Low Way Hong
BACHELOR OF COMMERCE (HONS) Accounting
Class of August 2006

Upon obtaining my degree in commerce major in accounting, I join a small auditing firm near my house.

In the small firm, you are required to perform all tasks from preparing accounts, auditing and taxation all alone. Segregation of duty rarely happens in the small firm. Independence by form is always there as in practice the partner would set up another firm by his/her friend to handle accounting and taxation, however independence by presence is hard to achieve in the small firm as there is lack of staffs available.

While working in the small firm, I continue my studies by taking ACCA on a part time basis. Since that the workload in the small firm is low, hence, there is lots of time after work to study and attend classes.

Upon completion of two years of employment in the small firm, I felt that there is not much career progression available in that firm, as I feel that if I do not leave the firm, I would further get used to the low workload and lost the competitive edge. Hence I joined a medium firm.

There is a total shock when I am at the medium firm as the workload had increased tremendously. The pressure in the firm is killing us. However, there are no other choice but to wither through the stormy weather and riding through the waves. We can't be giving up too early. As time passes, one would get used to the situation and would be performing well.

The advantage of working in a small firm is that you would have the time to continue your studies and lower workload and to get an overall feel of doing audit.

The disadvantage is that, the experience you gain in the small firm would only limited to small and medium companies only. The depth of knowledge that you would gain is limited. But one would get a wide knowledge in the overall view in audit, accounting and taxation.

Having said so, I regretted in joining the small firm, I feel that if I join big/medium firm straight away since graduation, I would be better off. The reason for me to say so is that, while working two years in the small firm, the experience would bring you to "semi-senior" level in the small firm, however, when you proceed to larger firm, they would not think that your knowledge and experience would be worthwhile to be put on "semi-senior" position, hence you would be downgraded back to assistant level (slightly higher position than those fresh graduates).

However, let say, if you join large/medium firm straight away since that you graduate, and you spend two years in the firm, I strongly believe that one would already be at least a "semi senior" position and above, thereafter, progress upwards a bit faster as compare with my choice.

Hence, if you will soon be graduating, I would recommend you try to attend interview and try to join in the following sequence, Ernst & Young, PWC, KPMG, Deloitte, BDO, Horwath, Grant Thornton, Baker Tilly Monteiro Heng, Moores Rowland, Moores Stephen, and others... At least you tried to join them and if they do not take you in, then you go for others.

Then upon getting three years of experience and complete all your ACCA examination, you could proceed to apply for your Chartered Accountant title. With that, you open up many other choices available for you in your future career progress. As I believe, the experience you gain in auditing firm is wide enough for you to be an accountant in any company.

On the other hand, joining as Management Trainee in large multi national companies would be a good choice as well as they would train you up in the firm to handle the overall stuffs in the company.

In my career in auditing, I would say that, the knowledge I gain from the university, is a good foundation for us. As well as the knowledge to do research that I gain from the university while working on assignment also help me a lot when I encounter some new issues from work that need to do some research and reading.

In a year or two to come, I foresee that I need to obtain my three years of experience, obtain ACCA membership and MIA membership to call myself as an "accountant". That's the ultimate goal. With that qualification coupe with a University degree, the world belongs to us now. We would have the choice to join any corporation that we wanted to join. However, for my case, I would further dwell into the field of audit until I am 30 years old, then I would join commercial line.

The challenges that one might encounter in audit world is that, you would encounter that the client is doing something not in line with accounting standard and you would need to challenge them the accounting treatment and yet maintaining a good relationship with the client. If you encounter such problem, you would have to talk nicely to the client and educate the client about their wrong doings and bring the matter to the higher lever if the accountant in charge does not want to change. Else we need to consider giving the client a qualified audit report.

Goal, is very important to us, everyone need to have one at each stage of life, thereafter keep on changing the goal and upgrading the goals. With a goal in mind we would be more focus in what we are doing and we would then strive towards achieving the goals that we had set. This keep I motivated to work in audit line.

Approach life section by section and step by step would be a good method to success.