Ekaterina K.
About me
| Ekaterina K. | |
| Management | |
| Accounting, Business Finance and Management | |
| Undergraduate | |
| 2015 | |
| United Kingdom |
My employment
| Graduate Trainee | |
| BDO | |
| United Kingdom | |
| Finance and consultancy | |
| 2015 |
Like this profile?
Add this profile to your favourites so you can return to it later from your account.
A day in the life of a Graduate Trainee in the United Kingdom
My career history
Head of Finance, start-up closing label, Lines by T 09/2014 - present
Activity Leader, Embassy CES Summer, Study Group 07/2014 - 08/2014
Financial Analyst Intern, Scrutiny Unit, House of Commons 05/2014 - 05/2014
Placement Student on Justice Select Committee, House of Commons 09/2013 - 07/2014
Assistant Financial Accountant, Dipstroy 4 Moscow 06/2013 - 07/2013
Where I hope to be in 5 years
My main goal is to become a certified chartered accountant, which takes roughly three years.
My advice to students considering work
I would certainly recommend students starting their recruitment and job market research as early as possible as it can be a very time consuming process. If you are uncertain about what particular role to go for, just outline your current skills and competencies and than try and match them to a role you want to go for. This will help you choose the role that fits best to your abilities. When it comes to the actual recruitment process, practice as much as possible in order to get used to the process. It is important to do a self-evaluation and seek feedback after your interviews in order to achieve continuous improvement! Keep applying and the result will only be positive!
What I do
As a trainee, a lot of my time will be dedicated towards studying towards my ACA qualification, with the goal of becoming fully qualified in roughly three years, having passed all of my exams first time. ACA consist of 15 modules with exams over three levels. the first stage is the ‘Knowledge’ stage. This is made up of six e-assessments, which are multiple-choice exams. They test you on the essentials including accounting, assurance, business and finance, Law, Management Information and Tax. At Grant Thornton trainees usually sit the first four within the first four months.
The next stage also consists of 6 exams, however from this point onwards all exams are written based. This stage is far more technical and demands students to be more analytical and commercially minded. Once the first 12 exams are complete you can progress onto the advanced stage, this includes two technical integration (TI) exams and a case study.
What I like most
I like that audit is a very team based role, and would require a lot of collaboration with your colleagues and clients. I particularly enjoyed working in teams during my placement at the House of Commons, as an activity leader at an international summer school and during my time at the University.
I like the client-facing nature of audit, as I enjoy the challenge of conveying information in a comprehensive manner I particularly enjoyed dealing with clients as a placement students on the Justice Committee by actively engaging with the Members during the Committee’s meetings in order to understand their needs and preferences and then tailor my analysis effectively
A career in audit would also enable me to constantly learn something new, allowing me to engage in continuous progressive learning. For example, business issues, financial reporting and audit procedures.
What I like least
ACA qualification can be very demanding and tiring, as it takes a lot of your time. Audit also requires you to travel to clients, which sometimes can be based in the middle of nowhere, so getting there can be an issue. In these situations, having a car certainly helps!
Next steps...
If you like the look of Ekaterina’s profile, the next steps are down to you! You can send Ekaterina a message to find out more about their career journey.