Career Change

Saint Sonner

I've been an trainee chartered accountant coming up to 4 years in september. I'm hoping (and praying) that'll i'll pass my FAE's and then once I have been accepted become a member of the ICAI.
I've become disillusioned and a tad bored with the profession and was thinking about changing my career. I was wondering if anyone has or knows someone who has done something like this and enjoyed it. If so how did they go about it?

PS the further removed the better!!!

Thanks

smcgiff

Sorry to hear your career is not all that you had hoped it would be.

You might get the answers you are looking for here, but if not you might want to consider going to a career guidance councillor.

Basically, what interests you... Can you get work/further education to get you up and running in this area?

djk1000

Have a good think about what you want to do, maybe look at masters degrees or graduate diplomas, see if anything takes your fancy. At least with the accountancy qualification, a lot of doors are open to you in business and management.

Have you thought about staying with accountancy, but doing something different within the profession? Maybe a change to industry or financial services would freshen things up for you.

tenchi-fan

Hi
I did most of my acca exams while I was working in practice. I hated it, left, and did my exams fulltime.
I got a new job and hated it too.
Finally after 6 months I decided I had enough. Went to australia to "find myself" but ended up feeling i left it too late and came home after 3 months. I was only 25! It was the perfect age to be over there!!

I came home and applied for a pretty dead-end job. My thinking was, I just didn't want to work in accounting. I said I'd go into the dead end job at the bottom and work my way up.
I got a job in a callcentre. I just turned into a messer who was always broke.
On the other hand, it did help me improve my skills in dealing with people, I guess. I mean effectively looking at customers queries as tasks to be dealt with quickly, and taking managers with a large pinch of salt. I was far too conscientious before (and I still am in a way!)

Now i'm 28 and back in accounting. It really isn't the worst job in the world!

I didn't like practice and I still wouldn't like it. I think you should give working in industry a go. Even a junior manager role might suit you. My advice though is it is very easy to get into a dead end job, and it can really damage your career if you do it too long.

PS if you haven't already gone travelling, you should definitely consider it. Just work abroad somewhere, maybe Sydney, in accounting. You might as well earn some good money now you're qualified.

kilburn

woohoo that is an inspiring post good man !

Now I know im doing the right thing

Jim2007

Saint Sonner wrote: »

I've been an trainee chartered accountant coming up to 4 years in september. I'm hoping (and praying) that'll i'll pass my FAE's and then once I have been accepted become a member of the ICAI.
I've become disillusioned and a tad bored with the profession and was thinking about changing my career. I was wondering if anyone has or knows someone who has done something like this and enjoyed it. If so how did they go about it?

PS the further removed the better!!!

Thanks

I know exactly how you feel and what's more I got out shortly after qualifying and have not worked in that area for over 20 years!!!

In particular, I remember one morning going through an audit review with one of the partners and thinking that I was wasting my life on this and that all I had to look forward to was another 40 years of this! So I quit!

I was very interested in computers and software engineering in particular and with out any formal background in it, I managed to get a job coding and I never looked back.

Bottom line, find something that interests you, that you are good at and do it! You spend too much of your time working, to be doing something that you don't enjoy!

Good luck with that,

Jim.

Saint Sonner

Thanks for all the feedback they're all really helpful. Maybe travelling would be a good idea just to shower my head. I'd love to get into doing something more constructive with possibilty of travelling about but who knows i'll just have to be patient and see where my path finally takes me!