Case studies: Faculty accountant: Nazrul Mannan

Nazrul graduated in economics, and is currently a faculty accountant at the University of Essex.

I graduated from Staffordshire University with a degree in economics. I had already decided that I wanted to do certified accountancy and had started to study for the professional exams before applying for jobs. This was certainly a help in getting a job as employers saw it as demonstrating my commitment to the profession. I did my training contract at Newham College of Further Education before moving to Colorama, Del Monte and Kendro Laboratory Products. I am currently a faculty accountant at the University of Essex.

I chose certified accountancy as it gave me a wide range of career options and the opportunity to take a broad overview of organisations; looking inside a business, how its processes function, its history and understanding of what the future holds (forecasting) and being involved in strategic decision-making. The profession allows you to work in any environment and I have been privileged to have worked in many different areas within accountancy, namely financial, systems, and management accounting. I have worked in education (public sector) and industry. It is possible to change your specialist area within accountancy, e.g. financial accounting to management accounting to systems accounting, etc. You may do this within the same organisation to start with but can then move on. Likewise, it is also possible to move between industries.

Accountancy is often seen as being boring and desk bound, just number crunching. Although my job is office based, I do get to work with a wide range of people and on a number of different projects. The work is varied and demanding and I get the satisfaction of helping my organisation make the most effective use of its resources and move forward. For me, it was definitely a good choice.

Accountancy is becoming more competitive and employers will pay more attention to the skills you can bring than to your degree subject. Commitment is essential, particularly while you are taking your professional exams; I came home from a day’s work to spend most evenings and some weekends studying. A good company training scheme that includes study leave and support can be a great help so it’s worth considering the whole package offered by an individual employer and not just the starting salary.

In the finance field, things change all the time and even after qualification I am still expected to keep up to date. ACCA has a formal requirement for continuing professional development which is much broader than just accounting knowledge and technical updating.

In an economic downturn many people think that jobs in finance will disappear but there will always be jobs for professional accountants. At present specialist areas such as risk and insolvency are growing as firms struggle to cope in a more difficult climate. Any organisation has to monitor its spending against its budget and plan for future profit or surplus to provide a cushion against potential difficulties, if it doesn’t do this effectively it goes out of business. As an accountant that’s where I come in.