At this time, Mitchell Adam have three fully qualified AAT consultants, something that benefits our clients, and ultimately ourselves. The business have recently added another strong asset, in the shape of an ACCA (Chartered Certified) Qualified Consultant.
Why would an Accounting qualification support someone in a recruitment role, especially at Chartered level?
Benefits to our clients
One of the main reasons is due to the heightened level of understanding and interpretation of the deliverables within finance roles, as our consultants have had direct exposure of working within finance functions of various sized organisations.
Our Consultants are able to expertly interpret a client’s needs, in particular, the role specifications, this ensures when sourcing for the opportunity there is a distinct advantage of being able to identify a level of relevance and appropriateness for candidate submission.
This then leads on to another benefit, candidate engagement. Due to the Consultants experience within different sectors / size turnover companies, they are able to ensure that the role and sector are specific, explained concisely and in sufficient detail, which gives the candidate confidence when weighing up whether to ask for representation / consideration.
Benefits for future ACCA consultants
If you are considering studying ACCA, there are a number of ways the qualification can benefit you as a financial sector recruitment consultant:
- Good way to use the qualification you’ve spent time working towards in the event you don’t want to continue working in an accounting role
- Who better to advise clients on Qualified vacancies than a Qualified Accountant?
- The ability to gain a great understanding of what a client is looking for, as you have faced similar issues or responsibilities before / or even been a hiring manager in the past
- Understanding the technical competence of a candidate and having the skills to test their abilities, similar to a first interview – this is a strong risk mitigation technique that will give confidence to the client that the candidates are relevant and have the desired technical skills
- Help you to gauge how different each sector is and how recruiting into different sectors requires other skill sets
- A chance for someone who doesn’t necessarily enjoy the day to day of accounting and wants more of a commercial, strategic role where they can still use their qualification
- As a Consultant you will run your own desk, not having a set number of tasks to do or deadlines to hit month in, month out
- Receive financial benefits dependant on the work you put in along with incentives that might not be available in a more corporate environment.
“The ACCA qualification has given me a great platform on my transition into Qualified Financial Recruitment. Coupled with gaining experience within finance functions in both practice and industry over the past five to six years, has given me a breadth of exposure to different sectors, so enhances my ability to understand and interpret economic factors and market change.
A real strong adage has been my experience of being surrounded by qualified individuals day to day in a Top 5 Accountancy firm and a FTSE 100 organisation; it really enhances my ability to know what ‘good’ looks like. Whether that be work ethic and personality, the ability to liaise with senior stakeholders, or the ability to interpret financial results and present that to non-financial stakeholders, the list is endless.
I feel the transition to financial recruitment, albeit being very eye opening, the fact I can call upon my experience, has really benefited me in the early stages.
I have already been able to add significant value in a couple of early placements of niche technical hires, where the needs of the organisations were highly bespoke – which would have required the consultancy level of a very experienced senior financial recruiter. By having fundamental knowledge of certain roles due to my financial experience, I was able to identify strong, suitable options for the client that can meet a plethora of different deliverables required within the bespoke roles. This all stemmed from the initial candidate screening process, as I was able to interrogate the candidates underlying experience in detail, which ensured they had the transferable skills to succeed in the roles. A win-win scenario for both the client and the candidate.
If you are not enjoying the finance day to day, and have attained a Chartered Qualification in Accounting, the transition to Recruitment is a realistic and viable option where you can instantly add value and use your experience for great use for the near future.
It’s great to be able to call upon my previous experience, but to note, there is no substitute in financial recruitment for creating strong relationships with clients, and providing an honest, high level process and service.
I would be more than happy to have a very open conversation with anyone undergoing the consideration of such a change in career.”
– Dan Horton ACCA, Consultant, Qualified – Senior Appointments
0121 651 1235