Should people with a qualification in accounting or bookkeeping have to do a test when applying for a job?
Would you be prepared to?
Is this perhaps because the employer doesn't know what level the person is trained up to? Ie AAT level 3 is quite meaningless to an AAT non member.
people pass an exam (or several) then learn the next one(s).
All of the acquired information is still there and easily accessible but you may not be able to answer a question off the top of your head where you answered it perfectly in an exam six months previously.
The whole area of accountancy is just too large to know everything but the key is that you know the basics, the structure and you know exactly where to look for anything that you cannot remember off the top of your head.
That said, there are certain things that everyone should be able to answer such as calculating key ratio's, calculating VAT, etc. and if you are going for an accounts roles you should know every current standard (either UKGAAP or IFRS or both) and be able to answer basic questions on them.
That you have passed an accountancy qualification means that you know your stuff and know where to look for anything that you don't.
If someone is looking to take on an AAT, ACCA, CIMA or ACA then they should know what the qualifications mean and what was involved in achieving them. If they don't then they are probably not in the correct position within the company. Personally I've walked out of a couple of interviews where I felt that the people on the opposite side of the desk were not qualified enough to be interviewing me. I also had to step in at an agency and review the people that they were forwarding as the agents didn't have a clue (but try as I might I couldn't get them knocked off the preferred supplier list).
Interviewing accountants is not like interviewing production line workers. The company is being interviewed to see whether the accountant wants to work with them as much as the other way around. Read the works of Douglas McGregor on type X and Y employee / management combinations.
I would not expect to do a test that I felt was below me at interview but nor would I expect to be paid if the employer decided and I concurred after a week that my CV did not properly represent my skillset.
I actually don't mind doing the logic tests pre interview as that's testing how quickly and logically your mind works which is quite different to questioning the skill level of someone with all of the right bits of paper.
In conclusion. No, I do not think that people with relevant qualifications should be tested on the technical merit of their knowledge at interview. An employer is looking for someone who can do the job, not someone who can remember something but has difficulty applying it in the real world.
To get the right people you look at their history, their qualifications, their experience and their presentation at interview. If the employer knows what they are doing they will employ the right people without a technical test.
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.
I was before the credit crunch a self-employed mortgage adviser and to qualify you had to gain level 3 CeMAP a bit like AAT in away. For compliance it was usual for a self-employed adviser to belong to a mortgage network and it was not unusual to switch networks especially when networks started to fold as the recession started to bite. Even though you were fully qualified it was quite common to be set tests to join a new network and if some cases were as difficult or even harder than the original exams. For compliance these in-house tests were held on a regular basis to ensure that you were still competent and i see no reason why an employer should not seek the same with someone in the accounting profession, especially if they have not worked in one particular area of accounts for a while and might be a bit rusty. Also just because someone can pass an exam does not always mean they that they might thoroughly understand the topic and an employer might wish to find out how good a potential new employee is. I remember a few years ago looking for some temp work at Reeds and i had to do some tests for them to check my level of competence.
The difference being though that those were in house tests.
The people in this business know what the various exams / bodies represent and the relevant levels of knowledge. They also know the differences in the format of the exams.
For example employers who are in a position to hire accountants know that ACA are open book exams, ACCA are closed book. So, do you allow candidates to sit your tests with the books or not? You would assume that those with the closed books would be better but thats not the way that it works (although anyone who passes ACCA paper P2 you know that they have officially passed the most difficult accountancy paper of any supervisory body (P2 is referred to as the beast with good reason).
Nothing against the mortgage business or financial advisors but the syllabus is tiny by comparrison to any of the accountancy qualifications.
With accountancy you can switch bodies and often examptions do not excuse you from all of the papers of the new body in which instance switching bodies would be the equivalent of you switching networks in that there would be new, sometimes quite similar papers to sit to gain membership of the new professional body.
When Reed take someone on for a temp role if they test you then the likelihood is that it is not for a managerial role and accountants are management level.
If I am rusty in an area and it is something that a client needs then I would expect for the client to tell me the areas that they need me to be an expert in and I would be an expert in those areas before I started with the company.
I do not expect people that I employ to know everything but I expect them to know where to look.
For example. In employing business analysts to work in pensions I expect the person to be an expert at being a business analyst but they may not have worked in pensions for a while and for that you allow a lead time for them to come up to speed.
I woyld not expect to test the person on the pension industry and I would not test someone on business analysis when a CV clearly shows the work that they have been doing elsewhere.
If such is a lie then they won't last a week.
Lets put this another way. Would you expect to give a doctor a test or accept their credentials and empirical evidence of their competence?
Its the same with accountancy. If someone is a member of the ICAEW or ACCA (as examples) you know that they have passed some very serious exams and that in order to maintain membership they suffer continued professional development.
You set them a test on basic accountancy and I would not consider for a job any accountant who actually sat the test.... Maybe that should be the test. If they get up and tell you what to do with yourt test (possibly with the aid of diagrams and flowcharts) they are the one's to hire.
kind regards,
Shaun.
p.s. note that the team at Reed that hire accountants is completely seperate and have a totally different approach to the one that hires accounting technicians. Back to Douglas McGregors type X and Y.
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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.
