City and guilds alone won't get you anywhere with employment.

ICB and IAB are not much better (just do a search of the Reed website based on any qualification that you can think of).

The above said, non of the above are a waste of time or money as they all give a sound grounding in bookkeeping although for employment (rather than self employment) you would need to move from them to something else.

Careful when choosing qualifications where you intend to move around quals as some qualifications are not recognised by others and some professional bodies charge for each exam exempted from as if you had sat it which can end up a very expensive way of doing things and it will at times be cheaper to take the more expensive option if that is where you intended to go in the first place.

For employment you really need to be looking at AAT or your CV won't even get to the desks that you want it to get to.

You could do AAT distance learning with Premier training or Eagle Education both of whom are sound training providers who post on here.

On the last part of your question personally I did the Open University Certificate in Accounting (which at the time included the bookkeeping module which is now seperate and the accounting theory module which is no longer part of the course (shame on you OU)) then straight into ACCA. Along the way I've dallied with ICB and I practice under IFA.

If I had to do it all over again knowing what I know now I would have done AAT, then ACCA and then ATT (The last one's actually on my to do list).

Just my two penneth worth, hope some of it helps,

kind regards,

Shaun.

Hi Emarisa

I agree with Shaun too. I have never seen a job advertised where they ask for someone who is ICB qualified. I am immensely proud to belong to the AAT and their CPD resources and events are far superior to the others. (I know this because I used to belong to the ICB and the IAB)
I went back to college and did the AAT qualification , yes it was expensive but my word it gave me a superb and comprehensive understanding of accounting. I never looked back.

Good luck with your studying!

Georgie

Hi Theresa.

its not Reed that makes the call its what practices and industry demand and Reed simply fulfill their wishes.

In some instances I appreciate that the work that people are doing could be done equally as well by an AAT or an ICB person so the demarcation is not fair.

From the advert in PQ this month it seems that the ICB are changing approach to sell themselves as an accounting qualification (why else advertise in a magazine for Part Qualified accountants).

Their new web page is this one : www.bookkeepers.org.uk/pq

Only by accountants practicing under a professional body will they start to hire others from that body.

That certainly seems to have been the IFA's business model where they have focused on ACCA PQ's, Affiliates and Members unable to meet the practicing criteria of regulation 8.

Thats proving of benefit to IFA people not trained by the ACCA as well as the expectation of ACCA trained IFA people gets non ACCA trained people to interview where they may prove that they are the best person for the job.

I can see echoes of that mentality in the ICB approach of advertising in PQ. Its obviously a five to ten year plan as these things don't happen overnight. However they will need to totally lose the idea of bookkeeping and accountancy being seperate if they want to see that model through.

Of course, what may come to transpire in 5-10 years is no good for people looking to enter the industry now where for self employment IAB or ICB is fine but for employment one should not look at anything below AAT.

I agree that the bit of paper that someone holds is an unfair way of judging their capabilities but for many busiensses its the only way to keep applications to a managable level.

Also worth considering is that if IAB and ICB CVs were considered by agencies then it would devalue the AAT qualification. Would then employers demand ACCA / ACMA rather than AAT in order to keep the CV volumes down.

I think that the best example that I can remember of an open job ad on the web site where it did not specify a qualification was for an accounts assistant, must be qualified. Didn't specify experience or qualified with who... They got over 900 applicants inside 2 hours!

Can you see now why agencies always restrict CV catchments to specific qualifications.

Anyway, I think that we are living in interesting times with the ICB qualification. Its obvious that there are big plans afoot to push it into the mainstream but for employment is it still too early to consider it as a viable option?

Personally I would go with the wait and see approach but then I have a naturally risk adverse nature.

kind regards,

Shaun.

p.s. note that non of the above references whether one knows more under AAT than ICB. Thats a different debate which I would be adverse to getting into. The discussion is purely as to whether the qualification alone (experience changes everything and trumps qualifications) will get one's CV to where you want it to be.

Hi all,

Just tried some searches on the Reed Employment site for jobs in London.

For jobs specifying IAB, there were 2 listed.

For jobs specifying ICB, there was 1 listed.

For jobs specifying AAT, there were 134 listed.

For info,

David.

Plus, i think you are able to just take the exam to qualify for ICB/IAB so if you learn via AAT and then decide to take the ICB exam at a later stage it should be fine

Hi Emma,

 

Im sorry, it was certainly not my intention to hijack your post and I only wished to offer a bit of advice as, despite what David & Shaun say, there is an employment market out there for those that hold ICB qualifications.

 

Shaun & David,

 

You can provide stats from Reed and use phrases, such as  wont even get you to the front desk, which I feel is really inappropriate incidentally, but it still wont change the actual fact that there are HUNDREDS of people that I know of, who obtain employment annually on the back of their ICB qualifications.  On such a public arena you should be very careful with your terminology.

 

Im not hiding away from the fact that if someone wished to pursue a career in accounting, then the AAT qualification is probably the way to go. But not everyone wants to go to accountancy level and there are also jobs that reflect that fact.

 

 

Over and out. 

I'm not arguing with your experience Shaun, but they way your post comes across is that unless you hold AAT you are not going to be employed by a company. This is simply not the case with many former students having used their ICB qualification to gain employment. 

Unwize Owl wrote:

---

Bad luck Emma.

It's turning into one of 'those' debates!

Personally I thought that it was very fair. There has been no mud slinging, just sound open discussion about what is the best direction for someone to go in where they are want employment rather than self employment and have no major prior experience in this field.

While I could produce stats to back up my statements regarding the number and variety of full time posts that advertise for ICB qualified bookkeepers I'm not going to. Principally because, despite my degree in Statistics, Shaun wouldn't like it

What makes you think that? If you have valid, verifiable data then publish it. I am always open to being swayed by evidence that proves me wrong.

- he is not a paid up ICB member

I was but decided that it was not a qualification that I needed. I used the qualification for MLR and cheaper PII but then moved first to HMRC and then IFA for MLR and Arlington for PII. ICB never went on my CV but they are by no means the only qualification that I have that didn't make it on there (I seem to collect them like other people collect stamps, lol). 

and can't 'see' where a large percentage of my data would be drawn from which to him, on this occasion, clearly makes the data - despite its validity - untenable to him.

We've had the debate on the site several times that the ICB publish statistics but will not publish the underlying data. That is the statistics that we are talking about here.

I am not saying that the ICB statistics are right or wrong. I am saying that they are not verifiable without the data.

As you have a degree in statistics you will know that you can pretty much spin the statistics any way that suits you best and the only truth is in the underlying data (I don't have a degree in it but thats what I do... Its the old one persons "our products are killing our customers" is anothers "We have x% less customer complaints" both are correct, its all in the spin).

This is a shame. It is also, apparently, unavoidable. But we all have our foibles and that is what makes life interesting. Sorry Shaun but Reed is not the be all and end all of the employment market.

They are a major player with a searchable jobs database so handy to dip into to get a feel for the market. They do not have all of the jobs but they have enough of both their own and other people using their portal in order to form a valid test population.

For many of us an agency is the last place we want to go - Reed don't care what your qualification is they just pile enough paper in front of their clients that one is selected just to stop the flow - the selection process is laughable!

That sounds as though you don't have a strong relationship with the agents. If the agency do not provide the quality of CV's then you just get a different agency in.

If you are accepting CVs as the first few off a pile then your management are not dedicating the time to staff selection that it needs. A couple of projects ago of the CV's that were acceptable I did 400 telephone interviews and whittled the list down to 60 face to face interviews... Pretty much everyone that got to a face to face got the job but noone got into the company that was not perfect for the role.

If your selection process is affected by other work commitments making selection almost arbitrary then you will not get the best people for the job.

As to the selection process you had while employed, perhaps your firm was different but the usual one where I have seen the process is anything over 2 pages or from an agency gets dumped out of hand.  Only those CV's that are short and clear get glanced at and interviews are awarded as much for interesting hobbies as any relevant qualification or experience!

The general given is that a CV will be around four pages. If people start padding it out with hobbies, waffle and meaningless management speak then they get dumped immediately.

Everything of importance should be on page one, pages two through four which are the project detail pages are only given a cursery glance but will be looked at in a bit more detail pre interview to work out the attack on questioning.

I accept that no-one has 'had a go' at the ICB qualification directly but if one looks at the phrasing used "ICB and IAB are not much better (than City & Guilds) ...non of the above are a waste of time or money as they all give a sound grounding in bookkeeping although for employment ... you would need to move from them to something else" the only way this reads is dismissive to all three qualifications. 

I said non of them are a waste of time or money? All of them will teach you pretty much the same but they do not give you the letters that agents and potential employers are looking for.

As I said the selection process is often not fair where your knowledge under one qualification is the same as another but one will get you to interview and the other won't.

The thrust of this thread related to employability of someone not experienced within this industry which is why the answers were phrased as they were.

We are back to the old bugbear - I seriously take umm at having hard earned qualifications directed at bookkeeping rather than accountancy dismissed in this way.

I differentiated totally between employment and self employment. The poster aimed her questions towards employment.

I did not dismiss anyone's efforts.

I stated what the average potential employer would be looking for.

I don't care if some accountants want to lump all the qualifications under the accountancy umbrella and presumably therefore have control over them in some way - there is space in the market for dedicated, qualified, professional bookkeepers

So why has the ICB started advertising for new members in PQ which is purely for part qualified accountants? Also look at the ICB's PQ page which is attempting to sign up accountants. (This is discussed in more detail in one of my other posts above).

and no amount of wishing will change the fact that that demand can be proved very simply by counting the number of bookkeepers who hold active practice licences be it with the ICB or and other body.

How many stop at trial balance? Anything beyond that is accountancy whether you do it under a bookkeeping qualification or an accountancy one.

 If there was no demand for our services then we wouldn't have any work and from the stacks around my desk, I for one am flat out in what is 'traditionally' a quiet month.

Thats not what we're talking about in this thread. This one is just about employability not self employment.

I know, as personal friends, a handful of ICB members, 2 AAT practitioners and one ATT.  Admittedly most of these are self employed but some of the ICB'ers are employed being the type that prefer a wage to the uncertainties of self employment and contracting.

Did they come to this with prior experience or find the work only with the qualifications?

Neither of the employed members that I am friends with had any problems finding the type of work they enjoy, and of the rest only the ATT and one of the AAT's has space on their books for more clients at the moment.  From straight empirical evidence I dispute the claim that the ICB qualification is less employable in any degree to an accountancy based qualification of a similar level.

So you would advise someone who had specifically stated that they wanted employment and that they had no prior experience that ICB would open the same doors for them that AAT would?

Personally I do not think that would be the correct advice but we are all entitled to our opinions.

At the end of the day there are also plenty of unemployed AAT people out there so the qualification does not come with a guarantee of employment exactly the same as any other qualification.

All that we are really debating here is odd's, not sure things (says the person who never gambles!).

All that aside I will have to agree with Shaun's comment on distance learning - if that is your preferred method Emma, does it really make any difference which qualification you pick?  You will either have the time to self study or you won't and only you can answer that one 

---

 

Well, that came as a bit of an unexpected bolt out of the blue.

Hope that my responses in the above have put us back on the same page.

kind regards,

Shaun.

 

Firstly, could I please request that whole answers are replied to rather than taking only selected parts.

When I reply I may insert my answers in the middle of sentences at times but I never change or remove parts of the post that I am replying to.

Appreciate that you were only trying to keep it short but in doing so I feel that much of the flow and meaning was lost and follow up posters will only pick up the amended version of the thread, not the original.

Unwize Owl wrote:

---

Shamus wrote:

---

Unwize Owl wrote:

---

While I could produce stats to back up my statements regarding the number and variety of full time posts that advertise for ICB qualified bookkeepers I'm not going to. Principally because, despite my degree in Statistics, Shaun wouldn't like it

What makes you think that? If you have valid, verifiable data then publish it. I am always open to being swayed by evidence that proves me wrong.

 Mainly your comment that ICB 'Stats' are unverifiable - therefore any data that comes from that source must be questionable to you.

No, the stats cannot be used without showing the data. If they publish the data on which the stats are based then such woud be acceptable. As you appreciate the gulf between data and statistics is huge.

- he is not a paid up ICB member

I was but decided that it was not a qualification that I needed. I used the qualification for MLR and cheaper PII but then moved first to HMRC and then IFA for MLR and Arlington for PII. ICB never went on my CV but they are by no means the only qualification that I have that didn't make it on there (I seem to collect them like other people collect stamps, lol). 

and can't 'see' where a large percentage of my data would be drawn from which to him, on this occasion, clearly makes the data - despite its validity - untenable to him.

We've had the debate on the site several times that the ICB publish statistics but will not publish the underlying data. That is the statistics that we are talking about here.

I am not saying that the ICB statistics are right or wrong. I am saying that they are not verifiable without the data.

As you have a degree in statistics you will know that you can pretty much spin the statistics any way that suits you best and the only truth is in the underlying data (I don't have a degree in it but thats what I do... Its the old one persons "our products are killing our customers" is anothers "We have x% less customer complaints" both are correct, its all in the spin).

Very true - but please don't assume I was planning on writing 'spin', it is perfectly possible to present ones facts without.

I never for one moment thought that you would but where you are placing trust in other peoples statistics which use data that you had no part in collecting you may mislead without intent.

This is a shame. It is also, apparently, unavoidable. But we all have our foibles and that is what makes life interesting. Sorry Shaun but Reed is not the be all and end all of the employment market.

They are a major player with a searchable jobs database so handy to dip into to get a feel for the market. They do not have all of the jobs but they have enough of both their own and other people using their portal in order to form a valid test population.

For many of us an agency is the last place we want to go - Reed don't care what your qualification is they just pile enough paper in front of their clients that one is selected just to stop the flow - the selection process is laughable!

That sounds as though you don't have a strong relationship with the agents. If the agency do not provide the quality of CV's then you just get a different agency in.

If you are accepting CVs as the first few off a pile then your management are not dedicating the time to staff selection that it needs. A couple of projects ago of the CV's that were acceptable I did 400 telephone interviews and whittled the list down to 60 face to face interviews... Pretty much everyone that got to a face to face got the job but noone got into the company that was not perfect for the role.

If your selection process is affected by other work commitments making selection almost arbitrary then you will not get the best people for the job.

As to the selection process you had while employed, perhaps your firm was different but the usual one where I have seen the process is anything over 2 pages or from an agency gets dumped out of hand.  Only those CV's that are short and clear get glanced at and interviews are awarded as much for interesting hobbies as any relevant qualification or experience!

The general given is that a CV will be around four pages. If people start padding it out with hobbies, waffle and meaningless management speak then they get dumped immediately.

Everything of importance should be on page one, pages two through four which are the project detail pages are only given a cursery glance but will be looked at in a bit more detail pre interview to work out the attack on questioning.

I accept that no-one has 'had a go' at the ICB qualification directly but if one looks at the phrasing used "ICB and IAB are not much better (than City & Guilds) ...non of the above are a waste of time or money as they all give a sound grounding in bookkeeping although for employment ... you would need to move from them to something else" the only way this reads is dismissive to all three qualifications. 

I said non of them are a waste of time or money? All of them will teach you pretty much the same but they do not give you the letters that agents and potential employers are looking for.

As I said the selection process is often not fair where your knowledge under one qualification is the same as another but one will get you to interview and the other won't.

The thrust of this thread related to employability of someone not experienced within this industry which is why the answers were phrased as they were.

The implication of your statement is that the qualifications referred to are some how 'lesser'.

The implication is how they are viewed by employers which as I have said frequently is out of line with reality. Lets take an example of that.

Things have changed now but this is historically accurate. The OU offered the BPP EQL bookkeeping course which gave people exemptions from the entry exams of various bodies.

The AAT offered the same course as their ABC bookkeeping course which did not get the same exemptions.

The ICB qualification is like that in that it is disregarded by many employers even where it covers exactly the same material as a different qualification.

The reality is that there is little difference between someone who is fully qualified ICB and someone who has AAT level III under their belt but the AAT person will get to interview where the ICB one does not.

There are many reasons for that including agencies filtering volumes down and that many managers came through the AAT route so they stick with the qualiifcation that they know.

We are back to the old bugbear - I seriously take umm at having hard earned qualifications directed at bookkeeping rather than accountancy dismissed in this way.

I differentiated totally between employment and self employment. The poster aimed her questions towards employment.

I did not dismiss anyone's efforts.

I stated what the average potential employer would be looking for.

I don't care if some accountants want to lump all the qualifications under the accountancy umbrella and presumably therefore have control over them in some way - there is space in the market for dedicated, qualified, professional bookkeepers

So why has the ICB started advertising for new members in PQ which is purely for part qualified accountants? Also look at the ICB's PQ page which is attempting to sign up accountants. (This is discussed in more detail in one of my other posts above).

and no amount of wishing will change the fact that that demand can be proved very simply by counting the number of bookkeepers who hold active practice licences be it with the ICB or and other body.

How many stop at trial balance? Anything beyond that is accountancy whether you do it under a bookkeeping qualification or an accountancy one.

I only have 'unprovable' ICB stats - so no evidence you would accept.

I was talking of your freinds who are working in the business rather than ICB stats.

If there was no demand for our services then we wouldn't have any work and from the stacks around my desk, I for one am flat out in what is 'traditionally' a quiet month.

Thats not what we're talking about in this thread. This one is just about employability not self employment.

I know, as personal friends, a handful of ICB members, 2 AAT practitioners and one ATT.  Admittedly most of these are self employed but some of the ICB'ers are employed being the type that prefer a wage to the uncertainties of self employment and contracting.

Did they come to this with prior experience or find the work only with the qualifications?

Let's see... Oh! There are three, I nearly forgot Jill! Two are in their 20's, one has a degree in IT but no experience, the other qualified straight from A levels - no experience. The third has been a bookkeeper all her working life so tons of experience.  

People straight from school are perfect for practice, practicioners can get grants to put them through training and they are open books who come to the table unbroken by other peoples methods of doing things.

A knowledge of provable bookkeeping no matter what its source puts those candidates ahead but overall the unwritten rules for those from school are somewhat different to mature entry routes/

I've actually argued that point at the banks that they should be taking on people with good A levels rather than restricting offers only to those with good, relevant degree's... Unfortunately it fell on deaf ears for a similar reason to people only considering AAT candidates... Actually, I even had one manager complaining to me that in the "good old days" taking the intake from the milk run used to keep the oiks out but now the let anyone into Uni.

My view is that it doesn't matter what bit of paper someone has if they are obviously the right person for the job. I've seen people with degree's with absolutely zero common sense that I would not trust with anything sharper than a crayon and I've seen those with no formal qualifications able to do seriously complicated calculations in their heads.

Go figure the recruitment process.

Neither of the employed members that I am friends with had any problems finding the type of work they enjoy, and of the rest only the ATT and one of the AAT's has space on their books for more clients at the moment.  From straight empirical evidence I dispute the claim that the ICB qualification is less employable in any degree to an accountancy based qualification of a similar level.

So you would advise someone who had specifically stated that they wanted employment and that they had no prior experience that ICB would open the same doors for them that AAT would?

I would say that it is a qualification which should not be so cavalierly dismissed! It can and does lead to the type of work Emma expressed an interest in, with or without experience.

See above responses.

Personally I do not think that would be the correct advice but we are all entitled to our opinions.

Yes we are 

 

I actually took that from Voltaire. The actual quote is "I may not agree with what you say but I will defend to the death your right to say it".

At the end of the day there are also plenty of unemployed AAT people out there so the qualification does not come with a guarantee of employment exactly the same as any other qualification.

All that we are really debating here is odd's, not sure things (says the person who never gambles!).

---

 

Well, that came as a bit of an unexpected bolt out of the blue.

Did it Shaun - I seem to remember our having other discussions on the quality and saleability of the ICB qualification.

And as I have said before each thread is seperate and geared towards the specific question rather than being a one answer catch all response.

Hope that my responses in the above have put us back on the same page.

We are on the on the same page for a lot of things Shaun, this is really the only area that we seriously disagree on.

I think because it comes across that I am having a go at the ICB qualification where I have actually said that the recruitment process is not fair and the answer is geared towards perceptions of those doing the employing rather than the reality of the knowledge base which I am sure that you worked very hard to achieve.

Life isn't fair, sometimes we need to play to other peoples rules to get to where we want / need to be and only once there can you hope to start changing the rules.

kind regards,

Shaun.

and the same to you.

 

---

One day I'll learn to spell!

Well, I for one am not going to notice any spelling mistakes! lol.

---

We've got to come to agreement soon as I think that we're running out of readable colours!

If it gets to yellow we're really messed up.

Amended for spelling and the Voltaire quote being repeated twice

-- Edited by Shamus on Friday 28th of February 2014 11:52:27 AM

Well, I wasn't going to join in but I am, in fact, sad enough to have done similar searches this morning on three further job boards and these were Monster, CV Library and Total Jobs. The results reflected David's search on Reed. On Monster I found 30 AAT adverts for every ICB one. For Total Jobs, there were 60 AAT for every ICB one.

The search was for London 20 miles. CV Library may have been 25 miles but there were no ICB adverts in any case.

Rhetorical question but why would employers and agencies predominantly market ICB jobs in local newspapers.

No worries Theresa,

it's difficult to convey emotions when having a serious debate on a site but I can assure you that throughout this thread I have not once got annoyed with anyone. We're grown ups, we have different opinions, we debate, doesn't mean that any of it is personal.

I do appreciate that due to the medium it is at times easy to misunderstand what the other person is attempting to say and I freely admit that at times some of my lines are not read by others as I intended them (the line "not much better" in my first reply of this thread could have been much better phrased... definitely one that lost something between intent and delivery!).

I think that it takes a while to get to understand other people's writing and debating style espechially when one cannot see their expressions during a debate.

On the dyslexia front I don't wear glasses for that (only started using them for reading about a year back) but rather have open sided tinted plastic folders that I read documents through. Yellow, Orange and (to a certain extent) green work for me. Blue and red just switch my brain off as by the end of a sentence I cannot remember any of it.

Right, I'm calling it a night. I've waited quite long enough for one of my clients to send me a spreadsheet with all of their Paypal transactions on and still nothings turned up. Sometimes I wonder why we bother... Oh yes, mortage payments, knew there was a reason!

Talk soon,

Shaun.