T+O+M BLOG

FOTOM Jadie Petch talks to Keith Ryan about her career path after starting out in audit. In part two she explains how she figured things out.

Figuring out your career path is extremely personal – what is right for me may not be for someone else. I thought I would find success in working for a large worldwide company - and so I did that. I contracted for a large tech company and found it wasn’t the right fit for me. Being part of a big organisation, things were less intimate than in previous roles I had worked in, and I personally felt I added less value. The hours were more demanding, and I was not learning as quickly as I did when part of a small integral team. The company I worked for was ironically consumed with ‘technical debt’. The advancement of their technology and ever evolving products which made the company so exciting were not replicated in their back-end systems which could not keep up. This meant that an increasing number of finance staff were required to manually calculate and report the company’s results. In my first two roles outside of audit I was surprised to find that the role I thought I would get most out of was not the one I did.

After that I tried to answer the question ‘where do I want to be?’ My approach was if it sounds interesting, if there is a new avenue to explore or something new to learn from the experience, then do it! You get a gut feeling when going through the interview process and we should listen to this whilst asking ourselves relevant questions. Are the people I am going to be working with inspiring? Are they selling this role and their organisation?  Do they seem happy? Am I excited?

I turned down two great positions because I didn’t think the culture matched what I was looking for. I turned down the chance to return to my pharmaceutical company (referenced in part 1) because whilst I loved it, the speed at which I was learning and the value I was able to add was diminishing. There are so many things to consider such as the size of a company, culture, role specifics, the industry you are working in and who you are working with.

It took four contract roles to find Domain (the organisation I currently work for and love) through T+O+M Executive Recruitment (the best recruitment firm I have partnered with). You talk to so many people in finance who don’t like their job but are sticking it out because they think it looks bad to leave or because they are lost as where to go next, and there are many instances where individuals even return to professional services.

This is why in my opinion contracting is the solution to figure out what drives you and how you can land a role you love. We will explore reasoning in parts three and four of this series.

If you are looking to make your next career move, whether it be staying in audit or making a leap, please get in touch with one of our friendly Accounting & Finance team members.