Advice after failure to secure placement

Hi all,
I'm a second year student studying Accounting & Finance. I recently failed to get a placement year, I was wondering... are job prospects looking thin because I failed - will I be able to get a job once I graduate now? I heard from somebody that my career is already finished since I haven't been able to secure a placement, despite getting final stages on multiple companies. Grades wise, I predict i will obtain around 75% in second year overall, however I have still been told my career's down the drain since I didn't obtain a placement.

On a separate note, I was looking into beefing up my CV due to the aforementioned (need to stand out from other graduates somehow!) Apart from applying for internships, is it worth perhaps getting an AAT Level 2 & 3 qualification? Or would this be made redundant upon graduation?

Any information is greatly appreciated. My head's just spinning around right now so in dire need of advice. Thanks.

Reply 1

ThatguyAl

16

Original post by Lt Shadow

Hi all,
I'm a second year student studying Accounting & Finance. I recently failed to get a placement year, I was wondering... are job prospects looking thin because I failed - will I be able to get a job once I graduate now? I heard from somebody that my career is already finished since I haven't been able to secure a placement, despite getting final stages on multiple companies. Grades wise, I predict i will obtain around 75% in second year overall, however I have still been told my career's down the drain since I didn't obtain a placement.

On a separate note, I was looking into beefing up my CV due to the aforementioned (need to stand out from other graduates somehow!) Apart from applying for internships, is it worth perhaps getting an AAT Level 2 & 3 qualification? Or would this be made redundant upon graduation?

Any information is greatly appreciated. My head's just spinning around right now so in dire need of advice. Thanks.

Hiya, I'm not in Accounting & Finance, so take what I say with a grain of salt.
I don't see why you can't try getting an internship again after you graduate? I've met many interns at work from all the different fields including finance, some of them were Bachelors 2nd year, others were graduates or on Masters level courses. So I really don't see your situation as a problem to be honest. Definitely would stay clear from getting advice from that person who said your career is already finished. What a prick!

I do have a bit of advice for the future though - start looking for internships and graduate programmes early. Better in October-November since that is when majority of such jobs are being posted. Normally there are 3 recruitment waves - 1st on in Autumn as I mentioned, 2nd right after Christmas in Jan-March, and the last one around April-May, but as you probably understand - the more you wait the less opportunities you get.

While looking for internships also try your luck at graduate programmes too, you might still get that and skip the whole internship year completely if you work hard enough for that.
Beefing up your resume is a good idea, but alas I can't comment what's useful for accounting & finance :smile:

Try to see if you can do some extracurricular activities to prove your accounting/finance knowledge. I do know that companies in general love people who know MS Excel very well (data analysis, macros, etc.), so do that as well, it'll definitely give you some brownie points.

All the best,
Al

Edit:
Something I forgot to mention - if you were able to get through to final assessment stages it means that your resume or profile are already good and you should only build on that. It's the way you performed on the interviews what probably made the companies choose someone else, so I suggest you consult with a careers adviser at your Uni for help and see what can you improve on to perform better next time :smile:

(edited 10 months ago)

Reply 2

ajj2000

20

Hi - which part of the country would you be looking for work in, and what sort of jobs within accountancy are you aspiring to?