Stuff You Should Know: Accounting and Finance Students

Aug 15, 2019 | 3 min read
Hello world! I'm Niesh's Head of Student Engagement and I run our ON Event Series. My expertise ranges from food all the way to sharing knowledge on how to make the most of your student experience.

AI AND CV’S, WHAT IS THE FUTURE OF WORK?

Accounting and finance students have it rough. Rules and regulations constantly changing & we are still desperate for borrowing calculators during exam time.

CPA Profession Sessions are held annually across the country to help inform students on what their future career might look like. Inviting employers to come speak, it’s a student’s best opportunity to find out the in’s and out’s of the industry.

Lucky for you, the Niesh team was sent to scope out the must know information. Here are 5 things that you must know as an accounting and finance student.


1: Be active, stay active

We’re not referring to active as in “staying fit”, we mean being active within your industry. Keynote, Kit Hebenton (BDM, CPA Australia) pointed out something obvious.

If you pick up the courage to take on opportunities to put yourself out there i.e. actively seeking out internships or graduate roles. You are more likely to expect higher employment statuses and salaries than the norm.

2: Think international

Accounting standards are international, and it’s one of those unique degrees that can be used globally. This means you don’t need to restrict yourself to the New Zealand job market. Great tip for those struggling with recruitment in Auckland.

3: Worrying about AI? Don’t.

A lot of accounting students are worried about AI taking over their jobs (I mean, robots do seem to be taking over the world).

However, think of it in this way. AI being able to process routine number crunching is good for students and in an employers mindset. Utilising AI allows employees to put aside the boring work and focus on higher level tasks. In Kit’s words..

Our roles can be more elevated and less mind numbing.

Nothing sucks more than looking at an excel spreadsheet the whole day.

4: CV top tips

Presentation

BNZ and KPMG came and delivered some great CV tips. The key takeaway?

Apart from getting good grades, and utilising extra curricular’s to help develop interpersonal skills. You need to focus on keeping your CV relevant. If you put down a hobby, make sure that you can directly say how it’s helped develop a certain skillset that will make you a prime candidate for the job.

Take a look at the skill requirements in a job description, it’ll help you tailor the CV a lot more.

Looking for a CV template, check out our blog here.

5: Pre-prepare yourself for networking

CPA Profession Session allowed the opportunity to speed network with industry reps.

They gave pre-written questions before the networking portion in case students got stuck and it got us thinking. Wouldn’t it be a lot easier to network if we pre-prepared questions at all the industry events?

Having the prewritten questions was super helpful and it even gave us the chance to nab a few emails from the industry reps.


If you enjoyed this blog, take a look at our Upskill section that helps keep you connected with industry standards. Stay connected with CPA Australia here, so you can attend their next CPA Profession Session.