Dear fellow accountants, i am in kind of a very unique problem if i may say.

I am a fully qualified ACCA member and currently in the process of migrating to australia (Melbourne/Sydney not sure). I did my ACCA while i was in UK as a student and lived there for about 4 years. Post that i worked with EY for few months and then took up a managerial position in a BPO company that does Finance & Accounting work for NHS in India & UK.

I have been working here for over 5.5 years (currently serving notice) and have overall post qualification experience of over 6.5 years. Now coming to my actual problem, does working in BPO kind of setup count as an actual accountant job in Australia. Not to forget, I have been largely in management role therefore more involved in budgeting/forecasting and strategic planning, so not sure if i can actually try to get senior accountant/team lead roles. Infact I am not even sure what kind of roles I should be applying for.

Another unique feature of my problem is, I have lived in UK and working for the UK company for all these years therefore feel well attached to the UK culture, however you think being from India may play a bummer??

Sorry may sound real stupid and immature questions, but i m just so freaked out with almost every forum being synonymous about weak market in Australia, don't know if its the right thing to do to migrate...Help

Regards

Zahon

The market is tough for accountants, it is important you come here knowing that and have enough funds to tide you over for a good six months I would say.

Being from India won't be any kind of showstopper, but you certainly should emphasise your UK experience on your CV, as undoubtedly it will be a plus versus Indian experience. And I do not say that is right, or it is my opinion, but simply a statement of fact.

I don't know what a BPO is. Perhaps don't use that acronym on your CV.

In terms of experience, I don't know what your question is. You have done budget, forecast plans .. so we do those in Australia too and some people will be team leaders.

Good luck.

If by BPO you mean Business Process Outsourcing, I have seen few of those roles come up in Perth (some sort of local team lead for outsourced accounting).

As BS says, the market is very competitive and need to budget for a year. I have local qualified friends who have been out of work for more than six months.

I would also put a 90% chance of having to requalify, for three reasons - your experience doesn't sound from a global corporation, a majority of students from UK I meet (as a tutor for ICAA) are ACCA and thirdly because you are Indian. The last one may sound petty but your folks from the sub continent don't do any favours when it comes to 'manufactured' experience and qualifications, though your UK experience may help.

Good luck.

Thanks BS and Joe for your prompt responses.

BS, i really admire your passion of helping out people on the forums here as well as your 'to the point answers. BPO as Joe mentioned is Business Process Outsourcing, which some just define as outsourcing or offshroing, etc. The reason for me being worried, we cater to 100's of clients at one go and therefore are part of Shared Business Services and have teams for various accounting functions like AR, AP, Reporting, Payroll, etc. Due to the team sizes, one gets to manage only a part of the overall function, for e.g. i was managing reporting and cash management for the NHS clients. My worry is, how to take this experience and compete with people who may have local exp/qual and experience which is more meatier i.e. involves everything including finalisation of accounts. From what i gather is you have been in Aus for sometime now, how would you play this card. I have been servicing NHS hospitals, you think i should make that very clear on my resume.

Joe, I work in a company that provides IT and BPO services to clients all over the world with our offices in about 16 countries therefore safe to assume it, as an MNC. Maybe too blunt on your view, but are you saying that people from the subcontinent including India are coming to aus with fake ACCA degrees. Dont know how does that work, cos ACCA is a global institute and therefore anyone who has an internet can go online and check for ACCA Members/Students credentials. However I am not here to debate, so would you reckon doing CA from ICAA may help? Being a tutor, how do you think it compares with ACCA standards and level of difficultly. And being ACCA member(genuine), would I qualify for exemptions (read somewhere i had to sit only for the professional level/5 papers)?

Really appreciate both of you to take time out and respond to my queries. Cheers.

Regards

Zah

I don't think there is any card you need to play. In larger organisations, it is completely normal to focus on one part of finance activity at a time. In large organisations, I should not think there are many other than the CFO who has dealings in the workings of the entire function. In smaller organisations, obviously this is different, but with your experience, you are probably better targeting larger companies. I would also suggest you target roles in a similar field to what you have been working in most recently. Once you get your foot in the door, you can maybe look for internal opportunities to get wider experience.



Think hard about this. You are a UK qualified accountant, why would you look to get a second accountancy qualification. There is a risk that by doing that, you are actually going to create the perception that what you already have is not worth the paper it is written on.

Thanks a ton once again BS for all your advise. Trust me, makes my stress levels come down a lot. To be honest, i am very passionate about my qualification (and I know you are as well, seen in your posts) therefore was never up for taking a similar qualification and spending the time and money on duplication.

So if i could posts my resume here, you think you maybe able to give me fair idea on whether it looks ok for Aus standards? and also what would you advise a novice like me who is absolutely new to the aussie job market in terms of approaching recruiters/HR/linkedIn etc.?

Once again i can only thank you enough, and hope that if our paths cross some day, can treat you to some drinks

Cheers

I am both ACCA and CA qualified, and I hold ACCA in high regard (better than the Australian CPA) but it is not which qualification is difficult, but what employers chose to recognise, which you have no choice over. Unless you have lateral experience within an MNC or have a very senior role at the C level, chances are that you will end up retraining again. Over the years I have had very fine students from the UK who are ACCA qualified and I would like to think am talking facts.

On the sub continent comment, yes, it is not unusual to get some one with multiple degrees from the sub continent and when you dig deeper you realise they don't even know what an accrual is, or looking for cash in profit and loss statement. I am not trying to scare you, but give you a more realistic picture of how things are.

You can leverage your EY experience easily, but they may require you to qualify as a Chartered Accountant. Alternatively, you can target companies like Accenture and IBM who have local contacts for their BPO clients. Accenture was recently looking for a Team Lead based out of Perth.

Cheers Joe. That’s a lot of useful information and gives me a good insight on what to expect. Yes, you are right about the expectations of local employers as they would rather have a CA affiliated with australian education, than anything else no matter how recognised they may be (like ACCA is getting its due recognition in India now)

You may be right on the fact that guys do mess around employment and qualification documents here, however with ACCA it is absolutely not possible. Therefore i hope any employer or recruiter does not have this kind of perception about an ACCA member.

Yes I will definitely try to showcase more of my EY as well as the current NHS experience. We are part of very complicated finance process, as you may very well know the public sector in UK is not the best governed. So have a very good exposure on the end to end side of finance however i will continue to do my research on the jobs available.

As a favour, would you be able to please have a look at my resume and give me a fair idea if it is ok for aussie job market. Also for my previous question, should i decide to do CA, do i have to sit for the whole professional level of 5 papers?

Thanks again Joe for your very helpful insight and advise.
regards
zah

I suggest you remove your personal/employer details and load your resume on razume.com or even Dropbox/Google Drive and post on the Whirlpool Jobs section here, you will get more feedback (I will have a look). I have reviewed some CV's there and you will get more ideas.

Also, if you have time see the threads relating to accounting in that forum, it will give you a better idea of the market from people who are employed and unemployed. There are more accountants than you will get in this forum.

If you have to do CA, yes, you have to do all the five papers.

Joe, I think you should read up on ACCA, check what both those Cs stand for before you tell anyone that they should qualify as a chartered accountant ...

And honestly, I think it is poor advice to tell a UK qualified accountant that they need to retrain. If you are a tutor, maybe it is not in your interests to discourage it. I am in business and know heaps of UK qualified accountants, at all levels, including ACCA and CIMA and nobody has needed to re do their qualification.

Australian employers are not stupid and understand very well that somebody from overseas is not going to have an Australian accountancy qualification.

Thanks Joe. Will definitely put my resume there and hopefully get some kind of feedback. Thanks for all your help so far, really appreciated. It would be really kind of you, if you could maybe provide your linkedin contact details, so that if we could network in near future.

Cheers and have a great weekend

BS, as always, I can see your passion for UK qualification and I really really hope that there are recruiters who feel the same about it.

Could i request you to please share me your linkedin profile, so that if possible we can network in near future. Appreciate all your help so far.

Thanks alot and have a great weekend.

I am ACCA (UK) qualified and you seem to deliberately ignore that bit and go ahead to tell me to read what ACCA stands for? How condescending? Assuming you are not being facetious, I know what the C’s stand for, and what they don’t. The ‘don’t’ bit is where the requalifying comes in.

It is petty, offensive and obnoxious to insinuate that I am giving the OP advice out of self-interest – it is not my business to go looking for students. Play the game, not the man. You may need to learn a few things about humility – not everyone comes here as a CFO or FD, a lot of people have had to take steps back (including what you call UK qualified), the fact that you do not know any or they are not in your circles doesn’t mean they do not exist. Even those of us who chose to retrain, you think it was easy? How about agreeing to disagree, without becoming dramatic?

The OP will figure this stuff out anyway, without us telling him. Have a pleasant weekend, anyway.

First post on this board; I'm CIMA qualified with 10yrs PQE, currently in a senior management position in a global business, looking to move from the UK to Australia.

From looking at jobs in Aus, they not unsurprisingly list the Australian qualifications CPA etc.

CIMA have a reciprocal arrangement with CPA Australia, such that for jumping through a few hoops and paying an admin fee, I can get my CPA letters and hence apply for Australian roles as a CPA, rather than as CIMA and having to rely on the potential employer knowing what CIMA is, or giving me the chance to explain.

ACCA may have a similar arrangement.

This is not retraining, just getting formal recognition from the Australian Accountancy body that my qualification is of the same standard and hopefully making life easier when job hunting.

ACCA does not have a similar agreement.

Employers know very well what CIMA is, it is Australia not Neptune. Employers also know very well that a British qualified accountant will not have an Australian qualification. You will no doubt come across many British recruiters and guess what other British working there too.

Somebody with ten years PQE and in a senior position in a global organisation has absolutely no need to get CPA recognition. It is not worth the bother or the two sets of fees every year. As I have said above, I do not know ANYONE in the real world that has done this. I am just going to tot up in my head how many British accountants I currently work with: 17.

And bear in mind CPA is very much the poor cousin to CA even in Australia. Good candidates have CA, the ones that took the easy option have CPA. There is no way I would replace CIMA with CPA on an application for that reason and frankly I wouldn't want people thinking it is the same standard! People would be more impressed with CIMA.