Brochure copywriting - Chantrey Vellacott
Chantrey Vellacott were keen to recruit the kind of graduates who might not usually be thinking of accountancy as an option. The solution? Explode a few myths. Subsequent word on the grapevine suggested that the brochure was being widely used by careers advisors as a generic guide to what's actually involved in joining a medium-sized accountancy firm.
Chantrey Vellawhat?
"IT AIN'T NECESSARILY SO...
You may have some strange ideas about what accountancy means, and what training and working in a 'medium-sized accountancy firm' entails. In our experience, most people do. Some of the ideas are simply false; some contain an element of truth, but are distorted. Look beyond the myths and see the reality. This is Chantrey Vellacott — as it is, and as it is becoming.
MYTH ONE
accountancy is all auditing
Trainees at large firms may spend weeks or even months at a time auditing vast multinationals. Recruits at Chantrey Vellacott will in their first year work for perhaps twenty different clients, in a
variety of roles.
Auditing — verifying essential financial records — is one of an accountant's staple activities. But much of our work is proactive rather than reactive — that means providing financial advice in all facets of business. This area of our practice is becoming increasingly important. Audit fees now account for less than 50% of our income — and that percentage is dropping all the time. From early on you will help to influence what is to be done, rather than merely record what has been done.
MYTH TWO
accountancy is all about figures
and accountants are just calculators in suits
In Chantrey Vellacott, we see accountancy as being primarily about people. It is, after all, people who own and run businesses, and make financial decisions. If you get on with people, can communicate, can put yourself in their position and understand their business, then you have the makings of a good accountant. A degree of numeracy is necessary, but there is more to accountancy than just being good at sums.
MYTH THREE
as a trainee
you never meet anyone who matters
From the very beginning, a trainee at Chantrey Vellacott will be in contact with stimulating and important people. You'll be dealing directly with client personnel at all levels (our clients range from sole traders to public companies), and you'll have access to anyone within the firm - up to and including partners. In a firm of our size, a genuine 'open door' policy is the only rational way of organising things.
MYTH FOUR
accountancy firms
are staid and strictly hierarchical
Some accountancy firms are staid and hierarchical. But in Chantrey Vellacott, promotion is determined solely on the basis of merit. If you can do it, you will be promoted to it. To do otherwise would be to underuse our most vital resource - our people - and we couldn't achieve growth by squandering an essential resource in that way.
MYTH FIVE
accountancy firms are 'equal opportunities employers' in name only
Chantrey Vellacott is an equal opportunities employer. Talent comes in all shapes, sizes, genders and colours and from all backgrounds. We're interested in who you are and what you can do.
MYTH SIX
accountancy training is gruelling,
boring and repetitive
Training is hard work, and demands real commitment, and it would be less than
candid to pretend that none of it is boring. You simply have to learn the basic framework within which the business world operates, and a certain amount of cramming is unavoidable. It's rather like learning scales and arpeggios: you can't play much music without having mastered them.
But most of your training, far from being boring, can be fascinating. Company law — where business meets government — is a strange and riveting phenomenon: a constantly evolving, almost organic structure, whose dissection and analysis is as gripping as any scientific investigation. Corporate finance, and the whys and wherefores of takeovers and flotations, make for stories
as intriguing as any political struggle in Renaissance Italy: but rather than reading about them you'll be directly involved.
MYTH SEVEN
accountants are only glorified
bookkeepers anyway
In addition to learning the basic ground rules of business, you'll have the opportunity to try your hand in areas of more specialised expertise: by secondment to one of our departments such as corporate or personal tax, business services, computer services or corporate finance. You can in
due course decide to specialise primarily or entirely in one of these areas, or continue in general practice: whichever you, and we, feel is the most appropriate to your skills and inclinations.
Overall, a good training in accountancy is probably the single most comprehensive training in how business organisations of all sizes and types work. By the time you qualify, you'll have had the
chance to adopt a wide variety of roles: communicator, strategist, analyst, teamworker and leader. And you'll have a comprehensive understanding of business and the way it works.
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