Son needs career

[m00rfarm]

My son is bright, articulate, and ridiculously lazy. He coasted his GCSEs at grammar school, not reading a single book and still managed to achieve A-C grades in 9 subjects. He decided A levels were not for him and he is now in college studying business management, and is in his second year where I suggested that he "specialised" in finance.

I am in marketing, and I did not want him to choose this as his specialisation as this career path is fraught with redundancies. He is also very good with numbers, and enjoys things that are regular rather than creative. So finance seemed to be a good option. He seems to be enjoying this and is clearly studying much harder in this environment than he was at school.

He is now researching jobs (college has said he can "leave" to go to full time apprentice employment, providing he keeps up with his course work).

He has seen a number of apprentice accountancy positions offering around 190-250 per week which include AAT level 3 and 4 training. I think this sounds pretty good, and am encouraging him to go for this.

My AIBU is that I don't actually know much about accountancy myself. I have researched online, and I think I have advised him correctly, but would love some feedback from a real accountant as to whether this is the right way forward or if we should be directing him differently.

He is comfortable with the idea of accountancy and likes the concept of a clear promotion path based on exams etc. and enjoys working with figures and appears good at it.

Does anyone have any advice they can offer or point me in a better direction that does not include reading the entire AAT website (again!)

Any help much appreciated :)

Hmm - that was slightly unclear. He finishes his course in June 2019, but the college has said, during a meeting he had with them, that if he found a position in January as an apprentice accountant, then they would be happy for him to do college work outside of college and he would still get his level 3 diploma.

I am a real accountant and have been for 25 years and have worked at a senior level. Most accountants would be educated to degree level and I would strongly encourage that, if there is a path to university from his business course. It is possible to start accountancy from 18 but it is unusual and will be a long slog.

I think he is aiming low with AAT. If I were reviewing a CV, I would more or less dismiss it as irrelevant. It maybe has a place for somebody that is not particularly career orientated and is just looking for some book keeping work. But it would definitely not be good enough for "proper" accountancy positions. He could waste a lot of time on it. He would be better going strsight to CIMA or ACCA. The other option is ACA, but I doubt he would need a training contract with one of the practices and I doubt that would be possible.

I think the route yout have advised would provide a job, but not a good accountancy career. So it depends what path he wants to take.

Thanks Alfie - that was what I was worried about. He is definitely not wanting to go to university, so that is not really an option. Is it possible to do the CIMA or ACCA whilst working doing the AAT exams?

Personally if he can start at the bottom in either a local council nearby or the NHS (admin, IT, etc) he could easily work his way up. Most of my friends and I don't have a degree between us yet 10 years later are on more money or the same as our friends or my husband with a degree. In fact two of my closest friends started in the local council at the very bottom when they were both 17 and now are in charge or large departments. One is head of highway control for the entire county (must be on £40k a year) the other is one of the heads of accountancy (again must be on over £40k) and they jobs offers a pension, good sick pay, annual leave and security. They too are often 9-5 Monday to Friday jobs and welcome young adults look to progress throughout the years.

I think some of the big 4 accountancy firms take on school leavers who do AAT and then go on to do ACA. If he went this route a degree would be less important as the big 4 are very well respected.

I wouldn't say AAT is irrelevant. It is good as a grounding and it will give you exemptions if you then go on to degree level. I did my level 2 and 3 as evening classes so I could get back into work after relocation and maternity.

Does he want to work in an Accountancy firm or in Finance departments of companies? I've spent 3 years as an Accounts Payable clerk in a transport company and I'm now the in-house systems trainer going out to our offices and depots to train users on the procure-to-pay process.

Its a great career and you don't need to become an accountant to work within accountancy.

There would be no point doing AAT if he were doing CIMA or ACCA.

Nothing would prohibit him doing AAT and ACCA / CIMA simultaneously. Other than these exams (excluding AAT, I have never met anyone in my professional life that has AAT) are extremely difficult and involve an awful lot of hard work. I don't think many would cope with that, full time work and some other exams as well. It is likely to drag the process out even further.

I'm not an accountant. But it occurs to me he might just need to mature a bit and some working life eg in public sector or big private firm where he can move around might help that.

Maybe if he took a school leavers job in one of big 4 as PP suggested he might want to go back & get a degree in a couple of years if he can more clearly see the benefit, think at this age you want to keep your options as open as possible

I know of a local firm that takes school leavers at 18 and puts them through AAT and then ACCA (I think) until they are fully qualified accountants. Yes it takes a long time, and yes on a training contract they aren't paid amazingly (the lose a bit of pay and holiday), but they get a lot of support, and are working. Uni doesn't suit everyone. If you do a degree and then training contract with a big firm, you are generally sacked if you fail more than one exam, so its a big risk if you have any sort of issue eg illness. Plus you have student loans. A small firm is more likely to be flexible and take circumstances and quality of work into account rather than be pass/fail. So I wouldn't say AAT is a waste of time, its a different route.

School leavers job in the big 4, in terms of training to be technical staff, are highly highly competitive. Need very good a levels.

Working in house, say finance team, could mean being based out of London in a regional office, Milton Keynes for instance, so depending where you are based could be some opportunities there.

Yes the firm I work in takes apprentices - there's an AAT -ACCA route (AAT gets certain exemptions from ACCA). In my experience in this environment (regional firm, around 200 employees) they are as likely to get promoted to manager level and above. Having gone down the graduate ACA route myself in a different firm, I would say in a firm that gives good experience, once they get the chartered qualification those who started at AAT will have benefitted from a few extra years of real life client facing experience which is no bad thing.

I was at a dinner with some senior PWC people the other day. They said they are now aiming to take 20% of their trainees as school leavers. They do a 4 year apprenticeship and at the end have a degree and accounting qualifications and are paid £20k a year. They think this number will only go up as it works for young people who don’t really have a passion to study a subject at university (and get a massive debt) and works for them as school leavers seem to be more loyal to company than graduates.

I expect the apprenticeship levy is persuading some of the firms to take school leavers, it was very rare when I trained.

But £20k for a newly qualified accountant is atrocious or is that before they qualify? They would need a massive increase upon qualification. It is about 13 years since I last hired a newly qualified and they were paid £50k.

The £20k is while training - so while doing the degree.

I have to agree with alfie90. I am also a chartered accountant and to be honest AAT is definitely lower level and is pretty much unheard of in higher level positions.

On the subject of salaries, I was on around £35k as a newly qualified ACA in 1998.

The big 4 do do amazing apprenticeships though and I would definitely recommend this. I know someone who applied last year, the A level requirements weren’t as high as I expected although I expect that offer was after a rigorous interview process and when she missed by a grade they deferred her place for a year.

Definitely find a way to do something more than AAT if your DC wants to be a proper ‘accountant’.

They said they are now aiming to take 20% of their trainees as school leavers. They do a 4 year apprenticeship and at the end have a degree and accounting qualifications and are paid £20k a year

That's brilliant, I've been saying that for years that there should be more opportunities for it to work like that. I did a science degree on part time day release, paid for by my employer. I also know a few people doing engineering degrees while working in industry in a similar manner.

Obviously the advantage to the student is that they don't have to take out a student loan, and they start earning from 18, and by the time they graduate, they have a degree and experience, which is also a great advantage to the employer, because instead of recruiting new graduates without experience, they get to start earlier with on the job training.

The main disadvantage is that students may miss out on the 'student' lifestyle, but in the days of student loans and uncertain graduate career paths - many graduates don't find a 'graduate' job, that's a massive luxury. The risk to the employer is that people leave on qualifying, but there could be various payback schemes, or just being a good employer where people don't want to leave, would mitigate the risk of that happening too much.

Encouraging him into accountancy is mad. It’s the top job on the automation kill list. I would suggest he becomes a stock broker. Being business minded is essential to success in this field and the earning potential is phenomenal. Of course this is also under threat by automation (as are all professional jobs) but not in the same way. From stock brokibg he will be able to move on the banking or fund management if need be. But he will need a degree. All jobs with a decent salary require at least a bachelors these days.

Encouraging him into accountancy is mad. It’s the top job on the automation kill list.

I think that applies very much to the lower ranking bookkeeper type role but far less so to the higher level where it is all about professional judgement and using expertise to interpret situations and work out the best way to do things. I.e. the black and white bit can be automated but accountancy really isn’t as black and white as it appears to outsiders.

Racecardriver - his father suggested that he went onto the football management course ... I was just pleased to get to him in time and suggest he took the business management course. He i s in the enviable position of being an only child, with parents who saved as much as possible and bought houses in various European countries - so once I am gone, the income from that alone will be enough to keep in reasonably well. I know what you mean though, but I really need him to have some sort of professional qualification, even if he never uses it and subsequently goes into stock broking or some other area. This is the first time he has shown any real enthusiasm for studying, and I don't want to stop him.

He had a phone interview this morning, and was told they would let him know by Friday if they want to meet him for a face to face. Within an hour of the phone interview, they called back and he now has an appointment on Tuesday next week.

THank you everyone for your comments - it kind of shows that a will to succeed is almost as important as the qualification in some instances.

Definitely try Big 4 they all have school leaver programmes with decent pay these days.

I don’t agree that accountancy is a bad choice. Some areas will become completely computerised but people will always need business advice, help with tax returns, audits carried out, VAT returns etc. I know several local companies that are crying out for junior accounts staff. AAT is a good starting point and shows a real commitment to further training, especially if high marks can be achieved in the exams.

Is your son good with attention to detail at repetitive tasks? Does he communicate well?

If he doesn't need money, why not let him study what he wants? Why do you 'need' him to have a professional qualification? People have described lots of good options but the motivation has to come from him whatever he does.

I hated accountancy. My degree is accountancy and I had a graduate prongramme with KPMG but it wasn’t for me. Boring. I re trained at a math teacher which is love.

I didn’t find accountancy hard, but it was monotonous. I was working mainly with auditing though - other areas could be better.

I only did a quarter on the graduate programme so perhaps it gets better when chartered. Maybe he should write to some local accountancy firms and ask for work experience.

Encouraging him into accountancy is mad. It’s the top job on the automation kill list

There is no way that accountancy roles can be automated. Maybe the book-keeping, accounts payable type of stuff could be, but I would not even call that accountancy.

Some technical accounting roles require interpretation of accountancy standards and regulation. A robot cannot do that. The more commercial accountancy roles, involve skills of interpretation, communication, finance strategy, advice etc., also not possible for a robot to pick this up.

Definitely consider a finance apprenticeship with a local authority - for all the reasons given by previous poster.