking the step to becoming a trainee accountant in the public sector. As someone who had always been interested in politics and governance, I wanted to take on a role that would give me the chance to get a new qualification, while getting to have an insight and input into the public sector in Northern Ireland. The trainee accountant position in the Northern Ireland Audit Office (NIAO) ticked all these boxes. I started training with NIAO In September 2019. One of the things I like most about working in the public sector is the uniqueness of the experience. I think people would be surprised to find out the quantum of public bodies in Northern Ireland and that they have a total spend of £25.7 billion. I couldn’t have imagined having the opportunity to work with such big clients this early in my career but I have spent the past few months auditing one of the biggest government departments in Northern Ireland. In my time spent working on COVID-19-related business grants to help Northern Irish businesses recover from the pandemic, I know I contributed to ensuring public money was spent properly.  Who works for the public sector? There may be an impression that the public sector is for an older age group who want a good pension, but there’s so much more to it. The public sector is rapidly changing and presents a wide variety of work – you can be assessing payroll controls in a local council one week, and doing a fixed asset check within a justice body the following week. This means there’s a huge range of experience and opportunities, which has allowed me to gain skills and knowledge I’ll take into my career as a Chartered Accountant. The NIAO has increased its intake of trainee accountants in recent years, which has given me the chance to form new relationships, and pass on the knowledge I’ve learned on the job and through my studies.  Benefits to working in the public sector The NIAO has given me the chance to better understand how the public sector works and allowed me to converse with different people across the sector. I’ve learned how to ask questions when something doesn’t work and how to communicate to clients effectively. As someone who can be nervous and shy at times, working in the public sector has greatly improved my confidence and communication skills.  Building confidence While there are many skills I’ve learned working in the public sector that will enhance my career as a Chartered Accountant, I think the most important skills I have developed are around communicating with clients and having difficult conversations with them. Having the level of confidence as a trainee accountant has come with time and will be with me throughout my career.   From dealing with various clients, learning from peers to supporting more junior colleagues, public sector life has proved to be eventful, interesting and enjoyable. Sinead Henry is a Trainee Accountant at Northern Ireland Audit Office.

When looking for a job after qualification, you can do more than just send a CV listing your previous experience. Here are some steps you can take to make the path to your dream job a little easier. For many of us, the start of a new year is the time that we take a peek at the job market, especially if you are nearing the end of your education. However, you will not be alone.  While you maybe tick all the boxes in terms of qualifications, it is worth considering what can you do over the coming weeks and months that will make you stand out from your peers to land the job of your dreams. How can you impress an employer before you even get your foot in the door? Its worth putting together a list of top 10 companies you would like to join, and then start working on ways to blow them away before you ever even meet them. Here are some steps you can take that may help set you apart from your peers.  Your CV  A well laid out CV is such an important document and will highlight to any potential employer that you take yourself, your own brand and the interview process seriously.  Your CV should advertise and sell your skills to employers. Employers will notice a well-crafted CV and note that if you put time and effort into this document, you take yourself seriously as an accounting professional.  Be sure to target your CV to the job in which you are applying. This will grab the attention of the hiring manager and  help you overcome any artificial intelligence software the organisation might be using to help with its hiring process. Social media Your online profile is another form of marketing for yourself and brand. Make sure that it is done correctly and that your portray yourself on social media in the best possible light. Privatise your social accounts if needs be. If you have public content, be sure it portrays you well. Before you even start applying for roles within your target company, start following them on social media, and like and share their posts. Use your social media presence to interact with these companies in advance of any potential interviews with them. Make sure that your LinkedIn profile is up-to-date and is completed correctly. Your online profile should portray the right image of you as a serious candidate so make sure your experience is current and your picture is professional. It is not unusual for hiring managers to go straight to a candidate’s LinkedIn profile prior to the interview, so make sure it lists all your accomplishments.  Tap into your network Up until now, your focus has been on passing your exams. Now that your time as a student is nearly finished, it is the time to expand and utilise your network. Is there a former colleague, friend or family member that works in a company that you are interested in? If so, reach out to them for an introduction to someone involved in recruitment within the organisation.  If they can’t introduce you to someone in the organisation, they still might be able to help you with CV preparation or provide some company intelligence that will give you insight into how tailor yours answers to interview questions. Many companies have a fee that they pay to current employees for good referrals, so keep this in mind when asking current employees of companies for an introduction. Your network can prove invaluable and people love to help.  You can also find the hiring managers and heads of recruitment from within the company on Linkedin. Take a chance by connecting with them, liking their posts and catching their eye with some of your own content. Concepta Cadogan is the Head of Accounting and Finance at Lincoln Search and Selection.