I would kindly ask for your help and guidance regarding my professional life situation.
First of all I am not an English native so please forgive me my language mistakes if they occur. Forgive me also using word 'accountancy' all the time, as in Poland there is no distinction between book-keeping and accountancy as we have one word for this kind of activity. It took me some time and a lot of reading google answers to be able to understand difference between this two terms here in UK but gladly, I made it.
I moved from Poland to England at the beginning of the October, with hope to find job in accountancy as a clerk (purchase or sales ledger). I have experience in accountancy/book-keeping as I worked almost 5 years in accounting department in LTD partnership company in Poland. Just after graduating university I was hired on a part-time contract as an administrative assistant providing ongoing support to accounting team. After half a year I got full time contract and become 'settlement clerk' as I turned out to be competent and prospective employee (worth mentioning is fact that my educational background,MA in Internal Relations, was not proper for the financial type of work). And that is how my interest in accounting started :)
Right now, my main concern is that I did not have typical responsibilities for a sales or purchase ledger clerk during course of my career. I rather had a mix of various duties, some covering sales ledger, some purchase ledger and some of data entry clerk or book-keeper. Sometimes, when somebody from the team was on longer holidays, I did part of his job. This allowed me to get to know various sections of accountancy on a basic level of course. I am afraid, that my work experience will be not sufficient for employers here to get me chance of prove that I can handle my duties perfectly as I used to do in Poland. I have applied for a few jobs, some of them were ledger clerks, some administrative assistants - but without any success like inviting for an interview :( I am a bit worried right now and starting to think about getting any kind of job to simply have money for living (thankfully I have some savings and live at my father flat)
I am eager to start AAT level 2 via distant learning to complete it ASAP as I think I will be able to do it rather quickly. But I really want to have a job before I start that, just to be secure.
My questions to you:
1.Is it possible to get an accounting job without knowledge of Sage software? Maybe I should buy self-study training and pass exam for certificate? (if there is any of course)
2.Shall I still try to find office job or I don't stand a chance as being foreigner without professional experience in UK?
3.Would some of you be so kind to look at extract from my CV covering my working experience and education, to provide me feedback, remarks and advice?
Any help is very appreciated, as I am little confused and lost. I came here to develop myself, and become professional but beginnings are not easy. One more thing worth mentioning: I was not made redundant, I left my job because of impossibility to become something more than clerk :)
I personally thought that Poland had more opportunities than the UK at the moment. I'm actually quite surprised to see people still coming here and looking for work.
You can get a job in accountancy without knowledge of sage yes. Larger companies may well use bespoke software.
People will look past where you are from as long as you have proven experience and the skill set they want, as long as your experience enables you to work in accountancy in the UK you should be fine.
that was my thought also. I know that some of the accountants that I've been working with in the banks are over there at the moment as business analysts in their banking sector as there has been no work here for so long.
Hi Dregdor,
the UK market is slowly coming back from the brink but it's not good. Only a couple of weeks back KPMG had to let over UK based 300 accountants go.
lets take your three specific questions :
1. Is it possible to get an accounting job without knowledge of Sage software? Maybe I should buy self-study training and pass exam for certificate? (if there is any of course)
Sage is just one of the accounting packages out there. It's aimed at the SME market which they currently dominate over the likes of Quickbooks but I feel that is changing and I can see the market becoming more evenly distributed between the big two in the next five to ten years.
Larger businesses tend to use SAP and larger practices will use IRIS
Having Sage knowledge with or without qualification will not harm your prospects but in itself may not open the doors that one might expect it to. Every bit as important would be having in depth Excel knowledge including pivot tables and lookups.
2. Shall I still try to find office job or I don't stand a chance as being foreigner without professional experience in UK?
In the past I have come accross situations where non UK workers have been prefered due to a perceived different work ethic combined with the ability to pay less to get more.
You may need to enter the market at below your perceived level in order to get a foot in the door then build from that. If your english is good enough then one of the better credit control departments may serve as a stepping stone (and also help you pick up SAP).
Conversely a poor quality credit control department is no more than a call centre and would damage your prospects. The issue is that you don't know how good the job is until you are in it and a string of short term gigs on the CV looks really bad and will work against your prospects.
3. Would some of you be so kind to look at extract from my CV covering my working experience and education, to provide me feedback, remarks and advice?
Would love to but I don't really have the time until mid December. If you still need the CV reviewed by December the 10th send it over and I'll get it back to you with comments.
On the AAT qualification that one is a chicken and egg of a question in that there are a good many more doing the qualification than will find relevant roles in accountancy. That said you already have experience so the AAT qualification will prove your standard of knowledge to potential employers.
The real issue is that it will be expensive and time consuming and gaining it comes with no guarantee's of employment. But does put you ahead of those who do not have it.
Difficult one to call in your situation.
Sorry that this answer is short but bit busy at the moment. Keep posting questions and I'll respond again later,
kind regards,
Shaun.
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Shaun
Responses are not meant as a substitute for professional advice. Answers are intended as outline only the advice of a qualified professional with access to all relevant information should be sought before acting on any response given.
