ACA Training Contract Query

Hi All,

Can anyone tell me if accountancy firms only consider current year or recent graduates for training contracts for the ACA? I'm currently 28, have a business degree and a finance masters but want to change career track. Given the application deadlines are coming up I was just unsure whether I apply to the firms under the graduate system or if there is another way I am supposed to go. Basically am I still eligible for the grad programmes or am I past my sell by date to go that route?

Any help/info greatly appreciated - have spent the last two days searching sites and forums but could not find any info on this.

Thanks in advance,

J

Why don't you ring the HR departments of the firms you are interested in and ask them? This has the added benefit of allowing you to sell yourself and your skills, making an impression in advance, which most of the usual milkround crew in their final year of college will not do.

When I completed my training contract, there were a number of "older" trainees and they brought maturity and other experiences to the workplace which are very valued by professional services firms - its all about having a commercial perspective and new graduates need to learn this on the job.

I'm a bit longer in the tooth now and recruit regularly - I've found that ACAs who went back to complete th qualification after trying something else often continue to show the benefits of another perspective so bring value to the teams they work in.

Only possible downside in training later in life is that many of these firms have a very intense work/study/play hard culture - its almost like an extension of college with a lot of hard work thrown in so you'd need to be ready to handle that if potentially past that stage of your life.

Calling HR is a good idea, but in general anyone can, in theory, apply for graduate positions. The new age discrimination laws mean that it is illegal for employers to reject candidates on the basis of age alone.

Furthermore, anyone under 30 is certainly not "too old" for grad schemes. Many employers prefer hiring older graduates, because they have much more experience and often have more skills than younger counterparts. And you'll find that many people starting on grad schemes are older than 21/22 and may be up to 30 - 35, especially for professional jobs such as law and accountancy.

Have a look at this very useful website I use for graduate accounting jobs info - WikiJob.co.uk - there is also useful info here about graduate internships and placements, which may be something else of interest to you and assessment centres.

Good luck mate.

You would get a much wider range of replies if you read the Posting Guidelines and make the title of your post meaningful.

Brenan

I know your aware of the deadlines and i'm unsure how the firms will react to your application - i'd imagine they'd treat you the same as everyone else. You might as well apply to the bigger firms first as they are the ones who'll be more picky... the mid-tier/small firms may be much more receptive to you and thankfully you can go through the big firms interview process before you need even apply for the smaller firms.

The following list of deadlines might be of interest to you (firms ranked by fee income)...

PWC - 23rd October
KPMG - 23rd October
Deloitte - 23rd October
E&Y - 23rd October
BDO - 24th October
Grant Thornton - 24th October
FGS - 14th November
Mazar - 23rd October
RBK - 14th November
Horwath Bastow Charleton - ???
Baker Tilly Ryan Glennon - 14th November
HLB Nathans - ???
OFC - 21st November
OSK - 14th November

Plus theres plenty of smaller regional practices with graduate programmes with no explicit deadline or much later ones... Mulhern Ryan, Gilroy Gannon, MA Stephens, Kinnear, CrowleyDFK (Dec 12th), JP Greely etc...

Thanks for the info guys, has helped and re-assured me alot - much appreciated.

J