The Student Room Group

ACA or no ACA with Deloitte TAA

I've just been offered a job with Deloitte in the Technology Assurance and Advisory services. Deloitte offer 2 routes of training; ACA route and non ACA route (more technical based).

Throughout the recruitment process everyone has been pushing me towards the ACA route, and it almost been an assumption that they were employing an ACA graduate althought I never stated either way at any stage. Apparently the ACA qualification is like a massive gold star and the job prospects are endless.......

However having completed a degree in computer Science I don't want to study for chartered accountancy I want more of an IT role.

So my question is. Is the Deloitte job offer the right one for me. If I accept and don't go down the ACA route am I going to end up in a job that has little prospect of anything. Can I fulfill an IT career in a company such as Deloitte or am I likley to be "forced" into the financial qualifications in the long term?
an ACA will be something you can take away even if you leave - however it might not be much use if you wanna work in IT - i would sit down with the manager and talk through exactly what it is you will be doing - i dont see why you would be asked to do the ACA if you are mainly in IT.

if the sort of thing you are talking about is an IT advisor type thing then it may be worth doing the ACA because then you will get a better understanding of business
Reply 2
ACA is a qualification that will instantly add 10k to your salary. If you have the ACA and are not earning 100k basic by the time you are 35 then you're an idiot or a woman who has gone on maternity leave.

However the exams are a lot of information and are bloody boring.
Reply 3
Do the ACA. The geeky stuff you will learn anyway. More to the point, once you have the ACA and 3 years or so experience there, you can say 'i want to do X, Y and Z training courses that i missed out on'. Chances are you'll get your way...

I initially thought that experince meant a lot more than some poxy qualification (i'm in a related line of work). However, there is a LOT to be said for having a credible heavyweight qualification behind you. It only takes a couple of years anyway P/T and they give you study leave for it.
Reply 4
I say go for the ACA route.

Why not add another string to ur bow? I dont think u have much to lose since isnt it the case that even without studying for the ACA the actual "training contract" length would still be 3 years? If i'm wrong then that argument fails.

I would ask them if they offer the option of beginning an ACA route, and if u really don't like it to switch to the non-ACA route? Since most of ur ACA study will be in the first year of your training contract, you'll experience what it's like to be an ACA trainee almost immediately, and so straightaway you'll know what you're letting urself in for. Then if u change ur mind then fair enough - you've given it a go and u can say u've made an informed decision?

Good luck!
Reply 5
It depends very much upon what you want to do. If you have aspirations to stay within the industry and make it to partner and thus be on a large salery then its pretty important.

If you are thinking of taking the IT route, then you may as well not take it.

The risks to taking it involve getting sacked if you fail and exam - something which cant happen if you dont take it, so you may want to bear that in mind as well.
Reply 6
OK here's my opinion.

I work for a big 4 firm, and we have a department called risk assurance. They basically assess control systems (IT systems). Its not an IT role as such, as you study towards ACA and you do real audit work too (split your time 50/50).

But when you work in risk assurance, you do things like test IT security, break systems, test controls around systems.

It might be worth looking into, you will earn far more money in this than in normal IT.

Oh, and definitely go for ACA so long as you are prepared to work for it.