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Useful links:

• For more information about Godfrey Wilson
• For info about working in the Finance sector
• More info about careers in accountancy, banking and finance
• Accountancy, banking and finance job profiles
• For more info about working in the Charity sector
• Considering Ethical Careers
• Charity and voluntary work

To hear more Finance, Charity, Heritage and career change related podcast stories:

• Corporate Social Responsibility, Daniel Arda
• Changing from Media to Tech consulting, Vivien Chung
• Managing economic growth in York, Alex Dochery, York City Council
• Managing a charity funding programme, Sam Thomas
• Working in children’s charity, Cat Schroeter
• Marketing the Museum, Tasha McNaught
• Ian Henderson, English grad to Medicine 
• Paul Backhouse, Historic England

Transcript

Kate:

You’re listening to the ‘What Do You Actually do?’ podcast. Each week we want to bring you an inspiring interview, a useful tip or encouraging message to help you find your place in the professional world. Hello and welcome to this episode of ‘What Do You Actually Do?’. My name’s Kate Morris and I’ll be your host today. In today’s episode we’ll be talking about moving from Heritage to the Finance sector. And today we’re joined by Alice Yevko, who’s a trainee chartered accountant at a charity specialist accountancy practice Godfrey Wilson. So Alice, what do you actually do? 

Alice:

So, as you say, I am a trainee chartered accountant. So I’m in my first year, so I’ve been doing my current job for the last six months, and my day to day job is audit focused. So that is checking company’s accounting records and checking that they match up with their underlying documents. and giving a reasonable level of assurance that the financial information that a company or a charity – which is often the clients that we’re working with – that they are actually giving the accurate financial information. But I work for a small firm, so my role is actually quite a lot broader than that. And I work on a lot of different accounting jobs, such as: accounts preparation, bookkeeping work, and tax work as well. And alongside that I am studying for the ACA qualification to become a chartered accountant over the next three years. 

Kate:

So do you get time off for your studying, or are you having to do that in your spare time? 

Alice:

I’d say it’s a mixture. So this is quite common across accountancy graduate training roles. So I work nine to five full time, but I get time off to go to college to learn the content for the exams I’m taking. But then all the revision is done on your own time. I also get a day or a half day off to take the exam as well, so I don’t have to do that in my own time, nor do I have to work when my brain is fried. So that’s really nice. I think that might differ firm to firm, but it’s kind of a mixture, I suppose. But there is a lot of revision in your own time as well, definitely. 

Kate:

Is the company funding the actual qualification? 

Alice:

Yes. So it’s actually a mixture of different sources of funding. So my role on the training programme that I’m on is structured as a government apprenticeship. A certain amount of my role is paid for by the government under the apprenticeship scheme. And then my firm also contributes to that quite significantly as well. So it’s a mixture of the two. 

Kate:

So although it takes a bit of your own personal time – it’s kind of, you gain this accredited qualification that no one can take away from you. 

Alice:

Absolutely, yeah. It’s a really great opportunity from my point of view, because I’m getting this qualification, and I have a job. I’m getting all this experience, and at the end of this I’ll have a qualification in finance, yes. 

Kate:

You say you’ve been doing this for a year now, is that right?

 Alice:

Six months. I started in September 2020. 

Kate:

So you kind of started it, and continuing it in the midst of the pandemic. So how is that impacting on things? I guess you can’t compare to what it would normally be like because you don’t know. But have you got a sense of whether the actual nature of the work is different because of the pandemic. Are you working remotely? Is that a permanent thing? What’s been the impact for you? 

Alice:

I haven’t been able to talk to trainees who are kind of in years two and three, who have had experience of doing this pre pandemic. I think a lot of what we do now – remote auditing, remote accountancy work – is similar from the client’s perspective for what we do. So, you know, we’ll still prepare accounts, we’ll still ensure that that financial information agrees to underlying records and so on. And there is a lot more emphasis on sharing documents now. So we’ll use something like Dropbox, or even just old fashioned scans just to share documents electronically. That’s definitely different, because I know that prior to the pandemic, a lot of particularly audit focused accountancy work is done in person, where you go to your client’s premises and you can speak to staff who work there, you can look at documents, you can look at financial assets such as machinery or whatever it is that you’re needing to look at. So that is very, very different. I think before the pandemic, there definitely was a move in accounting to becoming more remote, certainly more flexible, but certainly not the pressure to do everything 100% remote. I think that is a really big challenge and I think that is quite different now. But as I say, I have no personal experience, but yeah, that is the impression I get. 

Kate:

You began your career working in Heritage Management, following a degree in History, then an MA in Mediaeval Studies. Why did you decide to make a career change, and how has your Heritage and academic experience transferred into the Finance sector? 

Alice:

Oh, lots of good questions. Yeah, so when I graduated in 2016 with a degree in History, and I was absolutely convinced that I wanted to work in Heritage. And I came to York and I did a Masters, and I was really, really lucky to end up working with the Centre for the Study of Christianity and Culture for about a year after I did my Masters. I really, really enjoyed my time there. And I’ve got to work with lots of really interesting cathedrals, churches, heritage sites, and I met loads of wonderful people. But a couple of things kind of made me want to start to explore further. I think the first one was that I’d never really – although I decided I wanted a career in heritage initially – I’d never really thought about what I’d wanted to do. I think I’d just sort of told myself that there was this one thing that I wanted to do, and I’d never really looked at anything else. And I’d almost decided that I wasn’t the sort of person who would work in business or finance. And so when I came to deciding what I wanted to do for a career, I guess I’ve never really explored my options. Secondly, my role with the centre was always on a fixed term contract, due to funding streams and various things. So I think it was always in the back of my mind that I should be at least exploring my options, just because of the fixed nature of the contracts. And I always knew that it might come to an end. So I never really focused on Finance specifically, but I just sort of had the opportunity at the time to take a step back and think about what I could possibly want to do, and what kind of life, and what things a career could give me. Such as, you know, how much free time did I want, what sort of structure of work did I want. Did I want to work nine to five, did I want to be more flexible. And I started thinking about what sort of boxes I wanted to tick, what things were important to me. And I started looking at various roles which kind of suited me. 

Kate:

I think it’s really common for people to kind of write off other options, because you’ve just got no experience of it. It can feel very alien, especially the sort of idea of Business, Finance. It can seem so removed from Humanities studies, and the passions and interests that you have. But that’s amazing when you actually started to explore – well, it’s not just the context of the job. It’s about what skills I’m using, and the kind of lifestyle I want to have. And then by actually exploring other possibilities, and at least giving yourself the option of maybe doing those things, you’re not sort of saying -‘Oh, I’m definitely never going to do Heritage’, but just to say – ‘Well, what are the other options?’, it does just open up a whole other world of possibilities. 

Alice:

Absolutely, yes, I 100% agree. And I think also not just the kind of different types of careers that’s out there, but also like the different types of employers that are within those career sectors. So I work for a charity specialist firm. So I get to keep everything that I loved about my former job at the Centre for Study of Christianity and Culture, because I still get to work with a whole wonderful bunch of different clients, some of whom, most of them are charities or social enterprises. And they’re in the arts world, they’re in, you know, social enterprise – like straddling a whole load of different sectors, I suppose. And I really enjoyed working with different heritage sites with my previous job, and I get to keep that element of the job in what I currently do. And I never thought that finance would be something where I got to still do that. 

Kate:

It’s a really interesting point because, again, I think people tend to isolate or polarise different sectors, and kind of not connect it to the other ones. And you’re either in this, or in that, and you perhaps don’t realise that there are these crossovers where you do have the opportunity because there are other, even big corporate accounting firms, who have public sector organisations like the NHS as clients. So you still get to have that context and do the work you find meaningful or interesting, but you’re doing it from the other side, rather than working for the actual organisation that you imagined, perhaps, at first. I think the other thing is, people could write off Finance and Business and think – ‘Oh, you’ve sold out if you go down that road’. But there are other ways to incorporate your own personal sense of integrity, values, etc within different types of organisations. They’re not all there to just completely maximise profit for shareholders. And if that’s your bag, fair enough. But if you’re someone who’s kind of got particular views around that, there are ways to align yourself with an organisation that works in a way that you personally agree with. But you’re still getting the benefit of a regular salary, someone who invests in your training, some sense of job security, rather than these fixed term temporary contracts. Do you see it’s kind of interesting as a way of balancing both of those things? 

Alice:

Definitely, yeah, I 100% agree with that. Yes, that’s really well put. Yeah, that’s true. And I think definitely, I don’t know if I’ve found like my career forever, but I’ve certainly, I know that I’ve managed to tick enough of those boxes with the things that I want. And I am the most surprised person that I’ve ended up working in Finance in a way, because certainly when I first graduated – what six-seven years ago – I was the sort of person that thought that I would, you know, with a History degree, if I go off and work in Finance, that I’m selling out in some way to what I’ve previously worked for. But actually, I think that there are a lot of skills that Arts and Humanities students gain that are useful across the board in whatever you end up doing, and particularly if you’re working in a role where you need to work alongside people, you know, people can call them soft skills, but they’re really, really important. And I think a lot of Arts and Humanities students don’t even know that they’ve got those skills sometimes, and that they’re really important, and if you can be flexible and if you’re prepared to learn skills that are required. 

Kate:

This leads me on to a more specific question around – what do you think the personal strengths, qualities or skills you need to have, not just to be successful in this role, but to actually enjoy it as well? So I’m guessing from what you’ve said at the start around audit, having really good attention to detail, for example, that’ll be something that’ll be really important. What are some of the other things you feel it’s useful to be good at and enjoy doing if you’re working in this area? 

Alice:

So I think it’s really important to have a sense of why what you’re doing is important, and to believe in the value of what you’re doing, which I suppose sounds really obvious. But I think if you don’t have that bigger picture, then it’s really difficult to knit together all the different little blocks of what you’re doing. So I know I really struggled when I first started because I didn’t quite understand why it was important that charities or any business, frankly, reported the financial data that they reported, and why people would actually rely on information like that. So I think a skill that’s really important is being able to listen to, not just what your client wants, but actually understand what they’re trying to do in the field that they’re working in. So, for example, understanding that a charitable trust might be looking for, they might have to make certain grants to other charities, and sort of making sure that what grants they’ve made, they’ve made in the right way so that their trustees have gone through the proper procedure of awarding those grants, or that a charity is making use of the grant money in the appropriate manner, because at the end of the day, that’s what they’re supposed to do with it. So having good listening skills and good communication skills is really, really important. I think something else – particularly in this kind of post pandemic world that we’re living in – I think it’s really important to be able to impose order and logical order on the work that you’re doing. And I know that is something that I’m currently working on being better at, but it’s really, really important. And being able to know or identify what information you’re working with and seeing where it fits in to the work that your client is doing, and how it’s useful for the work that you’re doing. So, yeah, being able to identify data as well is really, really important. 

Kate:

It’s interesting how that seems to relate to the historical skills of being able to look at individual specific situations or events, etc in history, but also see the wider context and the bigger picture. And it sounds like you’re using and applying those same skills, but in a very different context. So you’re working on sort of specific auditing trail for a piece of equipment, or what have you, or that grant application. But you’re saying how important it is to understand why the client needs that, and why compliance is important, and how this fits into other policies, etc etc. So it’s a kind of good way to apply the training that you’ve had academically in this very different area. 

Alice:

Yes, absolutely. And definitely in ways that really surprised me as well. Yeah, it’s probably one of my favourite parts of the job. 

Kate:

So on that then, what would you say you really love about the role? What is your key thing that you are like – Yeah, I love doing this bit of it. 

Alice:

Yeah. I love finding out about all the brilliant things that our clients do. You know, whether they are a theatre company or a charitable trust, seeing where their grants go and seeing the difference that they can make, and knowing that we can help them through a secure financial leadership and organisation. Knowing that we can help them achieve their charitable objects. Because that’s a really cool feeling. Yeah, I guess being able to be a part of that, which is probably one of my favourite parts about my previous role as well at the Centre of the study of Christianity and Culture. Being able to kind of feel like you’re being a part of what a really interesting organisation is doing. 

Kate:

So you can really see the impact of what you’re doing, it’s making a difference. 

Alice:

Yeah, and I suppose, you know, if you’re an accountant who works closely with businesses, I suppose being able to ensure that the owners of the business and shareholders have as fair a chance of getting as much profit as possible, I can imagine that that would be the sort of similar job satisfaction for someone who wanted to work in that kind of, do that kind of accounting work. 

Kate:

Yes, so it’s having that clear objective. Being able to work towards it, rather than what you’re doing is just contributing on some level, but you never get to see how. What is the worst aspect of the role then? Because it sounds like it’s pretty full on. You’re working with different organisations, you’re doing this studying, you’re doing it remotely. What’s the thing that you feel like you have to sort of make yourself work a little bit harder to do? 

Alice:

Yeah, as you say, it is really, really full on. I think at the moment, the thing that I’m struggling with, and my least favourite bit, is the remote nature of the work. It’s not to say that the remote nature of the work to some degree is a bad thing. And I think that there will be a movement to being more flexible. But at the moment, the things are 100% being remote, and being on an apprenticeship, I can’t learn from people who I’m working with as much because I am in the corner of my living room by myself. And I absolutely can ask questions, I can ask for help. But you learn so much just by working next to someone who knows more than you about the job that you’re doing. And I think that that’s something at the moment that’s really, really difficult without. And that’s not a permanent thing. But I do think that going forward, it’s going to be important to have at least some kind of mixture of integration for graduate roles, you know, whether it’s part time at home, part time working in teams socially distanced, you know, in a Covid safe way, whatever that may be. I think that that will be important going forward. But right now, that’s something that’s really difficult. 

Kate:

I’ve spoken to other graduates and students on a placement year and they’re experiencing a similar thing, because you kind of take for granted these little chats that you have with people, and just being able to quickly ask an informal question, because it can feel a bit more formal to email somebody or set up a meeting, because you don’t just want to ask one question, you’ll save up a few, so it’s worth having a meeting. Whereas, as you say, you can almost pick it up by osmosis when you’re emerged in the environment with other professionals doing the job. 

Alice:

Absolutely. I really, really feel for people starting careers in the pandemic. I think it’s really, really difficult. I’m sure that there are a lot of positives that the people starting their careers will be up to take away from it. But I also have a lot of sympathy and I think it’s really, really hard. 

Kate:

I think it is. I guess one thing I think is a benefit to some people, is that it’s perhaps a bit less stressful in terms of – you can start off remotely, you’re not necessarily having to move to a different location, which means you have more options. Say financially it was gonna be really tough to move to London, whereas if you can start off doing it remotely, get some decent money behind you. And if you have to do this blended thing you talked about, you’ve got some cash to be able to do that. Or for people who have a disability, etc, or caring responsibilities, it’s created this really, in some ways, fantastic opportunity to do professional roles from your own home, that previously would have been completely blocked off to you. So like with anything, there’s pros and cons, yes. I think it’s really tough trying to integrate and learn something new when you’re on your own. But I’m guessing the people who’ve been graduating this summer, they’ve had a year of studying in this way. So I guess at least they’re building up the skills to get used to remote working and finding a way to manage that. 

Alice:

I think that that’s a really important skill to have. And I think going forward, it’s going to be even more vital that being able to be creative, and how you can teach yourself new skills, be prepared to learn stuff on YouTube and to actually take responsibility for your own development in the way that I think lots of people in my generation haven’t necessarily had to before. You know, I think even like the way that we choose to listen to content. Actually, things like this podcast and being able to just go out of your way to to find new information about, you know, learning a new skill, or learning about careers, or learning about anything. Yeah. It’s going to be really important to be able to take responsibility for that. 

Kate:

So we’ve mentioned having this proactive attitude. We’ve mentioned the challenge of working in this way remotely. Is there anything else that you think is a key challenge or a key issue that’s on the horizon, for students or recent graduates who are perhaps interested in breaking into accountancy or the finance sector more generally? Is there anything they should be aware of, or searching a bit more, or sort of mulling over a bit more if they want to break into the sector? 

Alice:

Yes, I think a number of different things. It’s always been important pre the pandemic, but I think will continue to be on the radar in a really big, meaningful way – is issues around sustainability and what that means for businesses and charities, and trusts, and how a business can make itself sustainable. Both in terms of, financially sustainable, particularly with the impact of the pandemic, but also environmentally sustainable. And how a business can be as responsible as it can be for the impact that it makes on the environment around it. So the ICAEW, that is the Institute for Chartered Accountants in England and Wales – of which I am a student member – on its website has some really great information about how accountants can have, or do have a really important role in ensuring that businesses comply with their sustainability principles, and how they can be responsible for the resources that they use, and how, you know, if they are making sure that they’re using their resources in an ethical manner and things like that. So I think that’s really important. And I think going forward, that will continue to be really important. I think also the financial impact of the Coronavirus is massive, and we don’t really even know what that is yet. And that is really, really interesting and also, I suppose, quite daunting in lots of ways. But I think, again, the ICAEW website has some great sort of thought pieces on the immediate impact of the Coronavirus, in terms of what that looks like for the economy. I think also keeping up with political news about economic developments, keeping up with the budgets, things like that – that’s been quite helpful for me certainly, breaking into the finance world. I think knowing a little bit more about that sort of background was really useful too. 

Kate:

So it sounds like starting to research these areas and keep on top of current affairs, the environmental stuff sounds really interesting, and sustainability. Any other top tips, in terms of, if there’s particular work experience that you would recommend people getting? Or any other things you feel like – ‘I would have benefited from doing that as a student’. 

Alice:

Yeah, absolutely. I think it’s also really important to try and speak to people who work in the sector that you’re interested in. So for me, I was able to speak to people who worked as accountants. I would then speak to people who work on the finance side of project management, which was really helpful. And particularly when I was exploring different careers and different job opportunities, I also spoke to people who are journalists, I spoke to people who work in education. I think getting an idea from people who have worked in their roles for a long time, who worked in their roles for a short time, it’s really useful to sort of have different perspectives on their jobs, and everyone has different answers. And it’s really, really useful to be able to see what they have to say about it. And you can ask whatever questions you want, I guess, and have answers tailored for you, which is really great to have alongside your kind of big overarching research into like the sort of political movements and the geographical landscape. You get the sort of individual’s perspective as well, and that’s really, really useful. 

Kate:

So sort of two things, in that: number one, what was the impact on you of hearing these personal stories, and how did that help you decide what you wanted to do? And secondly, how did you find these people? 

Alice:

I guess I’ll answer the second one first actually. So I have a number of different contacts. So I graduated about four years before I started this current role. So I met lots of different people through different jobs, including kind of retail jobs and bar work, and stuff. So I suppose, like, I had quite a varied kind of professional network, and I used my LinkedIn profile to reach out to people who were sort of connections of connections, which was really great, because you can use LinkedIn to sort of see what people do. And, you know, if you’ve got a friend in common, you can literally just reach out to someone and be like – ‘Hello, we both know so and so. Hope you don’t mind me asking a couple of questions’. And you know what, people can just ignore you if they don’t speak to you. And if they do – then great. I think that there’s a lot of hesitation around reaching out to people. But I just think that the more you speak to people, the more information you’re going to get. And if you don’t really know these people to start with, then you’re not losing out on anything if they ignore you. And lots of people did ignore me, that is fair to say. But yeah, enough people responded that I was able to get some really good information. Also, I suppose I was really lucky that my partner’s brother in law is an accountant himself. So I was also able to chat to him a little bit. He doesn’t work in audit, and he told me not to work in audit for the list of reasons. And then I realised that actually, I am the sort of person who really wanted to work in audit, for all the reasons he listed. So I suppose knowing what you want as well is really, really important, and remembering that when you’re speaking to other people. 

Kate:

Thank you. That’s brilliant. That was so useful to hear. I think the power of LinkedIn is just amazing. For York students, we’ve also got York Profiles and Mentors, where you can connect with York grads. But it’s interesting, I speak to a lot of people who found it so useful to connect with other people who’ve been in their position. And that’s kind of the point of this podcast, is to help people start to understand the realities of different roles and how it all works. And as you say, you can take that and apply it to yourself, but you don’t have to just mirror what someone else has done, or follow their advice. But it gives you a deeper insight to help you make your own decisions about what’s right for you. 

Alice:

Absolutely. And I think particularly now we’re in a, you know, an environment where it’s even more perfectly acceptable to reach out to someone virtually, You know, whereas before you might have had to convince someone to go to coffee with you. Like now you can just say – ‘Oh, can we have a virtual coffee? It will literally be five minutes’. I think now it’s so much easier, and almost the pandemic is kind of the perfect icebreaker. I mean, it was for me. I was researching opportunities in February, March, April 2020, when the kind of ‘stay at home’ order first happened. And I phoned a couple of accountancy recruiters as well, and I always started with the line saying something along the lines of – ‘Oh, this pandemis is a bit crazy, isn’t it? You know, just checking are you still recruiting, what’s happening’. And it was a really good entry point to speak to recruiters, or to speak to anyone, really. And, you know, we are living in such weird times right now, but I think it’s perfectly acceptable to use that as a way in. 

Kate:

Yeah, people are often grateful for someone different to talk to, aren’t they. 

Alice:

Yeah, absolutely. And aware that this is, you know, possibly a difficult time to be job searching, and have lots of sympathy. 

Kate:

I think you’re right. Well, that’s brilliant. So for more information about the careers we’ve mentioned today, we’re going to add some relevant links to the show notes and a link to the full transcript of today’s show. But, Alice, thank you so much for all your amazing insights and advice there. It’s really useful. And thank you for sharing that personal stuff about your own experiences and feelings, as you were making your own decisions and breaking into the sector, it’s really helpful. So thank you for taking the time to speak to us. 

Alice:

Thank you for having me. No problem! 

Kate:

Thank you for joining us this week on What Do You Actually Do? This episode was hosted by me, Kate Morris, edited by Stephen Furlong, and produced by both of us. If you love this podcast, spread the word and follow us. Are you eager to get more tips? Follow University of York Careers and Placements on YouTube, Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. All useful links are in this episode’s description. This has been produced at the University of York Careers and Placements. For more information visit york.ac.uk/careers