Jobs.

hinault

I was speaking to a colleague last week who lost his job last autumn.
He's in his 40's and worked as financial controller for 5 years in his last role.

The guy has applied for literally dozens of jobs and has registered with several agencies and 8 months later he is still looking for a job.

I've met several accountants recently who are in a similar boat to a lesser extent ie. they're only out of work for 3-4 months thus far.They too worked in industry.

is this demographic representative? Are there many accountants out of work at the moment?
Personally my view is that there are a lot of accountants out of work but my view could be wrong..............

thoughts?

Wildebrian

Not half enough IMO

tenchi-fan

There are plenty of accounting jobs.. if you don't mind going to Dublin or another capital city outside ireland. I come from dundalk and don't remember the last time I saw a half-decent job advertised.

smcgiff

hinault wrote: »

I was speaking to a colleague last week who lost his job last autumn.
He's in his 40's and worked as financial controller for 5 years in his last role.

The guy has applied for literally dozens of jobs and has registered with several agencies and 8 months later he is still looking for a job.

I've met several accountants recently who are in a similar boat to a lesser extent ie. they're only out of work for 3-4 months thus far.They too worked in industry.

is this demographic representative? Are there many accountants out of work at the moment?
Personally my view is that there are a lot of accountants out of work but my view could be wrong..............

thoughts?

Could be his age. More of a factor I imagine would be that he is unemployed. It is very likely that any FC position on offer will have other employed FC's going for it or employed Financial Accountants looking to step up.

Another factor may be that his FC experience is not suiting the FC roles that are on offer. While it's true that accountants can fairly easily take their experiences from one industry to another, there's probably enough applicants for an employer to interview from those with relevant industry experience.

Not that this may be easy either, but they may need to take a role at Financial Accountant level. This has its own issues, as companies will see him as over qualified, and his age will be an even bigger factor. However, the priority should be to get back into the workforce.

Have they had any luck with contract jobs?

Slasher

hinault wrote: »

Personally my view is that there are a lot of accountants out of work but my view could be wrong..............

You're not wrong. There are hundreds of unemployed accountants. Any time we put up a job, we get inundated with CVs from qualified accountants. Age has nothing to do with it. We get CVs from people in their 20s, 30s, 40s, and 50s.

You only have to look at the number of companies that have gone bust over the last few years. Most of them had FCs and maybe two, three or more qualifieds, depending on the size of the company.

smcgiff

Slasher wrote: »

Any time we put up a job, we get inundated with CVs from qualified accountants.

From the CV's can you tell how many are currently in jobs and looking to move and what percentage are unemployed?

smcgiff

Slasher wrote: »

You're not wrong. There are hundreds of unemployed accountants. Any time we put up a job, we get inundated with CVs from qualified accountants. Age has nothing to do with it. We get CVs from people in their 20s, 30s, 40s, and 50s.

You only have to look at the number of companies that have gone bust over the last few years. Most of them had FCs and maybe two, three or more qualifieds, depending on the size of the company.

Also, should be noted that Slasher's posts in this forum amount to "humour" or "the end is Nigh" and when challenged usually goes away.

Slasher

smcgiff wrote: »

From the CV's can you tell how many are currently in jobs and looking to move and what percentage are unemployed?

I would say most are unemployed, but I have not done an exact study so do not know the exact percentage.

Oh, and by the way, the end is nigh!!

hinault

smcgiff wrote: »

Could be his age. More of a factor I imagine would be that he is unemployed. It is very likely that any FC position on offer will have other employed FC's going for it or employed Financial Accountants looking to step up.

Another factor may be that his FC experience is not suiting the FC roles that are on offer. While it's true that accountants can fairly easily take their experiences from one industry to another, there's probably enough applicants for an employer to interview from those with relevant industry experience.

Not that this may be easy either, but they may need to take a role at Financial Accountant level. This has its own issues, as companies will see him as over qualified, and his age will be an even bigger factor. However, the priority should be to get back into the workforce.

Have they had any luck with contract jobs?

You speak a lot of sense.

Initially he held out to try to secure financial controller/manager type roles.
When there were no interviews, never mind job offers, he expanded his search to include financial accounting roles.

And as you point out potential employers - and lets be honest potential bosses - are not too eager to hire someone who could present a potential threat to their own position given his experience and ability.

It's a difficult one to square.

From what he tells me employers can literally demand that candidates have specific experience in specialist companies as a basis for selecting employees.
And given that there are lots of candidates for a tiny amount of positions, and his age/experience, start to become obstacles rather than benefits.

Thanks for your reply

kennyb3

My father is in the exact same position - aged 50, 20+ years PQE (ACCA) as a FC, excellent track record in manufacturing and publishing companies. He was let go after a takeover 18 months ago and could get nothing for nearly a year despite getting a few interviews. He is currently doing 3 days a week now in a small company just to tick over.

Shame really

hinault

Slasher wrote: »

You're not wrong. There are hundreds of unemployed accountants. Any time we put up a job, we get inundated with CVs from qualified accountants. Age has nothing to do with it. We get CVs from people in their 20s, 30s, 40s, and 50s.

You only have to look at the number of companies that have gone bust over the last few years. Most of them had FCs and maybe two, three or more qualifieds, depending on the size of the company.

Do you work in recruitment?

tenchi-fan

smcgiff wrote: »

Also, should be noted that Slasher's posts in this forum amount to "humour" or "the end is Nigh" and when challenged usually goes away.

lol

Slasher

hinault wrote: »

Do you work in recruitment?

Nope.

bigjohnny80

With the world ‘boom’ years, there was a huge increase in demand for accountants. This fuelled a student recruitment drive amongst the institutes. Read any of their reports over the last 10 years and you’ll see that increase student membership is high on the list of objectives. With extra students comes extra revenue.

We now have an overhang of accountants, the bodies need to club together and limit membership for a few years. However they are all ultra competitive with each other so it may not happen unfortunately. That sounds selfish on my part, and it is (!), but that’s the way I see it.

meforever

Sorry folks for
I am not trying to employ an accountant folks,but have always believed that an accountant would make a great business partner for any high octane business startup. Advise me here please ! Maybe this would this be an option for any unemployed Accountants out there.I am sure certain sectors within would be better suited to partnership in shall we say manufacturing.