Pros
- You're given a lot of responsibility from day 1 - You work as part of the team & there's usually someone who's happy to help if you're stuck - Opportunity to work with some clients across a range of sectors - Good office with good quality laptops, coffee & tea facilities, etc.
Cons
- Stress: There is rarely a day when you feel you can relax, even at the weekend, especially when it comes to studying for the ACA exams alongside balancing work. It will vary from person to person, but it's very difficult to get a work-life balance without feeling guilty if you give yourself time off - Supervisors/Managers: Again, these are really mixed. You can be luckily and get a great supervisor who's willing to help you learn ... or you can get a supervisor who expects you to be able to do everything perfectly with no guidance and patronises you for not knowing how to do everything. Don't get me wrong, I've met some lovely supervisors and managers but the poorer ones can really destroy your confidence. - Training: There is practically no training given to assistants. You are very much 'thrown in at the deep end' from day 1. I've seen other reviews call it sink or swim and it completely is . If you are confident in audit going in, you'll be fine but it can be a steep learning curve if not where you constantly feel underqualified. Some supervisors do not understand how little you know when you first begin and make you speak to clients about things you do not understand; this can make for some difficult phone calls (a good experience in some ways but not necessarily an effective way of training employees) Exam policy - ACA is a difficult qualification, but it's made harder by having only 1 week to learn 1000 pages of content for two exams (certificate level). Again, this is very much sink or swim, and does work for some people, but is quite restricted for people who take longer to learn concepts/have no prior accounting experience. - Travel: The amount of work/revision that needs doing outside of work is difficult to maintain at the best of times, let alone when you are constantly travelling to client sites which can be 1.5 hours either way. The policy is to find an assistant who is free to work the job rather than look at their location, which can make it difficult if you get allocated a job which isn't near to you (especially close to exam time) - Pay: For the work you're doing, the pay is very low compared to that of other jobs. This does improve as you qualify, but can make it difficult in the 3 years before this.