Opposite directions for our accountancy apprentices

Jon

Over the past few months, Jon has taken a step back from the frontline in his role at ConocoPhillips. While he has continued to dip his toe into negotiations, and has been on a few European trips, most of his time is currently taken up on a large analysis project. 'I'm doing lots of analysis of the gas markets and some detailed modelling,' he says.

Although the ultimate aim of such modelling is price setting, the amount of detail involved in reaching that decision is staggering. Jon explains that to understand the market, it often helps to test your models on real-life events. 'It's about different flows of gas, the ships coming in - even the weather. We're looking at all of this and more on a really detailed level, bringing those together to understand how they interact.'

Of course, models are just that and there is no guarantee that real-life events will follow the path of the model, but Jon insists it is crucial to understand the limitations of your model in order to get the best out of it. He says: 'Everything is about probabilities and trends.'

Long and winding road

The work has taken him a long way away from his accountancy qualification, although he acknowledges that without the skills he picked up through his ICAS training he would struggle to do such analysis. But it is also some way from where he aims to be.

'My wish is to move more into the negotiating side,' Jon says. 'I wouldn't really call myself an accountant. I'm more a commercial professional in the oil industry. Accounting is a key part of the background knowledge for that.'

Ben

This year has started off well for Ben. During a trip out to see his girlfriend in South Africa for a few weeks, he received his CIPFA exam results. It was with a great deal of relief that he discovered he had passed all three papers with impressive marks, including the one he had to resit. 'It feels good to get those results after my blip,' says Ben. 'I'm now back in the right place to be exam qualified this time next year. I got good marks - I think the average was 63.'

Ben's overall emotion about the results was relief. He had been warned that working and studying at the same time was one of the biggest challenges he could face, but admitted: 'Until you actually live it, you just don't realise what a challenge it is.'

His placement with Ealing Council's financial systems team is over and he is now undertaking a six-month stint with the internal audit division. While he cannot talk about some of the specifics he will be working on, Ben said that after talks with the head of internal audit and having worked in external audit in the past, he is excited about the challenges ahead and how they will compare with his past experience.

Of his time with the financial systems team, where he spent much of it in a client-facing role, he says he picked up some invaluable experience but is unlikely to specialise in that area once qualified.

First things first

Ben has also laid out a more concrete plan for his career route, putting plans of relocating to South Africa to be with his girlfriend on the back burner until after qualification. 'I would love to go to South Africa one day, but I need to finish my qualification first, so I'm going to focus on that,' he says. 'If I were doing an international qualification, it might be a different story, but at the moment I think breaking off my studies would be too great a risk to take.'

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