So now you’re fully qualified! You’ve passed all your exams and done your time to become a fully fledged chartered accountant. But what next?

With over 6,000 newly qualified accountants this year alone, what you really need is a CV that’s going to get you noticed above the competition. Here are a few tips:

First impressions count

Aim for 1.5 – 2 pages but avoid using large fonts, double line spaces, and eccentric type faces to fill up the space and make it look longer – they didn’t work at school and they don’t work now! Ariel, Calibri or Times New Roman, in size 11 is the norm.

There’s a fairly standard layout for CVs, which is usually:

• Name, address and contact details, plus visa status where applicable, as a header
• A brief personal summary, where you work, your strengths, your goals etc.
• Education details (e.g. university, school, A-levels, GCSE grades etc)
• Any language skills and level of proficiency
• Your work experience, starting with the most recent first and working backwards
• Personal interests and achievements

Show your personality

It’s really important to express your personality as this is what often separates you from other job seekers. This doesn’t mean witty one-liners, more that you should add some detail on what you do outside of work so people get an idea of you as a person. If you’ve climbed Kilimanjaro, or knitted a blanket for charity, then that’s worth mentioning and it will really make you stand out from the crowd.

As a newly qualified accountant, your CV is more likely to be ‘chronological’ rather then ‘functional’ which is more common at the senior end when you are targeting a specific role or company. Your employment history on a chronological CV should follow the traditional format of: dates of employment; name of employer; size and business type; followed by your job title; responsibilities you’ve had and any specific achievements in the role. Try to avoid short 2-3 word bullet points – a coherent sentence for each bullet reads much better.

The best CVs for a newly qualified accountant in practice should also include your top two or three clients and what you did for them. Perhaps it was a specific IFRS conversion Or maybe you audited one of your clients’ overseas entities? It really helps to give potential employers a good feel for what you’ve done and the types of companies/industry sectors you’ve had exposure to.

Check – and then double check

Finally, read it and re-read it to check for any spelling mistakes and grammatical errors. Get friends, family or colleagues to give it a once over too before you apply for a position, because once you’ve pressed send, you can’t get it back!

ACA, CA, cv, CV tips, exams, ICAEW, Newly qualified ACA, Practice

What do the latest CIOT chartered tax advisor exam results tell us about the tax recruitment market coming into 2010?   With over twice the amount of people taking the exams being admitted to the institute than at the May 2009 sitting, what does this mean for the successful candidates and for those who haven’t passed? 

We have seen the in-house tax market pick up since Q3 2009, within banking and financial services in particular, although we’ve seen recruitment across a broad range of sectors.  We’ve also seen the ‘Big Four’ start to hire again into corporate tax teams in Q4 09.   There have been fewer redundancies during the same period and we have less people looking for jobs in tax who have been affected by redundancies which all indicates that the market is moving in the right direction. 

For people who have just passed their CTA, this is often seen traditionally as a career crossroads.  There are some good opportunities on the market but the best place to explore initially is at your own firm.   Will you get a pay rise or a promotion now that you have passed?  What options are available for you as an existing employee with a new qualification?   The external market is always worth exploring,  if only to benchmark your own package.

What if you haven’t passed?  My team have spoken to several people who haven’t passed their exams and none of these have had their contracts terminated by their employers (so far).   If this is widespread, then this is good news, as it will be yet another sign that confidence in the tax market is improving.

CIOT chartered tax, CTA results, exams, Financial Services, Secretarial and Support, tax jobs