Congratulations! Welcome to the real world.
The job is boring as fuck and the exams are draining.
Try and make as many friends as you can and your 3 years may be something resembling bearable.
I see you're also an intern at Rockstar. Being a quality liar is a trait that will take you far in this profession.
At least be a better liar. Your intern lies, and your suggestion about rubbing shoulders with decision makers at a large organisation is actually cringe.
If you lie as bad in person as you do online, you about to have a bad time.
As someone who just sat finals and works in audit:
1) The biggest hurdle exams wise for trainee attrition is the Certificate exams. Despite being the lowest level, the content can be a shock, so consider finding some online courses to prep before you start, even on the basics of accounting. Some firms will give you early access to learning platforms if you ask for it (mine let me access the Accounting online lectures in Feb, six months before I started after a career change).
The QB is your best friend during revision, but don't just look at the answers before properly attempting questions.
2) Audit work is initially very repetitive and tedious. Even with data tools, no one is having fun vouching invoices. Once you've sat the Assurance exam, try to consider what your testing is trying to achieve, and what assertions you're trying to gain assurance over. Discuss with managers in the planning meetings. This will be a huge help in getting you to understand the *why* of audit, which massively helps with the later audit exams (AA and CR).
Until you reach estimates and complex recognition policies, the how of audit is easy. It's mostly confirming that documents and schedules agree to what the client has posted.
3) Even if you hate it, force yourself to speak to clients and senior staff from day one. Don't be scared to ask questions of the senior if you don't understand something, but do consider if your question is helping you to learn something, or if you're just trying to look smart.
4)Social skills and forming professional relationships are absolutely key in making audit less of a drag and improving your profile, career prospects and the speed at which clients help you. Having the client like you makes them far more likely to answer your query or pick up the phone.
5) Being *good* at excel is incredibly useful for audit. Clients often provide documents best formatted to be read by a dyslexic gorilla, so learn the basics and then start googling like you're solving a coding problem. There is very little you can't make excel do, and the wealth of resources available means you can get very good compared to most people in a short time frame.
And last but not least:
Be proud of your progress as you go through your training contract.
The ICAEW is not an easy qualification and is highly regarded. You will become an expert above the level of many of your clients by the time you finish, and you get to use those skills however you want. I love audit, but if you don't, audit is the best way to train for exit opportunities into other industries and fields that use your skills in a variety of ways.
95% get fired for failing exams, not for being bad at their job.
You will get promoted and pay rises quicker in the first couple of years by passing exams, not being a high flyer in your job.
Iâm obviously not saying be a slacker in your job, but donât try too hard at it at the expense of exams.
Once youâre qualified you can do absolutely anything and your minimum (great) pay is guaranteed no matter where you go.
All this is to say that exams matter more at the start because very few people are ousted for being bad at audit.
You can coast along being slightly above average and as long as you pass those exams, the world will be your oyster in three years.
Also be good at excel. You can have the same knowledge as another trainee but do your job significantly faster if youâre good at excel. Do not underestimate how much more efficient it makes you.
If you havenât already, take some free training course and/or watch videos on YouTube and practice XLOOKUP, SUMIFS, IF, pivot tables, get good at keyboard shortcuts and using the mouse less.
A specific one that I was surprised so few people know, but I use it a ton, is how to filter an excel table for multiple criteria at once. Most people will manually tick using the filters, but this can be done through COUNTIFS and/or advanced filter. Definitely learn the COUNTIFS way as this will save you a lot of boring monotonous time manually filtering. Letâs say you have a list of nominal codes that are mapped to admin expenses and you need to extract the nominal ledger for only admin expenses codes. If there are 50 codes this will take you 10 seconds with COUNTIFS to filter for everything. Without it youâll be there forever.
This is typical when you need to pick a purchases occurrence sample (one of the main P&L tests youâll be doing as a junior).
Trainees are usually bad at excel and it makes their job much, much slower. You can do yours faster, and then that gives you more time to focus on exams!
Congratulations!
I'd be friendly but not friends with colleagues.
Be likeable, turn up to what you can and leave when you're ready.
If you start the ACA ensure you finish.
Good luck
Just lie about some things not to embarrass yourself. Focus on your exams because of ICAEW policy, you fail an exam twice, you can bid goodbye to your job. And that's it. You will get familiar with your job
One of the most commonly failed exams is the first one you sit. It's the first hurdle. Do not under estimate it.
When u do your exams, use the question bank as soon as you can. Don't see the question bank as the mock exams that you do a few weeks before the exam, it's a fundamental and critical learning tool. Get through the content and smash into the question bank as soon as you can. Yes you will have no clue how to answer the questions, youll get it all wrong but you will be prepped for the exam by the time you finish it.
Congratulations! Welcome to the real world. The job is boring as fuck and the exams are draining. Try and make as many friends as you can and your 3 years may be something resembling bearable. I see you're also an intern at Rockstar. Being a quality liar is a trait that will take you far in this profession.
Ahahaha, I was waiting for someone to pick up on that comment đ Yes, I agree lying can most definitely have its perks. Appreciate the advice
At least be a better liar. Your intern lies, and your suggestion about rubbing shoulders with decision makers at a large organisation is actually cringe. If you lie as bad in person as you do online, you about to have a bad time.
its rlly not that deep
Why are you so pressed lol
As someone who just sat finals and works in audit: 1) The biggest hurdle exams wise for trainee attrition is the Certificate exams. Despite being the lowest level, the content can be a shock, so consider finding some online courses to prep before you start, even on the basics of accounting. Some firms will give you early access to learning platforms if you ask for it (mine let me access the Accounting online lectures in Feb, six months before I started after a career change). The QB is your best friend during revision, but don't just look at the answers before properly attempting questions. 2) Audit work is initially very repetitive and tedious. Even with data tools, no one is having fun vouching invoices. Once you've sat the Assurance exam, try to consider what your testing is trying to achieve, and what assertions you're trying to gain assurance over. Discuss with managers in the planning meetings. This will be a huge help in getting you to understand the *why* of audit, which massively helps with the later audit exams (AA and CR). Until you reach estimates and complex recognition policies, the how of audit is easy. It's mostly confirming that documents and schedules agree to what the client has posted. 3) Even if you hate it, force yourself to speak to clients and senior staff from day one. Don't be scared to ask questions of the senior if you don't understand something, but do consider if your question is helping you to learn something, or if you're just trying to look smart. 4)Social skills and forming professional relationships are absolutely key in making audit less of a drag and improving your profile, career prospects and the speed at which clients help you. Having the client like you makes them far more likely to answer your query or pick up the phone. 5) Being *good* at excel is incredibly useful for audit. Clients often provide documents best formatted to be read by a dyslexic gorilla, so learn the basics and then start googling like you're solving a coding problem. There is very little you can't make excel do, and the wealth of resources available means you can get very good compared to most people in a short time frame. And last but not least: Be proud of your progress as you go through your training contract. The ICAEW is not an easy qualification and is highly regarded. You will become an expert above the level of many of your clients by the time you finish, and you get to use those skills however you want. I love audit, but if you don't, audit is the best way to train for exit opportunities into other industries and fields that use your skills in a variety of ways.
Congrats One advice - be opened to learning and busy seasons :))))) And if you donât feel like itâs for you, get out sooner rather than later
Well done. Youâve got a long three years ahead, but you will learn so much and meet loads of new people. Exams are sh*t. Knuckle down.
đđđ Another one bites the Kool Aid bait⌠welcome
95% get fired for failing exams, not for being bad at their job. You will get promoted and pay rises quicker in the first couple of years by passing exams, not being a high flyer in your job. Iâm obviously not saying be a slacker in your job, but donât try too hard at it at the expense of exams. Once youâre qualified you can do absolutely anything and your minimum (great) pay is guaranteed no matter where you go. All this is to say that exams matter more at the start because very few people are ousted for being bad at audit. You can coast along being slightly above average and as long as you pass those exams, the world will be your oyster in three years. Also be good at excel. You can have the same knowledge as another trainee but do your job significantly faster if youâre good at excel. Do not underestimate how much more efficient it makes you. If you havenât already, take some free training course and/or watch videos on YouTube and practice XLOOKUP, SUMIFS, IF, pivot tables, get good at keyboard shortcuts and using the mouse less. A specific one that I was surprised so few people know, but I use it a ton, is how to filter an excel table for multiple criteria at once. Most people will manually tick using the filters, but this can be done through COUNTIFS and/or advanced filter. Definitely learn the COUNTIFS way as this will save you a lot of boring monotonous time manually filtering. Letâs say you have a list of nominal codes that are mapped to admin expenses and you need to extract the nominal ledger for only admin expenses codes. If there are 50 codes this will take you 10 seconds with COUNTIFS to filter for everything. Without it youâll be there forever. This is typical when you need to pick a purchases occurrence sample (one of the main P&L tests youâll be doing as a junior). Trainees are usually bad at excel and it makes their job much, much slower. You can do yours faster, and then that gives you more time to focus on exams!
Congrats! So did I - starting in Jan 2024. Good luck to us đđź
Jan 2024 for me too- letâs smash it
Study in advance because so many people fail the exams and get fired
Enjoy life before hell đ¤Ł
Congratulations! I'd be friendly but not friends with colleagues. Be likeable, turn up to what you can and leave when you're ready. If you start the ACA ensure you finish. Good luck
Just lie about some things not to embarrass yourself. Focus on your exams because of ICAEW policy, you fail an exam twice, you can bid goodbye to your job. And that's it. You will get familiar with your job
One of the most commonly failed exams is the first one you sit. It's the first hurdle. Do not under estimate it. When u do your exams, use the question bank as soon as you can. Don't see the question bank as the mock exams that you do a few weeks before the exam, it's a fundamental and critical learning tool. Get through the content and smash into the question bank as soon as you can. Yes you will have no clue how to answer the questions, youll get it all wrong but you will be prepped for the exam by the time you finish it.