Meet the finance grads who chose a life outside of The City

‘Once you’ve got the skills and qualifications you can work anywhere’

8 years ago | UPDATED 8 years ago

Arman Hussain, Morgan Stanley

Arman made the choice when he was 17 to not spend four years at university like most of his friends.

Instead, he finished school with straight A*s and joined a small accountancy firm where he learned the trade that has now set him up to become the first person to finish Morgan Stanley’s prestigious Finance School leaver programme in Glasgow.

Arman has big career ambitions, once he’s completed his ACCA, with Morgan Stanley’s global presence he hopes there will be opportunities to work in other locations, particularly New York.

While Arman enjoys working for Morgan Stanley, for those looking to get into other industries, he believes the broad scope of the ACCA qualification means people can work across a mixture of companies and sectors, from global brands to big accountancy firms.

Arman said: “Having the ACCA qualification offers people the skills and qualifications to work anywhere, for any big company, it doesn’t have to be a company which specialises in finance.”

“A lot of the work you will do in your day-to-day will help you pass the ACCA and a lot of the stuff you do in the ACCA helps you in your day-to-day.

“My biggest advice would be to find a job which focuses on the same sorts of things you’re going to be studying in the ACCA.”

Unlike what a lot of people think, Arman insists the industry really isn’t boring.

He said: “The thing with finance is it covers so many different things and roles and areas of expertise. The industry is so big and dynamic, you can’t paint everyone with the same brush.”

Erin McEwan, NHS

At school Erin had her heart set on going to uni and she had offers to study Accounting and Languages at several Scottish unis, but after doing work experience all of her plans changed.

Erin found university, a degree and a teaching job wasn’t for her, she wanted to do accountancy for the NHS.

When Erin first started at the NHS she was 16, making her the youngest in the office, as soon as school finished, she dived straight into full-time work there and her ACCA.

Erin has always enjoyed maths, she protests: “I’m not a total geek. I did work experience at the NHS, which got me interested in doing the accounts for the NHS.”

“Since then, I’ve always been clear on where I wanted to be and where I wanted my career to go.”

Because Erin was a school leaver when she started the ACCA she sat all 14 exams, from ethics to law and more financial skills like corporate reporting.

It wasn’t easy, Erin compared it to her time at school where she would learn during the day and study at night.

Erin said: “When the results came out I cried, I stayed up until 5am. I signed up to receive my results by text message at midnight but because so many people were logging on to find out, I didn’t get mine till the early morning.

“I first cried out of relief that I’d passed the last exam and then because I couldn’t believe I’d finally done it.”

A few years later and Erin is now a management accountant for the NHS and is quick to dispel the myth of accountancy as a male profession:

“The biggest myth is that it’s all guys, there are a lot of women in our office, more women than men.”

Alex Ryan, Carphone Warehouse

After graduating from Durham with a 2:1 in Economics, Alex spent a year living and teaching English in Japan before joining Carphone Warehouse as a grad.

Alex said: “When I got back from Japan, there was a lot of thinking around what my ambitions were and where I wanted my career to go.

“I didn’t want to go into Economics, but I did want to use the skills I’d learnt, primarily my analytical skills. I wanted a job where I could progress and develop.”

You’d think Alex would get bored of numbers but no, he said: “I don’t see my job as numbers, more as logic. For me numbers are involved in all aspects of life, it’s really dynamic and not just spreadsheets.”

Durham grad, Alex, looked around the big accountancy firms, but just didn’t feel like they were the right fit for him and wanted something more dynamic, so he took up a job with Carphone Warehouse as a Financial Analyst and after three months began studying for his ACCA.

He said: “I found different parts of the ACCA more interesting than others. Because of my background at Carphone, I found anything commercial or strategy related a lot easier than the pure finance.”

Alex admits a lot of the boring tasks accountants used to do are now done by a computer.

He added: “The analysis part of the job is the most important, the mundane tasks are now being automated, so you need to be able to analyse if you want your career to go further.”