Anna R.
About me
| Anna R. | |
| Politics, Economics and Philosophy | |
| Philosophy, Politics and Economics | |
| Undergraduate | |
| Derwent | |
| 2022 | |
| United Kingdom |
My employment
| Audit and Assurance assistant | |
| Haines Watts | |
| United Kingdom | |
| Finance and consultancy | |
| Medium-size business (50-249 employees) | |
| 2023 |
More about Anna
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A day in the life of a Audit and Assurance assistant in the United Kingdom
Having real world job experience was so important, even when that experience was in a completely different industry to the one I was applying for.
Briefly describe the organisation you work for
Haines Watts is a top 15 UK accountancy firm specialising in owner managed businesses. We offer various accounting services to client such as tax advice, audit and assurance (my department) and business advice.
What do you do?
I work in the Manchester office as a junior in the audit department. This role is a graduate apprenticeship so on top of my role I also go to college and am studying towards an ACA (becoming a chartered accountant).
This means I go out to client offices and work as part of a team auditing their financial statements. Effectively this is checking that their accounts are materially correct and are a true and fair statement of the entity's financial position.
On a daily basis this involves performing 'tests' on various areas of a business's accounts. For example selecting a random sample of purchases from their ledger and checking these to invoices and other evidence to verify that they exist and that they have been accurately recorded. A lot of what I do in practice is looking at figures and details on one source and agreeing them to another source.
It can be repetitive at times but I find it really interesting taking a deep dive into the accounts of a range of different businesses and understanding their different accounting systems. I also get to regularly meet and work with a lot of new people by going out to a range of client sites. No two clients are the same so every new job that I go to will always present its own set of challenges which keeps things interesting too.
Reflecting upon your past employment and education, what led you to your current career choice?
I studied PPE at York for the very cliche reason that I wanted to be a politician. However, in between my first and second years I took part in one of the summer school programmes the Uni offers. I completed a course in 'International Trade and policy in the era of nationalism' at Aarhus University (over zoom because of the pandemic) and fell in love with economics.
When I graduated my initial plan was to do a Masters in Economics. Unfortunately due to personal reasons I ended up dropping out of this course after a month and took an impromptu gap year. During this time I worked in hospitality in York and applied for some grad schemes, among them my current role.
I chose accountancy because having enjoyed studying economics so much I wanted to do something in finance. Another selling point was the chance to carry on studying for a further qualification. The ACA is a Level 7 qualification which is equivalent to a masters degree and my employer is really supportive of me in the studies.
Is your current job sector different from what you thought you would enter when you graduated?
Throughout my time as an undergraduate I probably considered most careers in a serious way at some point, so I wouldn't say I expected any particular sector. But I'm not exactly surprised as from second year onwards I always ended up coming back to finance.
Describe your most memorable day at work
Doing a stock take for a client.
Part of our job as auditors is to check that the client business's statement of their stock/inventories asset on their balance sheet is correct. Therefore juniors like myself will perform stock takes on clients to physically verify the client's stock count.
I recently shadowed another colleague on one of these. From the start every single item of stock that we tried to agree to the count provided from the client didn't match. The client's list would say they had 6 units of item X and we would go into the warehouse and find 20. We ended up on the phone to our manager to come up with a plan.
It was decided to get as much information as we could, calculate the overall error from our sample and extrapolate that to the population to see if the stock error was likely to be significantly large.
We went back to the boardroom to take a break and crunch some numbers and my colleague nipped out for a coffee. While they were gone a member of the client's team came in with the company's financial director on the phone wanting to know what was going on and why his stock count was completely off. I had only been in the role three months so I was panicking, but I managed to calmly and professionally explain the situation and our plan to him. By the end of the phone call he was happy with our plan and personally complimented me, asking if I would be coming out to that client again.
We finished the count as best we could and then fed back to the client. A colleague of mine ended up going out again a couple of weeks later once the client had time to recount more accurately to perform a new stock take.
I was pleased to have seen and contributed to the problem solving process when a job had gone really wrong and proud to have acted professionally under pressure and thought on my feet when I unexpectedly had to speak to the client's FD.
What extracurricular activities did you undertake at university and what transferable skills did you develop through these?
Over the summers I took part in the summer school programme (as mentioned above) and then the student internship bureau's (now York Internships) internship programme.
My internship was in Digital Marketing with a York based sports nutrition company called Chia Charge. This is obviously a very different role than my current one. I really enjoyed digital marketing but found myself more interested in the business decisions and the analytics behind my marketing than the creative side (that said I did have a brief stint as a TikToker which I found great fun).
I was a member of SAGGY (Scouts and Girl Guides York) and got involved with a local Rainbow group as a volunteer. I was also Quartermaster and then Treasurer of this society, both of which gave me something to talk about in my applications for accountancy grad schemes in terms of experience handling cash and logging transactions. On top of that, I was lucky in that my current boss, who interviewed me, is a Girlguiding leader herself so this shared interest made me feel more at ease in the interview.
The other society I was a member of was Pantomime Society. I highly recommend this as the social and public speaking skills I gained from this are invaluable. In any role it's important to be able to speak to people over the phone, make presentations and communicate yourself clearly and appropriately. Doing pantomime acting was definitely a great way to develop these skills (if a little unorthodox).
What top tips do you have for York students preparing for today’s job market and life after graduation?
Don't feel bad for changing your mind a few times to find something that works for you, and take your time with making life decisions after uni. Try not to cave to any pressure to rush into something the second you graduate. There's nothing wrong with getting to graduation without anything resembling a plan and then making it up as you go along for a bit until you figure something out.
I got a part-time job in a pub during my first year and did this all the way through uni (lockdowns excluded). As well as being a great additional source of income and way to meet people, this 100% made me more employable when I graduated. Having that real world job experience was so important, even when that experience was in a completely different industry to the one I was applying for. Skills such as communication, team work and problem solving come into any role and a job provides examples to put on a cover letter and discuss in interviews.
For example, In my case I emphasised how my customer service background made me a good fit for an accountancy firm that aims to "build lasting, valued relationships" with clients and promises to look beyond the numbers.
I really recommend getting involved in societies too as getting a committee role can be a really easy way to demonstrate relevant experience for a more specific role.
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