Do chartered accountants have a lot of travelling opportunities?

Ah, I see what you mean. Also, how difficult would it be to get into corporate finance after gaining the ACA with a firm outside the big4? Would it be tough?

From what I hear (but I'm by no means an expert), the best way to get in to corporate finance once qualified is to transfer internally within your firm. Once you've got experience you can then look to change firm if you wish.

Do all of the Accountancy Age top 50 have corporate finance departments? I'm sure many of them don't as they're not geared towards it and are quite small. Would you be able to leave once you're an NQ to a new firm and start out in corp finance with someone else?

Not sure that was directed at me but if it was, I assume you mean corporate finance in an investment bank? I don't have any direct experience with this so it is entirely from what I've read/heard.

Firstly, I don't think accounting firms outside the Big 4 tend to have corporate finance divisions (although I seem to remember someone saying Grant Thornton had a CF division close to being comparable with the Big 4) and if they do, they won't carry out work particularly relevant to the kind that IB's do (much much smaller deals). Secondly, it is hard enough moving from Big 4 corporate finance to an IB, let alone moving from a medium size Acc firm having worked in, say, assurance. Basically, I imagine it would be more than 'tough'.

If you meant moving from a medium sized firm having gained the ACA to Big 4 CF, that is probably more doable but seems a somewhat unorthodox progression. Big 4 CF is still very competitive and noticeably more selective than audit or the like. I would also expect the Big 4 prefer to hire graduates and train them in their CF division themselves, rather than hiring those from outside the firm who are already qualified, although I could be misguided here...

http://www.accountancyage.com/digital_assets/3322/AccyAgeTop50v6.pdf

The second page shows a breakdown of income by department. CF is near the far right.

I was thinking more of the latter, medium firm acc, get the ACA and go to the big4. I think you might be right. But I read from one of the other threads that ACA is the most important thing and it enables you to try different things etc other than audit

Wow, so CF outside big4 really is tiny. Although I've seen a local firm which is outside the AA 50+50 and they have a CF department, albeit it's fairly small. The heads of department were trained by KPMG and GT. I guess some businesses will use local firms etc. Do you know if big4 do many experienced hires?

Having an ACA under your belt most definitely opens up a variety of opportunities in finance and industry, but equally the Big 4 'brand name' can be extremely useful - some job positions ask specifically for big 4 ACA qualified.

Very true what you say about big4 name, it will probably make it easier to get into big companies. I just had a quick look a finance vacancy at Virgin and they asked for ACA and big4 experience. But there's only x amount of places every year with the big4. Do the big4 take NQs? I doubt they would when they let so many grads leave them upon qualifying. I guess they only take experienced hires if you have something like 10 years experience or something

They take on loads of NQ's. Mainly due to the mass exodus of trainee's on qualification. This doesn't just happen at the big4, I would estimate from my experience at least 50% of people leave on qualification.

Helped by the fact, recruitment consultants will be over you once you qualify!

Do the big4 take NQs?

Recruitment consultants are all over NQs or just big4 NQs?

Any NQ's.

For example..... when you complete the final exams, there are loads of them waiting outside the exam hall inviting you to bars where they have setup bar tabs and you can drink for free.

You being serious, that sounds class. Motivation to pass the ACA in that case

Yes, we're almost always a bit short of seniors, it's not like the big4 choose to have a mass outflow of their own NQs post qualifying.

Free bars soon lose their novelty working for a Big 4 firm. Trust me.

Free bars soon lose their novelty working for a Big 4 firm. Trust me.

Wasnt talking about free bars lol. I meant the great career opportunities available if what big dave said is true.

Wasnt talking about free bars lol. I meant the great career opportunities available if what big dave said is true.

"if". It is. Anyways trust me, after finals the last thing you will want to is talk to a recruitment consultant.

Also a word of advice going forward, when/if you qualify remember recruitment consultants will bull**** you massively, always take what they say with a pinch of salt!