We sat down with four young CAs to look back on their early career experiences and hear useful insights for anyone considering training with ICAS. Find out why they chose chartered accountancy, the routes they followed into the profession, and how they balanced work and study.
Meet our panel
Sarah Dunsmore CA, Auditor, Audit Scotland
Sarah followed our graduate route to becoming a CA.
Robert McCall CA, Finance Business Intelligence Manager, NatWest Group
Robert followed our graduate route to becoming a CA.
Ruaridh McKenzie, CA student, Henderson Loggie LLP
At the time of recording, Ruaridh was following our graduate route to becoming a CA.
Rachel Alexander CA, ABAS Executive, MHA
Rachel followed our school-leaver route to becoming a CA.
Let’s start at the beginning. Why did you choose chartered accountancy as a career and what training route did you follow?
Just as there’s no such thing as a typical CA, there’s no one typical motivation for people choosing to train as a CA. Our panel had differing motivations for choosing chartered accountancy as a career. These varied from a desire to understand how businesses work, to wanting to work with both people and numbers.
Ruaridh had done some accountancy at school and had enjoyed being able to see what’s going on in a business by looking at the numbers.
Sarah’s motivations mixed a similarly analytical mindset with tapping into the human side of the profession: “I thought that it would be a career that would combine both the numbers and talking to lots of different people.”
The variety of motivations is matched by the variety of roles and opportunities the CA qualification presents, and that’s often what attracts people to the profession. As Robert noted: “I probably chose my employer rather than the profession. I looked across a lot of employers and NatWest group was one where they had lots of opportunities to go and do very varied things.”
And just as there’s no such thing as a typical CA, there’s no one typical route to the CA qualification. You can enter the profession straight from school, choose an apprenticeship route, or as a graduate with a degree in any subject.
Three of our panel had gone to university and one, Rachel, went straight from school: “I never went to university. I did it a bit differently and I went through the school-leaver a route and did my ICAS exams over the five years.”
As was noted, most of our panel had no real accountancy experience prior to getting started, proving that this is a profession that’s open to all kinds of people from all kinds of backgrounds.
What’s it like going from school or university and into the workplace?
Like any group of CA students, our panel started out in the professional workplace with a wide range of previous experience.
Some, like Rachel who started straight from school, have no previous experience: “When I first started, I really had no idea what to expect or what it would be like. I was more worried that I’d be out of my depth since I had no experience in an office or anything like that. But when you start from school, no one expects you to know anything, so everyone’s there to help.”
Some of those who enter as graduates have only their university experience, which is often more theoretical, rather than practical. While some, like Ruaridh, have previously spent time as an intern in a related organisation.
Internships often provide a flavour of what to expect and can help you to decide if chartered accountancy is the right career move for you: “[From my internship] I got a well-rounded taste of what it would be like in the workplace and working on different sizes of teams and different sizes of clients. It definitely helped.”
As our panel noted, whatever your level of previous experience, all CA students are fully supported from day one of their journey by both their employer and by ICAS.
It’s also important to remember that training with ICAS is not just about learning new skills, it’s also about joining a professional community that will provide support all the way through your career.
This community is built from the beginning of the CA journey and CA students often really benefit from the help and encouragement, support and experience of their student peer group – either fellow students in their firm, or others they meet in ICAS workshops.
As Ruaridh commented: “It’s really helpful to have people that you’re doing it with because obviously if you’re studying or you’re going through the same thing, if you’re working in the same sort of department, you can ask each other questions and share advice on revising and stuff like that.”
What’s it like balancing the workplace training, study and assessments?
The CA qualification combines work, workplace training, flexible online study and in-person workshops – all fully supported by your employer and the ICAS tutors.
Some of those on our panel had begun their training worrying that it would take over their lives but, as Sarah explained: “I went into it thinking I’m not going to have a life, my weekends are going to be written off. And I found that not to be the case.
“Don’t get me wrong, you do have to commit a lot of your time to study and making sure that you’re prepared for your exams. But I still went on holiday, had annual leave where I could celebrate birthdays, etc. As long as you’re organised and keep on top of things, that’s when you can do all those things.”
All CA students, like our panel, develop their own strategies for balancing the work and study. These usually involve simple fundamentals like good time-management and being generally organised.
Students are also helped by the flexibility of ICAS’ online, on-demand learning, the feedback and support from their tutors, and the support and study-leave provided by their employers.
As Robert noted: “It’s structured to allow you to learn from the ground up, the very fundamentals. And then you build on that throughout the three-to-five years to make sure that you come out as a fully rounded accountant.”
What advice would you offer to someone considering training as a CA?
We finished by asking our panel to share advice for anyone who’s considering what’s next in their life and career.
Robert’s advice centred around choosing something that interests you and highlighting that the variety presented by the CA qualification means there’s usually something in it for everyone: “I think the best advice I received is to make decisions based on what you think you’re going to enjoy. Whether you’re thinking of starting CA training straight from school or going to uni first, if you’re joining a Big Four firm or working in industry, if you’re making the decision based on what you think you’re going to enjoy and find interesting, that helps a lot.”
Sarah’s advice was useful to anyone who’s considering a move but perhaps thinking too much about where exactly it might lead: “I would say to my younger self, take every opportunity. If a door opens, go through it. You just don’t know where your career is going to go.”
Hear the full conversation
This panel session was part of our Career Conversations series. Watch the video for the full conversation.
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