SARAH T.
About me
| SARAH T. | |
| Economics and Related Studies | |
| Economics and Finance | |
| Undergraduate | |
| Goodricke | |
| 2006 | |
| Ireland |
My employment
| Senior Finance Manager | |
| Aviva | |
| United Kingdom | |
| Finance and consultancy | |
| Large business (250+ employees) | |
| 2011 |
More about SARAH
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A day in the life of a Senior Finance Manager in the United Kingdom
Graduate assessor willing to help develop your CV or answer recruitment process questions
My career goals when I graduated
When I graduated, I really wanted to get onto a graduate scheme that would enable me to gain an accountancy qualification within 3 years. I joined KPMG on their graduate scheme in September 2006 and by November 2008, I had first time passes in my ACA qualification. The first time passes made it a lot easier for me to then look for a career outside of practice.
My career history
I joined KPMG as a graduate in their financial services audit department in Leeds where I worked for 4 years. I then joined Aviva as an assistant manager and worked in a variety of roles for 3 years before moving to Yorkshire Building Society to set up and manage a finance team there. I worked there for 4 years and recently returned to Aviva to work as a senior manager in Finance.
What has helped my career to progress
I’m proactive in developing my knowledge and I’m not afraid to ask stupid questions. This means that I’m often seen as the specialist for certain topics and people will come to me for advice.
Courses taken since graduation
I studied for an accountancy qualification (ACA) offered by the ICAEW.
How my studies have helped my career
I’ve heard from people that you shouldn’t study a finance related role if you want to pursue a career in accountancy but I found that the accountancy exams were a lot easier as I understood the basic concepts. I’ve been involved in some complex models at the various organisations that I’ve worked at so some basic knowledge of statistics and financial modelling meant it wasn’t as daunting when people start talking about normal distributions and Black Scholes.
What surprised me about my career so far
When I started at KPMG, progression is very linear. You qualify and get promoted to assistant manager, then do a good job for a few years then get promoted to manager. Once you’re in industry this goes out the window and you have to take responsibility for your own career to gain those promotions. Often this means side way moves to understand more about different teams or areas of the business before you’re ready for your next promotion or in my case, I went to work for another company to develop the skills I needed for the next stage in my career.
Where I hope to be in 5 years
I love my current role as I get involved in lots of different issues and get to work with a variety of teams across the business. I would like to try and work in a more commercial team in future and influence how the company develops.
My advice to students considering work
Employers nowadays are increasingly expecting students to be well rounded and pursue interests outside of their study e.g. clubs, sport, work experience, part time jobs. Most employers use competency based questions for interviews so you won’t be able to answer them well if you don’t do anything outside of your degree.
Other advice
When I was at York, they didn’t have this mentoring scheme so I had no idea what the interviews and assessment centres would be like. I applied to quite a few schemes and used the earlier interviews and assessment centres as practice. I would advise you to apply for as many as you can to maximise your chance of getting onto a graduate scheme. Even if you’re not successful, the practice and feedback that they offer are invaluable.
Contacting me
I’m happy to help with any CV queries or more generally the kind of skills/experiences that graduate employers in the finance industry look for. I can also offer tips on assessment centres more generally.
What I do
I currently work at Aviva as a senior manager in a team that partners the business at understanding the financial impacts for projects e.g. mergers and acquisitions activity, as well as the impact of new accounting changes.
Skills I use and how I developed them
For a role in accountancy, analytical skills are key which I developed through my degree, accountancy qualification and on the job training. Soft skills are also very important to secure a graduate role in the industry so try and get involved in as much as you can whilst at university.
What I like most
I’ve worked in a variety of roles in different organisations since graduation. I love my current team because I’m always learning and there’s always a new challenge cropping up.
What I like least
There are some routine tasks that need to be done at financial year end which are not quite as interesting as other work.
What surprised me most
I was surprised by the range of work that the team gets involved in, having worked in a smaller organisation that was more U.K. focussed. Just the other day I was advising on a Canadian transaction.
Next steps...
If you like the look of SARAH’s profile, the next steps are down to you! You can send SARAH a message to find out more about their career journey. If you feel you would benefit from more in-depth conversations, ask SARAH to be your mentor.