I was wondering if you could highlight some of the specialisation available in the global industry after obtaining the CA qualification (the degree I am doing is audit focused).
I am from South Africa, and the only obvious paths here are to do a Masters in Tax or Accounting science. The universities are rather tight-lipped about what the curriculums entail.
Are there any general guidelines you could share with regards to the international trend and demand for post qualification specialisations?
Just to be clear, let me summarise your request. My understanding is that you are doing a first degree, with an audit focus, then planning to qualify as a Chartered Accountant in South Africa. You are also now considering a further qualification or specialisation.
So here are some considerations:
Where does your passion lie?
Always, always, this should be your starting point. It’s no good going for the most marketable experience or qualification in the world if it’s not going to fulfil your aspirations or suit your inherent strengths. I suggest that you compile a personal SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats). Call up experience from all aspects of your life: academia, work experience, leisure interests, extra-curricular activities, to determine where your strengths lie and what excites you. You can use your findings to map across to your ‘perfect role’. For more information to flesh out this exercise, read my article Your Career by Design, right here.
Further qualification?
You are, or you will be, of course, already highly qualified for the global market. The decision to take another qualification will depend to a large part on what you discover about your ‘perfect role’ and whether it requires further specialised study. And it may seem obvious but there is a risk attached to ‘putting all your eggs into one basket’ at such an early point in your career. Deep specialising at this stage will not take into account either your own personal evolution nor commercial developments. My advice would be don’t box yourself in too soon; at the very least get some hands on work experience in your chosen field before you add another qualification to your repertoire.
Specialisation by experience, on the other hand, comes in all shapes and forms: by industry (say, financial services), by role (audit, tax, IT), by organisation (public sector, global, practice, industry). And that’s just for starters. It could be that by doing the exercise above you come out with a very obvious match, say tax (perhaps because you’re looking for a technical role with strong intellectual challenge) which takes you clearly down a particular path. But it is likely at this stage in your life the match won’t be so clear cut and you are left with the possibility of a number of different paths to follow. Don’t despair! This is why a high percentage of graduates choose a broader base to start with – like audit, where they can develop a wide range of transferable skills. A couple of years in, this puts you in a great position to make an more practically informed career choose with the benefit of hands on experience. You might choose to make audit your long term career specialism or you may select aspects of this early career choice to develop into deeper expertise in another field.
Specialisation is important. But it doesn’t have to happen at once. The trick is to find some specialisation in whatever you choose – to give you your USP (unique selling proposition) – but build a broad range of softer, transferable skills at the same time.
Global trends and marketability
And it’s these softer, transferable skills that are really going to count as we move into the second decade of the 21st century.
While the traditional fields of public accounting and auditing, cost or management accounting, internal auditing, taxation and corporate recovery still figure, some new accounting specialisations are emerging. The post Enron world requires increasingly, assurance services for quality control and risk assessment as well as forensic accounting and fraud detection. Additionally environmental accounting is a big growth area. And e-commerce continues to flourish and will have huge impact on work in the sector in the future.
Vastly improved technology itself means that accountants spend more time on financial analysis, adding value to the business and to their role. A role which is broadening as the corporate world continues to globalise, becoming more team-oriented and business practices develop increasing complexity. All of this will require a more diverse skills base from flexible interpersonal abilities to project management and adroitness to change.
Any experience you can leverage right now on the transferable skills front, will stand you in good stead in ultimately securing Your Career by Design.
And a last word on geographical demand, check out our Location focus series, where you can see the trends and demands in countries from Australia and Greece, to the Caymans and the Middle East.
Happy designing!
This Q&A first appeared on the audit agony audit page in CareersInAudit
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