MG410 Career Viewpoint Report: Skills for Accounting Career

This report, prepared for the MG410 Career Viewpoint module, examines the accounting industry and the skills necessary for a graduate to embark on a successful career. It begins with an introduction outlining the career path in accounting, followed by an analysis of general trends impacting the industry, such as globalization and technological advancements. The report identifies essential skills like commercial awareness, communication, and IT proficiency, and includes a primary research interview with a senior accountant to gather insights. The evaluation section assesses job opportunities and identifies a suitable position. The report concludes by summarizing the key findings and emphasizing the evolving complexity of the accounting field. References to relevant literature are included to support the analysis.

Career View Point

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
ANALYSIS AND APPLICATION.................................................................................................1
General trends that creates impact on accounting industry.........................................................1
The skills / knowledge and experience required for accounting career......................................2
Evaluation...................................................................................................................................4
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................4
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................5

INTRODUCTION
Career is termed as selection of a occupation undertaken for a significant period of time
by a individual in their life to grab various opportunities for progress. The project covers detailed
information outlining the detailed information regarding skills ad qualities that an individual
must possess in order to accomplish goals and objectives. I am a graduate and I initiated to make
my career in accounting field. For this propose I have to take a job related to accounting and start
my career. Their are number of job opportunities available in the market on the accounting field
and in this project on the basis of suitable skills and qualifications appropriate job opportunity
will be identified for a graduate candidate (Chen, 2018). Analysis of the industry in which
accounting job is performed will be made to access the current market in this project.
Requirement for skills, knowledge and experience will be identified so that suitability can be
made for the targeted job opportunity.
ANALYSIS AND APPLICATION
General trends that creates impact on accounting industry
As a commerce graduate candidate a career in the accounting field is one of the most
opportunist career to be chosen. As level of competition the business environment is on the peak
and economic conditions of various economies are not stable. This situation leads to non
availability of sufficient job opportunities in the market for an individual starting their career as
an accountant. Their are number of changes recorded in the business organisations and these
changes are creating some positive and negative changes in the accounting industry. Business
organisations are increasing their scale of operations at national and international level and this
leads to change in the accounting industry (De Vos and Cambré, 2017). At the present time
accounting requires high amount of accuracy and requirement of skills to manage huge data is
necessary in the industry. More and more amount of technological development is taking place
in the industry. This brings requirement for accountants to be highly aware of using various
software's for accounting to be work on.
In the present market requirement for accounts are made who are qualified to perform
different types of accounting and available with appropriate skills and knowledge to perform
their activities. Technological development requires technical awareness and high amount of
accounting regulations and guidance made requirement of complete of accounting standards for
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an accountant to be appointed in an organisation. More and more amount of competition at
global level requires effective accounting in order to make true and fair financial status of
business. A accountant who possess number of skills and is efficient to make the financial
statement accurate is required so that all the challenges of the competitive environment can be
taken in positive manner. Globalisation has generated huge amount of opportunities for
businesses and this eventually enhances scope for more job opportunities for a accountant.
Through globalisation number of business organisations starts operating at global level and their
national and international branches made requirement for accounting (Donald, Baruch and
Ashleigh, 2017). Together with number of opportunities globalisation brings huge amount of
threats to the job opportunities. As high amount of competition is created among business
organisation at national level and this serves with requirement of more advanced and effective
accounting system.
In the present time usage of more and more number of accounting system which are
performed through computers are made. As all the financial data is recorded in the computers
and processed thorough specific software used in the business. Requirement of accountants who
are available with effective information technology skills are provided with a preference to get
opportunity in business organisation to be appointed as a accountant at junior level. For example-
introduction of new accounting regulations by the government authority of a country will leads
to generation of demand for accountants who are available with knowledge regarding application
of these changes. When the general trends are considered then it is analysed that for an
accounting job an individual must be available with detailed knowledge of basic accounting rules
and also some advanced skills to make different amount of adjustments is required (Harris,
2016). An individual must be available with basic knowledge regarding preparation of financial
statement using different software to improve their productivity and becoming a more eligible
candidate for the job.
The skills / knowledge and experience required for accounting career
Research is made for the purpose to know what skills and experiences are mandatory to
make career as an accountant. Huge amount of data is collected from professional bodies and
thorough job advertisements made in the various newspapers a summary is prepared in order to
identify required skills for an applicant who is graduate and wants to make a career in accounting
field. Some of the key skills are as follows-
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Commercial awareness: This skills is one of the essential among all as it helps to
understand how and where business is operating to know suitability of the market conditions.
This also helps to know how a business is affected through economy so that preparation of
financial statement can be made by reflecting all the affects that marketing trend are creating on
business organisations.
Communication: As a accountant an individual must possess effective communication
skills. This helps accountants in preparation of financial statements with accurate information as
communication can be made with different departments to grab basic details. A accountant with
effective communication skills inform the appropriate authority for any form of frauds that are
made in the business to take decisions on time (Lipshits-Braziler and Gati, 2019).
Stability: At the initial level when an individual is starting with a career as an accountant
then some amount of stability is required to make a strong career. Changing jobs each year is not
appropriate and generating stability will help in enhancing skills and qualities of an accountant.
Resilience: A accountant must be willing to put all these hard work in their job. Starting
a career as a hard worker will generate effective amount of certainty in the career to become
stable and for generating more opportunities. Completing all the work and meeting deadlines is
one skill recommended to be possessed for an individual at initial stage.
As a graduate an individual must be available with some personal skills and
qualities. Here are some of the personal skills that are available to me. Description of these
skills are as follows-
Personal Skills Details
Self-motivation As an accountant an individual needs to perform multi-pal activities
and to perform all the activities self-motivation is required. Self-
motivation helps to perform each activity in better manner and
motivates an individual to work hard and grab several opportunities.
Team-working ability Organisations possess number of employees who are involved in
managing accounting activities. As a new graduate an individual must
be available with personal skills to perform with a team to work in
efficient manner.
Flexibility As a beginner in the accounting career an individual must possess
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flexibility in their operations so that good relationship can be
generated with their superiors. This also helps in taking effective
decisions based on experiences of professionals.
Good Judgement As an accountant a individual must possess effective judgement skills
to make accurate decisions while performing number of accounting
activities.
Listening skills A accountant must be present with effective listening skills so that
when guidance provided by superiors is considered and learning
capabilities are enhanced (Yinon and Orland-Barak, 2017).
An accountant must possess expertise in the area of accounting calculations so that each
financial statement is prepared in accurate manner to generate best suitable results. As per the
present market scenario expertise is required in the information technological skills while
preparing financial statement. IT skills helps in preparation of financials results in easy and more
accurate manner.
Primary research: -
Primary research basically involves the process of collecting fresh and new data from the
people that belongs to a particular area over which study is being conducted with the help of
interview, questionnaire etc. For gathering the primary information an interview is performed
with a experienced accountant:
Name of contact Mr. Johnson
Company HSBC Holdings Plc
Job tittle Senior Accountant
Date of contact 15/03/2020
How did you contact them I attended an event where different people
expertise in finance and accounting field are
being invited for guiding the students foor their
future. There I meet with a senior accountant of
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HSBC holdings to whom I asked some of my
queries related with future career path for
getting suggestion in this regard.
Question asked 1). What kind of skills a good accountant
required to perform job?
2). Does it involve growth scope, if opt as a
career option?
3). What are several advantages that an
accountant gets?
4) What are several trends in accounting as
profession?
Summary of response By having this conversation, I came to know
that accountant job has a wider scope as
companies are expanding their business by
taking advantage of globalization so they
require more skilled accountant to maintain
they financial records. But to get a job an
accountant must possess analytical skills, have
understanding regarding several accounting
tools, related software and principles to be
followed. Other then this, benefits of
accountant are also good as good salary,
medical insurance, maternity leave, life
insurance, stable job etc.
Despite of this, I also came to know about
several trends in accounting job that are getting
popular such as automated accounting process,
cloud based accounting, outsourcing
accounting function, role of AI etc.
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Evaluation
All the requirements of the skills and professional practices are evaluated and on the basis
of above details a suitable job vacancy is identified. A advertisement in the newspaper is found
for the job of junior accountant in Broadsword Event House. I am interested in this job because it
is a small organisation and requires accounting services at junior level. As scope of personal and
professional development is quite well. In future with the emerging role of accountants I am
interested to become a financial analysis or advisor to different business organisations.
CONCLUSION
From the above project report it has been concluded that business environment is getting
more complex for accountants to garb a job with minimum skills and qualification at initial
stage. Market analysis is made to identify basic skills and expertise that an individual possess in
order to ensure that all requirements can be mate. Changes in the market is taking place and these
changes are initiating requirement of different skills to meet competition. All these skills needs
to be analysed so that suitable job can be identified.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Chen, M. J., 2018. Scholarship-practice “oneness” of an academic career: The entrepreneurial
pursuit of an expansive view of management scholarship. Asia Pacific Journal of
Management. 35(4). pp.859-886.
De Vos, A. and Cambré, B., 2017. Career management in high‐performing organizations: A set‐
theoretic approach. Human resource management. 56(3). pp.501-518.
Donald, W., Baruch, Y. and Ashleigh, M., 2017. Boundaryless and protean career orientation: A
multitude of pathways to graduate employability. In Graduate Employability in
Context (pp. 129-150). Palgrave Macmillan, London.
Harris, C. J., 2016. Towards a career view of police misconduct. Aggression and violent
behavior. 31. pp.219-228.
Lipshits-Braziler, Y. and Gati, I., 2019. Facilitating Career Transitions with Coping and
Decision-Making Approaches. In Handbook of Innovative Career Counselling (pp. 139-
156). Springer, Cham.
Yinon, H. and Orland-Barak, L., 2017. Career stories of Israeli teachers who left teaching: a
salutogenic view of teacher attrition. Teachers and Teaching. 23(8). pp.914-927.
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