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Placement

Is it really hard to find placement for accounting, my lecturer told us that only 1 in a 100 who apply get it, that's literally 1% 💀

Reply 1

ThatguyAl

First of all I'd question where did your lecturer get the stats from, second of all that lecturer of yours should reconsider their choice of career as they definitely don't know how to develop and support students. Gosh imagine being a lecturer and telling your students that 99% of them will fail, ffs.

Although that stat does not surprise me, but you have to remember a few things before getting anxious about all that:
- At least half of the applicants (if not more) are absolutely not suitable for the job, they either have horrendous CVs or perform poorly on the interviews. If you spend at least a few hours on your CV and tailor it to every job you apply you're already better than half of the applicants. If you then prepare well for the interview then you're already in the 1% easily. Considering you're technically knowledgeable in your field of course, that's a given, however as I said many applicants would lie on their CV and then miserably fail on the interview. I've interviewed some of those guys, quite an awkward experience both for the interviewer and for the interviewee.
- The 1% is probably an overall statistics or is leaning towards experience you may have applying for the most known and reputable companies (say PwC, Deloitte, EY and KPMG). Those companies receive hundreds if not thousands of applications per position every year. Out of those, as I mentioned earlier, the hiring manager may look through 30 or 50 CVs that at least meet the job requirement simply because the rest of the applications are either non relevant or are complete garbage. That's where AI filtering and HR recruiters comes in place to separate decent candidates from the rest of the crowd. Hiring manager will not be physically able to look through such an amount.
If you apply to smaller companies you may compete against less than a dozen or two of candidates during the initial screening stage.
- Remember that you can play this statistics game to increase your odds by increasing the quality of your applications and by applying to as many places as you can, without compromising the quality of the application.

That comes from someone who went through dozens of applications and interviews and who's been involved in recruitment for interns and graduates later in my life, so I have some real world data to back this up.

All the best!

Reply 2

Chester Student

Official Rep

Hi, @kaboom116

Regarding placement and work experience as a whole, I would always recommend simply asking everyone and everywhere you can get contact details from!

You never know who reads those emails or letters and in most cases they’ve been in this situation themselves as students and would be more than happy to help. Just make sure your asking in a professional manner and include these few things about your self:

- where you’re based and what you study at uni
- level/year of study
- your aspirations to excel in this career
- how many hours of work experience you’re looking for (“albeit, any amount would be appreciated”)
- your contact details

Providing this, you should get a few replies even if it’s just work shadowing, this will provide a good insight on the job! I’d also recommend broadening your search which links to your choice of study.

Best of luck,
Ellie

Reply 3

Lancaster Student Ambassador

Official Rep

Original post by kaboom116

Is it really hard to find placement for accounting, my lecturer told us that only 1 in a 100 who apply get it, that's literally 1% 💀

Hi,

Placements are competitive but there are plenty of opportunities out there! While I was applying to placements I found opportinities popped up all throughout the year so don't be disheartneded if you struggle to find something early on in the year! There are lots of people who give up looking for placements early on so if it is something you really want to do the best thing to do is to just keep applying. As others have said tailoring applications is something a lot of people don't do so even just taking 15 minutes to make your CV/cover letter stand out will put you in front of many other applicants!

Good luck,
Florence (Lancaster Mathematics Student Ambassador)