A job in accounting/finance with no experience

Blinking_Giraffe

AAT is the way to go. It can be done at evening classes twice a week and you will find it interesting as well. It's very hands on and pratical in that it will actually teach you the basic skills you will use and then more on top i.e costing, financial accouinting to give an all round knowledge. This would be the best qualification for people with no experience looking to get in at entry level. Your employer might even support you financially if they think its relevant to your current role?

ACCA & CIMA could be done at a later date once in an accounting role. I started wit an O Level (showing my age here), A Level and the took redundancy to to a degree in accoutancy. Followed this up with the AAT qualification which I really enjoyed doing.

somethingcorporate

You did a degree in accountancy and then did AAT? that seems an odd order given a degree usually exempts you from a lot of exams in CIMA/ACCA etc. AAT is more suited for those with no prior background in finance or accounting if you already have an appropriate degree/job experience then straight into the chartered options are probably the best route to take.

Blinking_Giraffe

somethingcorporate wrote: »

You did a degree in accountancy and then did AAT? that seems an odd order given a degree usually exempts you from a lot of exams in CIMA/ACCA etc. AAT is more suited for those with no prior background in finance or accounting if you already have an appropriate degree/job experience then straight into the chartered options are probably the best route to take.

Hi, thanks for the reply. Of course, you are correct - AAT after a degree is the wrong way of doing things. The role I was doing at the time was a service costing role which I designed from scratch to measure profitability of our service contracts. I had spent 5 years away from the day to day running of an accounts office and as a friend was doing AAT and the company would pay for it, it was worth doing. Plus I was bored at the time and wanted to keep my hand in as the costing role was more of a unique role. CIMA was of no use to me as I wanted to avoid working for the bigger firms and wasn't that interested in a "highh powered" job. So, it was more out of interst that I did the AAT and I really enjoyed it even though the degree had covered all the topics before.