Prioritizing Articles or CA exams
What is more important during the training period?
Summary of today’s Newsletter
We discussed and compared the journey and approach of two fictional characters, Ali and Sarah.
5 Actionable advices
Prioritize studies but not over your reputation.
Be reliable and keep your stakeholders in the loop.
Stay disciplined.
Avoid unnecessary politics
One person, one client
Today I want to talk about two CA trainees, Ali, and Sarah.
Both work in an audit firm.
Ali is a geek, and he has a supreme focus on his studies.
His mantra in life is that ‘you can only succeed in life if you hold a CA qualification in your hands.’ Therefore, he wants to make sure that he qualifies within articles. He never sits late. Never avoids classes for work, no matter what happens. He would always avoid responsibilities in the firm to squeeze in time for his studies.
Fast forward, 3.5 years later, he did qualify CA within articles, but he now has a pretty well-established reputation for being an unreliable person. No one shares job opportunities with him. And he is struggling to land a job.
Sarah is a workaholic person, and she loves to work.
She sits late at work. She puts her heart and soul into preparing and reviewing audit deliverables. She loves to mentor young trainees and actively does that. Sarah leads all major clients and has an impeccable reputation of trust and reliance.
However, her paper status is quite unsettling. She still has 5 papers left with merely six months left in her articles. Despite her competency, she is technically ineligible to be considered for the CA-qualified job roles.
In my experience, I have met several students having characteristics like Ali and Sarah, and in both genders. And I am sure that while reading the above, you could associate it with quite a few in your circle.
Let me share my experience. I was neither of the above two trainees. I worked in EY. I qualified and completed my CA right at the end of my 3.5-year training period. I appreciated the significance of clearing CA exams, and, at the same time, I also understood the implications of entirely averting work for my career.
How what should you do to not be Ali or Sarah?
5 Actionable advices:
1. Prioritize studies but not over your reputation. So, I could not take all the classes I enrolled for. In my time, I did not have the luxury of online classes. That does not mean I left a lot of classes, but I also always used to evaluate the decision to take or leave a class based on a couple of factors:
Urgency and significance of work at hand – e.g. today is the report signing, partners at the client and deliverable deadline, etc.
Significance of the topic to cover and if I can do self-study to make up for the class e.g. consolidation, IFRS 9
Recorded or live. If it is live, then it's very difficult to take that live class in recorded form later.
2. Be reliable and keep your stakeholders in the loop. I always used to have good relationships with my seniors and managers and with my partner. This is also because I have a pleasant sense of humor :). In addition, I always kept my supervisors in the loop on the status of work. Mostly, people around would give you the leverage on delays in work, if you keep your stakeholders informed.
3. Stay disciplined. For most of my training, I came at 9.30 am/ 10 am. Remember, that in terms of work, 9 am – 11 am is not equal to 11 am – 1 pm.
4. Avoid unnecessary politics – most people have an affinity for getting involved in politics, and they also get noticed for them. Even though we might feel we are not under scrutiny. But trust me, every trainee’s or employee’s behaviour is under scrutiny. And nothing, I repeat nothing replaces your competence. No fun and no time spent chilling out with your seniors is a replacement for your commitment to deliver quality. And that affects your prospects to get quality clients and work.
5. One person, one client – At my very first client, my job in charge, Sajjad Bukhari, gave me a piece of advice for which I am always very grateful to. He said to me that during your articles wherever you go, you must develop/ invest in at least one significant relationship who knows you by your name, recognizes you, respects you for your work, and has your contact number saved. So that by the end of your articles, if you have 15 to 20 such people, you will have at least 20 people who can advocate and support you land work opportunities.
All the above are wonderful
But again there is a a lot culture difference in big 4 and other firm
in sense of grooming and development level we should to prioritize our goal according to ground circumstances.
As per mine if you are not in big four or some reputable firms in environment sense you should have prioritize your studies above the work but yes discipline should be there with you all the time when you interacting with external parties.
Regards
Jahanzaib Ahmad Tahir
Wonderful piece of advice