Maiki Lynch: Hey, there, I'm Maiki Lynch and I'm an accountant. And
Maiki Lynch: in this series from ACCA, I'm sitting down with some
Maiki Lynch: other accountants and people who work in finance to lift the lid on some
Maiki Lynch: of the common myths you might have fallen for about
Maiki Lynch: this awesome career path. This week we are looking at
Maiki Lynch: the lifestyle of a career in accounting and finance. Is
Maiki Lynch: it really high stress? Do you have to work all hours? And is
Maiki Lynch: it impossible to have a good work- life balance? Let's
Maiki Lynch: find out. This is By All Accounts. Questions about work- life balance are
Maiki Lynch: all the rage these days, especially since the COVID pandemic
Maiki Lynch: changed the way a lot of us work. And in
Maiki Lynch: the finance sector, it's no different. Does a life in
Maiki Lynch: finance really have to involve such sacrifice? I found two
Maiki Lynch: people working in the sector to ask, can you have
Maiki Lynch: a good work-life balance working in finance? First up, Clara Tooth, welcome.
Clara Tooth: Hi.
Maiki Lynch: And Shaun Fenwick, welcome.
Shaun Fenwick: Hello.
Maiki Lynch: So I'd like to start off by asking, is having
Maiki Lynch: a good work- life balance, is that important to you?
Maiki Lynch: Clara, can I come to you first?
Clara Tooth: Absolutely. Yes, having a good work- life balance is so important.
Clara Tooth: I would say myself, and I imagine a lot of
Clara Tooth: other accountants feel the same, is we work very hard
Clara Tooth: and we put a lot into our jobs. So I
Clara Tooth: think it's very important to have that balance of when
Clara Tooth: you go home, it's home and it's your time, your enjoyment,
Clara Tooth: all for you. And I think that helps get the
Clara Tooth: best out of you as well. If you're going all the
Clara Tooth: time and you never give yourself a break, you're not going
Clara Tooth: to be that good at work. You're not going to
Clara Tooth: be working to your best ability. So I think having
Clara Tooth: that balance gets the best out of you and makes
Clara Tooth: you enjoy your job as well. It's good to do
Clara Tooth: something you enjoy and that you love.
Maiki Lynch: Thank you. And, Shaun, can I come to you?
Shaun Fenwick: Yeah, sure. Work- life balance for me is very important.
Shaun Fenwick: I love traveling, going on holidays, seeing friends and family.
Shaun Fenwick: And we've all been in that position where we're overworked,
Shaun Fenwick: but that's not sustainable for a long period of time. Yes,
Shaun Fenwick: in accounting there's times of the month where we are
Shaun Fenwick: working longer hours, but you need to find a balance,
Shaun Fenwick: that's the key there, where you are happy to sacrifice
Shaun Fenwick: some of your time, but your employer is also happy
Shaun Fenwick: to sacrifice some of their time. And it's working both ways,
Shaun Fenwick: so I'm happy to work extra and take some time off,
Shaun Fenwick: and so does my employer. And it's finding an employer
Shaun Fenwick: that's able to give you that opportunity to have a
Shaun Fenwick: comfortable work- life balance. And I think I've found that
Shaun Fenwick: that's very important to me, for sure. I'm currently finance
Shaun Fenwick: manager at Brixton Brewery, which is a craft beer company
Shaun Fenwick: based in South London, in Brixton. What does that entail?
Shaun Fenwick: I guess finance manager, I head up the finance team
Shaun Fenwick: and it's just a small team of us, just myself
Shaun Fenwick: and a finance assistant. We are a subsidiary of Heineken,
Shaun Fenwick: so we work very closely with the team at Heineken
Shaun Fenwick: as well.
Maiki Lynch: That's so exciting. What made you choose that industry?
Shaun Fenwick: Well, originally I started as an accountant in practice working
Shaun Fenwick: for UHY Hacker Young over in Cambridge. And I was
Shaun Fenwick: halfway through my ACCA journey, having sat I guess six
Shaun Fenwick: or seven exams at that time. And as an accountant
Shaun Fenwick: working in accounts and tax, I was on the pathway
Shaun Fenwick: to becoming a manager and then up to a partner
Shaun Fenwick: level, and that was my aspirations at the time. But then
Shaun Fenwick: for me, practice was very compliance- heavy, so I was
Shaun Fenwick: working on accounts and tax for clients, but I was
Shaun Fenwick: quite limited in what extra or added value I could
Shaun Fenwick: add to those clients. Whereas industry on the other hand,
Shaun Fenwick: I'm working in a finance team in- house and really getting
Shaun Fenwick: involved in not just the compliance side of things but
Shaun Fenwick: the business management, looking at-
Maiki Lynch: So you've had a bit more of a breadth of work, working in industry?
Shaun Fenwick: Yeah, exactly. Getting involved in projects and being able to
Shaun Fenwick: see what I'm adding, if you like. So being able
Shaun Fenwick: to get really involved in the day- to- day financial
Shaun Fenwick: side of running this business, but then also the future
Shaun Fenwick: planning of the business as well. Being able to help
Shaun Fenwick: other departments within the business and watching the business grow
Shaun Fenwick: over time and I really value that, I think it's
Shaun Fenwick: great. Craft beer is a fun and exciting industry. It's an
Shaun Fenwick: industry that I've always loved outside of work, so why
Shaun Fenwick: not? And accountancy is a wonderful career path to take
Shaun Fenwick: and it does open up a lot of opportunities.
Maiki Lynch: That's fantastic. I'm going to go to Clara-
Shaun Fenwick: Yeah, sure.
Maiki Lynch: ... and just a little bit about Clara. Where do
Maiki Lynch: you work and what do you do?
Clara Tooth: I'm a manager at a firm called Accounts and Legal,
Clara Tooth: and I'm based in the Manchester office. There's kind of
Clara Tooth: two parts to my role. The first part is I
Clara Tooth: hold a team of 12 people, so it's my job
Clara Tooth: to basically make sure everything gets done, everything gets filed,
Clara Tooth: we don't miss any deadlines, support the team, develop the
Clara Tooth: team, help with training, checking in with them, making sure
Clara Tooth: they're okay. That's the first side of my role. And
Clara Tooth: then the second side is offering that high- level support
Clara Tooth: and advice for business owners. The team do a lot
Clara Tooth: of the groundwork, they get a lot of the numbers together, and my
Clara Tooth: job is to go and help explain them to business
Clara Tooth: owners and what they mean and how we can make
Clara Tooth: differences that will impact and change their lives. But yeah,
Clara Tooth: that's my role in short, quite a lot going on.
Maiki Lynch: That is quite a lot going on. Managing 12 people,
Maiki Lynch: that's a large team. I would call that quite a
Maiki Lynch: large team.
Clara Tooth: Yes, definitely. I've got four assistant managers and I'm very
Clara Tooth: lucky with all of them. They do a great job
Clara Tooth: of looking after some of the junior members of staff
Clara Tooth: as well.
Maiki Lynch: Can you tell us a little bit about how you
Maiki Lynch: got there? I presume you've been there for a little
Maiki Lynch: while. Can you tell us a little bit about how
Maiki Lynch: you got that role?
Clara Tooth: Absolutely. If we go all the way back to 2015,
Clara Tooth: I'd just left high school, didn't really know what I
Clara Tooth: wanted to do. I was pretty good at maths, knew
Clara Tooth: I wanted something that was numbers focused, and just fell
Clara Tooth: into an accountancy apprenticeship really. And it was luck and
Clara Tooth: I told myself I'll give myself a month and if
Clara Tooth: I hate it, I'll go to college and if I like it,
Clara Tooth: I'll stick it out. Six years down the line I'd
Clara Tooth: just qualified, and that was about two and a half
Clara Tooth: years ago now, so eight and a half years in
Clara Tooth: total. And I've basically just worked my way up bit
Clara Tooth: by bit by bit. Started off as a trainee, then
Clara Tooth: a semi- senior, senior, senior, assistant manager, portfolio holder, and now
Clara Tooth: to manager and client and team responsibility.
Maiki Lynch: That's an incredibly quick journey.
Clara Tooth: Yes.
Maiki Lynch: Congratulations. You came into that straight from school?
Clara Tooth: Yeah, 16, straight out of high school.
Maiki Lynch: Wow, wow.
Clara Tooth: And if I was to go back in time, I'd
Clara Tooth: definitely do it again because it was a lot of fun.
Maiki Lynch: You talked about becoming qualified, so you are a qualified accountant. How did
Maiki Lynch: your exams go? Was it all smooth sailing all the way through?
Clara Tooth: I started off with my AAT, that took around three and
Clara Tooth: a half years, and it was okay. It was challenging.
Clara Tooth: There was things, there was exams that were difficult, but
Clara Tooth: it was okay and I got through them all first time.
Clara Tooth: I then moved on to my ACCA and it was
Clara Tooth: hard work. I didn't have too much confidence in myself
Clara Tooth: back then, I didn't think I'd pass many or if any. But
Clara Tooth: I really got my head down, I worked really hard,
Clara Tooth: and I managed to pass them all first time. So
Clara Tooth: it was definitely worth it, but it was by no
Clara Tooth: means easy and it was very rewarding at the end.
Maiki Lynch: Yeah, that's after the journey for a lot of people that step
Maiki Lynch: up from a foundation qualification to your charter qualification can
Maiki Lynch: sometimes feel like a step up. I presume you were
Maiki Lynch: working at the same time as studying?
Clara Tooth: Yep. I would work four days a week and then
Clara Tooth: I'd get one day week study leave as part of
Clara Tooth: the apprenticeship. And on that day I'd go to college
Clara Tooth: and then you'd have to study in evenings and weekends
Clara Tooth: as well. It was a lot of hard work, especially
Clara Tooth: the closer you get to exams, it's every evening and
Clara Tooth: every weekend.
Maiki Lynch: And do you feel it was worth it?
Clara Tooth: Definitely. If I went back in time, I'd definitely do
Clara Tooth: it all again.
Maiki Lynch: Do you remember how you celebrated when you did qualify,
Maiki Lynch: when you got that charter status, the letters after your
Maiki Lynch: name, do you remember what you did or if you celebrated?
Clara Tooth: We got our results at midnight, so I think the day that
Clara Tooth: I qualified I didn't particularly sleep at all that night.
Clara Tooth: I just think I was so over the moon. Yeah, I didn't
Clara Tooth: do anything big or crazy. But yeah, I was just
Clara Tooth: really happy, and lots of celebrations with family and friends.
Clara Tooth: Long time coming, it felt like by the time I
Clara Tooth: got there, but it was a really, really good feeling in the moment.
Maiki Lynch: Shaun, can I come back to you because I didn't
Maiki Lynch: actually touch upon where you are in your studies or
Maiki Lynch: if you're qualified. Where are you in your journey at the moment?
Shaun Fenwick: Yeah, sure. My journey started very similarly to Clara's, although I
Shaun Fenwick: stayed at school and did my A- levels, so studied
Shaun Fenwick: maths in the first year of my A- levels, and
Shaun Fenwick: maths was always a strong point of mine. So naturally
Shaun Fenwick: I thought, " Let's start a career in accountancy." I started as
Shaun Fenwick: an apprentice, working for a company called Bidwells at the time.
Shaun Fenwick: They had a client accounting team and that was in
Shaun Fenwick: their agricultural division, so I worked with lots of landowners,
Shaun Fenwick: contract farmers, and as you can imagine, it was a
Shaun Fenwick: box full of receipts and manually-
Maiki Lynch: Are they all there?
Shaun Fenwick: Yeah, exactly. My first role in accounting was very junior
Shaun Fenwick: as well, and then decided, okay, I want to become a
Shaun Fenwick: chartered accountant. So I was weighing up my options and
Shaun Fenwick: decided what do I want to have this accountancy qualification
Shaun Fenwick: and I want to be an all- rounded accountant, if
Shaun Fenwick: you like. Hence, why I chose ACCA. Started my journey
Shaun Fenwick: with ACCA also under an apprenticeship scheme, so I was
Shaun Fenwick: working four days a week, one day out at college.
Shaun Fenwick: I was sitting exams once every quarter at that time
Shaun Fenwick: was getting first- time passes for the first year or
Shaun Fenwick: two whilst I was under the apprenticeship program. And then
Shaun Fenwick: I decided, move away from being an accountant, let's go
Shaun Fenwick: and work in an industry such as craft beer, which is
Shaun Fenwick: where I'm now. And at that point I no longer
Shaun Fenwick: got the study support, so I was studying myself in
Shaun Fenwick: the evenings and on the weekends. And that was difficult,
Shaun Fenwick: that was really tough. I did fail a couple of
Shaun Fenwick: exams, but resat them, got through them eventually. And recently,
Shaun Fenwick: in December, I sat my last exam. I'm waiting on
Shaun Fenwick: the results so I'm not, well, could be fully qualified,
Shaun Fenwick: I might not be, we'll wait and see.
Maiki Lynch: That's really exciting. That's it, so you're waiting on the message to come
Maiki Lynch: through. Will you be staying up on Sunday night?
Shaun Fenwick: Absolutely, yep. It's always a difficult one. It's like do
Shaun Fenwick: I stay up and hope for the best or do I go
Shaun Fenwick: to sleep and just check it in the morning? But
Shaun Fenwick: if you do that, you're going to have a sleepless night.
Shaun Fenwick: But if I stay awake I might have a sleepless
Shaun Fenwick: night, who knows, so yeah.
Maiki Lynch: Will you let us know how you get on?
Shaun Fenwick: Yeah, definitely. For sure. Yeah, it's been a long wait,
Shaun Fenwick: it's a six- week wait for the results.
Maiki Lynch: Yes. If you pass, what are you going to do, what's the celebration that's been planned?
Maiki Lynch: Are you going to work on Monday?
Shaun Fenwick: I haven't got any plans yet. I will be working on Monday. I think it'll be
Shaun Fenwick: the weekend after where celebrations will begin. We'll see, friends
Shaun Fenwick: and family, just probably go out for a meal and some drinks and yeah, we'll
Shaun Fenwick: be in full celebration mode, for sure, hopefully.
Maiki Lynch: Clara, I'm going to come back to you. So in
Maiki Lynch: your current role, how do you feel your work- life
Maiki Lynch: balance is and can you tell us just a little
Maiki Lynch: bit about your work- life balance that you have?
Clara Tooth: Yeah, absolutely. In terms of work- life balance in my role,
Clara Tooth: there definitely is a balance. My job is nine- to- five,
Clara Tooth: although it isn't always nine- to- five. There are definitely
Clara Tooth: times where sometimes I have to stay late and things
Clara Tooth: are due and that's that. But on the flip side, there
Clara Tooth: is a lot of rewards to that kind of job.
Clara Tooth: For example, where I work at moment we've implemented something
Clara Tooth: called Friyays, and that's where you get to do a
Clara Tooth: full day week and take Friday off. So we do
Clara Tooth: longer four- hour days and then a full Friday off.
Clara Tooth: Every Saturday and Sunday is off so the weekends are mine.
Clara Tooth: I do not work on weekends or bank holidays, that
Clara Tooth: is my time. And things like Christmas I get completely off,
Clara Tooth: finish on the 22nd, went back on the 2nd of Jan.
Clara Tooth: And for me I think that's quite a good work-
Clara Tooth: life balance. When I take time off, that time is mine.
Clara Tooth: And don't get me wrong, sometimes I do have to work
Clara Tooth: a little bit late and get something done, but there's
Clara Tooth: quite a lot of flexibility. We also have things like flexitime,
Clara Tooth: so I'm not very good at starting work at eight
Clara Tooth: o'clock in the morning, so I will start at 9:
Clara Tooth: 30 and work until a little bit later. But other members of
Clara Tooth: the team, they like to be in early and home early and that's
Clara Tooth: quite nice, you can just fit it around whatever suits
Clara Tooth: you and your lifestyle, and yeah!
Maiki Lynch: Friyay sounds great!
Clara Tooth: Friyays are good!
Maiki Lynch: Friyay and a little bit of flexi sounds incredible. Shaun, how's
Maiki Lynch: your workplace in terms of work- life balance?
Shaun Fenwick: For me it's great. I think everyone has their own work-
Shaun Fenwick: life meaning. For me it's just being able to have
Shaun Fenwick: the time available to see friends and families, go on
Shaun Fenwick: holiday, et cetera, and not being overworked. In the world
Shaun Fenwick: of accounting now there's so many systems that you can
Shaun Fenwick: implement to streamline your work, so for me it's all
Shaun Fenwick: about working smart and not harder, and how can I
Shaun Fenwick: do that to make sure that I've got the most
Shaun Fenwick: amount of free time possible, really. We do work 9:
Shaun Fenwick: 00 until 5:00 but there's no commitment to work any extra hours
Shaun Fenwick: in the evenings or the weekends, so that's my own
Shaun Fenwick: time. We have a good annual leave allowance so I can
Shaun Fenwick: get those holiday trips in. We can also work wherever,
Shaun Fenwick: whenever. So we can work remotely, whether that's at home,
Shaun Fenwick: or if you want to book a long weekend somewhere
Shaun Fenwick: and you want to work-
Maiki Lynch: As well.
Shaun Fenwick: ... in a different country, you can, you just need
Shaun Fenwick: a laptop and that's great.
Maiki Lynch: Lovely. And so I think accounting and finance, it does have that
Maiki Lynch: reputation, particularly at the beginning but also when you are
Maiki Lynch: qualified and you are more senior, of being quite hours-
Maiki Lynch: heavy. Have you found that to be the case?
Shaun Fenwick: In a previous role there was quite a big focus
Shaun Fenwick: on billable hours or chargeable hours. Especially in the role
Shaun Fenwick: that I was in at the time it was very much, "
Shaun Fenwick: Right, I just need to sit and work." But throughout
Shaun Fenwick: my time in that role the company shifted its mentality
Shaun Fenwick: from billable, chargeable hours to valuable hours, if you like.
Shaun Fenwick: And it was about getting the work done to a
Shaun Fenwick: high standard and it was up to you to decide
Shaun Fenwick: how many hours you were working. And if you were excelling
Shaun Fenwick: and you were putting in the effort, you would be
Shaun Fenwick: rewarded for that, which I think was great. So that
Shaun Fenwick: mindset has changed definitely.
Maiki Lynch: Do you think that happened during the pandemic or do you think the pandemic gave any changes to the way
Maiki Lynch: we work?
Shaun Fenwick: For me it happened before the pandemic.
Maiki Lynch: Before?
Shaun Fenwick: Yeah. The pandemic helped. The pandemic has introduced this idea
Shaun Fenwick: of a four- day working week. There's a lot of
Shaun Fenwick: research to suggest that actually you can do the same
Shaun Fenwick: amount of work in fewer hours, and I think that's
Shaun Fenwick: great. And I think accountancy is one of those roles
Shaun Fenwick: where that's evident, you can really demonstrate that.
Clara Tooth: I think from my perspective, I do think there probably
Clara Tooth: was once a time where people were working late and
Clara Tooth: you had to work a lot of hours, but in
Clara Tooth: practice I think there's been a very big change in
Clara Tooth: the last, say, five years or so, where technology's come
Clara Tooth: in and we've shifted from everything being, " Oh my gosh,
Clara Tooth: the client's given me something a day before deadline," to it
Clara Tooth: being a lot more electronic. So I feel like you
Clara Tooth: can get ahead of things a lot more and plan
Clara Tooth: better and prepare better, and I found that that's reduced
Clara Tooth: that need almost for excessive working because it's not like
Clara Tooth: you've got 10 people who all need everything doing tomorrow,
Clara Tooth: you actually have ... You're able to do things easier and
Clara Tooth: earlier and quicker. You'll hear a lot of accountants talk
Clara Tooth: about this time of year, tax return season, and everyone's
Clara Tooth: working crazy. Well, actually, the way things are going I've
Clara Tooth: found each year it's eased off a little bit more,
Clara Tooth: a little bit more, a little bit more. And we
Clara Tooth: do just seem to be getting into a better system
Clara Tooth: almost. And I think that is allowing also better work- life balance
Clara Tooth: and taking quite a lot of stress off. Compared to,
Clara Tooth: when I think back to when I first started, the
Clara Tooth: amount of things you'd have to get done in a
Clara Tooth: short period of time due to things outside of your
Clara Tooth: control aren't exactly the same now, you do have a
Clara Tooth: lot more control and a lot more ability to reduce
Clara Tooth: that stress.
Maiki Lynch: Do you think you can achieve a good work- life balance
Maiki Lynch: working in accounting and finance?
Clara Tooth: I think you definitely can achieve it. And the way that
Clara Tooth: my view on it is, like I said earlier, sometimes
Clara Tooth: you do still have to work late, but you do
Clara Tooth: get that back. So that's where the balance comes, is
Clara Tooth: there is a little bit of give but you do
Clara Tooth: take it back for yourself and you do get to enjoy
Clara Tooth: your life and your lifestyle. I feel very lucky, blessed, grateful,
Clara Tooth: all of it, with the lifestyle that I'm able to
Clara Tooth: have. I'm 24, I qualified at 22, and that's pretty
Clara Tooth: young for an accountant. In the summer, so just in
Clara Tooth: August '23, I managed to buy my first home on
Clara Tooth: my own and that was an absolutely amazing achievement for
Clara Tooth: me. And I feel very grateful that I was firstly
Clara Tooth: given the opportunity as a 16- year- old to be
Clara Tooth: allowed to become an accountant and work my way up and
Clara Tooth: have all this, and I feel so blessed that when
Clara Tooth: I book time off I can go on holiday. It's
Clara Tooth: very lucky to be able to have a long- term
Clara Tooth: career and know that you're always safe and you're always
Clara Tooth: going to have a nice, steady income, and that will
Clara Tooth: then give you the opportunities to do what you want
Clara Tooth: to do with your life outside of work. And enjoy
Clara Tooth: yourself because we all get up every day, we come
Clara Tooth: to work, when we go home we should be able
Clara Tooth: to do what we want to and what makes us
Clara Tooth: happy. But it is opened a lot of things personally
Clara Tooth: as well. I'm able to do what I want and
Clara Tooth: it's great, I feel very blessed.
Maiki Lynch: Well, congratulations, particularly on you house purchase.
Clara Tooth: Thank you.
Maiki Lynch: You've worked so hard for and it's just really inspiring
Maiki Lynch: to hear, so thank you for sharing that with us.
Clara Tooth: Well, my house definitely isn't a mansion by any means,
Clara Tooth: but I've got my own!
Maiki Lynch: Give it time, the second one.
Clara Tooth: Yeah, I've got some bricks and mortar, it's great.
Maiki Lynch: Shaun, coming to you, just the same questioning from me.
Maiki Lynch: What lifestyle has this career path allowed you to have?
Shaun Fenwick: It's introduced me to a lot of interesting people, opened
Shaun Fenwick: up a lot of opportunities. Also, for me, I work
Shaun Fenwick: in craft beer, which is a really fun, exciting industry.
Shaun Fenwick: We have a taproom, so it means going out to the taproom and
Shaun Fenwick: drinking loads of free beer, which is brilliant, so that's
Shaun Fenwick: Friday evening sorted. And I'm very fortunate enough to be in a
Shaun Fenwick: position where I can go on a number of holidays
Shaun Fenwick: every year, explore the world, live in an amazing city.
Shaun Fenwick: I live in London, which is brilliant. And likewise, I'm
Shaun Fenwick: very excited what the future holds. There's so many different
Shaun Fenwick: routes you can take and which I can still take.
Shaun Fenwick: There's so many skills that I can learn and I
Shaun Fenwick: haven't learned. Accountancy is this never- ending cycle, which you
Shaun Fenwick: can just keep getting the next opportunity, or fighting for
Shaun Fenwick: the next opportunity.
Maiki Lynch: Do you think, Shaun, that you can achieve or that you have achieved a good work- life balance?
Shaun Fenwick: Yeah, definitely. In my role, I'm responsible for managing my
Shaun Fenwick: own workload as well. For me, I've been in other
Shaun Fenwick: roles prior to being an accountant, where I'm customer- facing,
Shaun Fenwick: for example. I need to be present. I need to
Shaun Fenwick: be there from this hour to that hour. In accountancy
Shaun Fenwick: it is up to me to pick up the work
Shaun Fenwick: when I can and to get it done when I
Shaun Fenwick: need to get it done. That will enable me to
Shaun Fenwick: juggle my own workload and to achieve a healthy work-
Shaun Fenwick: life balance.
Maiki Lynch: Absolutely. That flexibility is-
Shaun Fenwick: The flexibility is key, yeah. Yeah.
Maiki Lynch: Yeah. So, so key. What advice would you give someone
Maiki Lynch: perhaps who is considering a career in accounting and finance?
Shaun Fenwick: Speak to another accountant or more than one other accountant.
Shaun Fenwick: Accountancy's such a big, big industry, so try to speak
Shaun Fenwick: to as many people as you can in the industry
Shaun Fenwick: to decide what route you want to take. With accountancy,
Shaun Fenwick: there are so many transferable skills that you pick up.
Shaun Fenwick: So if you do start your career in accounting and
Shaun Fenwick: change your mind, that's not a bad thing, you'll definitely
Shaun Fenwick: use what you've learned with ACCA in any career I
Shaun Fenwick: feel. Definitely do your research first and then just go
Shaun Fenwick: for it, I think.
Maiki Lynch: I love that, just go for it. Clara, same to you?
Clara Tooth: My advice would be just do it, literally go for
Clara Tooth: it. If you don't like it, that's fine, at least
Clara Tooth: you tried. And I would say it's hard at the
Clara Tooth: beginning, so there might be times where you feel like giving up,
Clara Tooth: but just persevere through because by the time you come
Clara Tooth: out the other side, the lifestyle you can have and the opportunities that
Clara Tooth: you can have are amazing. So as much as when it
Clara Tooth: feels hard in the moment, just remember that it'll all be worthwhile.
Maiki Lynch: That's it from this episode of By All Accounts. Thank
Maiki Lynch: you Shaun and Clara for chatting with me today. And
Maiki Lynch: good news, we've heard from Shaun that he did pass
Maiki Lynch: that last exam and is qualified. Massive congratulations from all
Maiki Lynch: of us at ACCA. For a link to watch the
Maiki Lynch: video version of this podcast, check out the show notes.
Maiki Lynch: With skills in accountancy and finance you can work in
Maiki Lynch: any business anywhere and turn your passion into an exciting
Maiki Lynch: and rewarding career with an ACCA qualification. You can sign
Maiki Lynch: up to find out more by heading to accaglobal. com/
Maiki Lynch: beyouanywhere. That link is also in the show notes. See
Maiki Lynch: you next week. I'm Maiki Lynch and this has been
Maiki Lynch: By All Accounts. By All Accounts is a Fresh Air
Maiki Lynch: Production for ACCA. Its lead producer is Eva Higginbotham and
Maiki Lynch: its executive producer is Annie Day, with support from Sarah
Maiki Lynch: Moore. Yohan Forbes is the videographer.