Tutoring - Career cul de sac?

Hello Daniel

It seems to me that before making a career move such as the one you are considering you ought to step back and consider all available options from a long term perspective. From your question it appears you are considering this as a short term move. I would suggest that making  a move into training could put you at a disadvantage in the market place if you are still considering the option to return to industry (FTSE?) in the medium to long-tem.

Is there a better approach to your current role? Have you considered whether you need to redefine how you go about your role and get better at leading as opposed to micro managing everything? I would recommend a mentoring and leadership programme that will help. In fact quite a few FCs from FTSE companies are already on it. You can email me to find out details by clicking on my name at the top of the reply.

Jonathan

 

 

So basically, the answer to my question is "yes"! I'm not looking at the move as a short term one, I am just trying to plan for the fact that I may discover it was the wrong move. I am pretty sure that I would love the job, I am just wondering about the longevity (e.g. progression within the organisation, earning potential etc.), and don't want to find I have made a move that is difficult to go back on. With regard to the rest of your comment, I honestly don't think the solution is my approach to the job. The company I work for has a pretty entrepreneurial culture, despite being a listed company, so we tend to have the difficulties associated with owner-managed companies as well as the reporting deadlines and compliance requirements of a listed - hence the impact on my workload and working hours! So possibly the answer is an FC role elsewhere (this is the first FC role I have undertaken) is the better solution...?

My advice would be that the 'discovery' bit should take place now as opposed to finding out that you were wrong post moving. By this I mean objectively assessing your personal values and career preferences. The deeper you dig into what actually makes you tick the more likely you are to have a clearer sense of your longer term career preferences.

I am consulting a colleague of mine who has worked for one of the training companies and see if i can get some useful info on remuneration and career prospects.

By the way I have spoken to a number of FTSE FCs and the issues/pressures that you are describing in your role are prevalent in most FTSE companies. But here is the rub, you can change it and step up with the right kind of support. I have a case study of a FTSE FC if you would find it useful. Its in PDF so I can only send it through if you email me with your email details.

Hope this helps.

Jonathan

Thanks Jonathan, I have sent you a message

Hello Daniel,

Sounds like you need a booster to your life.  Many accountants are facing this mid-life crisis and it need not be so.  You can pick up new skills that can make your job much easier.
 
One of the biggest problem is that we cut and paste the monthly figures from our accounting system into an excel spreadsheet to generate the required reports.  This is tedious and error prone. With just some excel functions and organisation of data, you can automate these reports, completing it within minutes.

Secondly, you can develop instanteous what-if budgets allowing you to simulate the various changes instantly without recoding your spredasheet.

Now you can get your work-life balance and complete your work and still leave you with time to do more for your company.

So why do most accountants still cannot automate their reports after attending excel classes? The reason is that these classes would teach you the functions but not how to string these functions together to get the desired results. It is like reading the English-French dictionary and then trying to write a love novel in French.

Such a course is rare to find, as it requires a person with indepth knowledge of Accounting and IT to bridge it.  Secondly the course must be simple and does not involve complex coding or programming. This course by ICAEW may provide you the answer.

Jonathan, Daniel, I was drawn to the subject of this post as im facing precisely the same issue - Jonathan your thoughts would be most appreciated. Rightly or wrongly, and I don't suppose I'm the only one, I probably fell into joining a Big 4 firm after university. It seemed the logical next step - kind of a half way house between university and work in the knowledge of how powerful the ACA qualification is. I must stress, I don't regret my decision at all, particularly in light of current economic conditions, the trouble is that the vast majority of available options post qualification don't particularly appeal to me. The path I have kept revisting in my head over the last year is tutoring, primarily because I believe job satisfaction would be greater than anything on offer. The working hours when compared to just about everything else would also be favourable (both are key to me). My only concern (and this may come across as being rather shallow) is the long term financial reward on offer in tutoring. I understand the reward on offer as a new starter is marginally better than a newly qualified salary in the Big 4, however my concern lies in the longer term. I understand there are ways to supplement earnings through taking on additional responsibilities but your thoughts on this would be hugely helpful. Many thanks and Regards Anon.