How an AAT Qualification Could Help Turn Your Existing Skills into a New Career
Your next great career move might not mean starting again from scratch. If you already deal with invoices, budgets, spreadsheets, payments or financial information as part of your job, you could have more accountancy experience than you realise. Studying an AAT qualification through distance learning can help you build on those existing skills, gain a recognised qualification and take the next step towards a career in accountancy, without having to put the rest of your life on hold.
Your next career might start with what you already know
When people think about changing career, it can sound rather dramatic.
New job. New industry. New skills. Back to square one.
But career changes don’t always happen like that.
Sometimes the beginnings of your next career are already sitting in your current job. You just haven’t thought about them in that way before.
Perhaps you’re responsible for raising invoices or processing expenses. Maybe you keep an eye on budgets, deal with suppliers, reconcile payments or spend rather more time in spreadsheets than you ever expected to.
You might work in administration, retail, hospitality, payroll or for a small business where everyone ends up wearing several hats.
None of those necessarily comes with the job title accountant. But they could have given you useful skills and experience that provide a surprisingly good starting point.
You don’t need an accountancy background to start
One of the things that can put people off exploring accountancy is the belief that they should already know more than they do.
That’s rather missing the point of learning.
AAT qualifications are designed to help you develop your knowledge step by step, and there are different levels depending on where you’re starting from.
If you’re completely new to accounting, AAT Level 2 can introduce the fundamentals and help you build a solid foundation. Level 3 develops those skills further, while Level 4 takes you into more advanced accounting and finance knowledge.
You can explore our AAT distance learning courses to see the different options and decide which level might suit you.
The Association of Accounting Technicians (AAT) also provides information about its qualifications and the careers they can lead to.
Look at the skills you already use
Accountancy isn’t only about being good with numbers.
Think about your current role. Do you need to be organised? Meet deadlines? Spot when something doesn’t look quite right? Explain information to somebody else? Work accurately? Solve problems?
Those are all useful skills in finance.
Even experience that initially appears unrelated can be valuable. Customer service can develop communication skills. Administration can build organisation and attention to detail. Running a small business can give you first-hand experience of cash flow, costs, invoices and the importance of knowing where the money has gone.
And if you’ve ever stared at a spreadsheet until an error finally revealed itself, you’ve already experienced one of accounting’s smaller victories.
Distance learning means you don’t necessarily have to choose
Of course, recognising that you might enjoy a career in accountancy is one thing. Finding the time to do something about it is another.
For many adult learners, stopping work to study simply isn’t realistic.
That’s one of the reasons distance learning can work particularly well for people looking to develop or change their careers. You can study around your existing commitments rather than reorganising your entire life around a classroom timetable.
At Accountancy Learning, our AAT distance learning courses offer different levels of support depending on how independently you want to study. That means you can choose an approach that fits both the way you learn and the amount of support you’d like along the way.
It’s still going to require time and commitment. We’d be doing you no favours by pretending otherwise. But studying towards a new career doesn’t necessarily mean putting your current one on hold.
From doing parts of the job to building a career
There’s an important difference between having picked up some finance experience and having the knowledge and qualification to take it further.
That’s where structured study can make a difference.
You might begin because you’d like to become better at the financial tasks you’re already doing. As your knowledge grows, you may find yourself looking at opportunities that previously wouldn’t have been on your radar.
That could mean taking on greater responsibility with your current employer, moving into a dedicated finance position or eventually looking for an entirely new role.
You don’t have to know exactly where the journey will end before you start it.
Could your next step already be in front of you?
It’s easy to think about career development in terms of what we’re missing: the qualification we don’t have, the job title we haven’t achieved or the experience we still need.
Sometimes it’s worth looking at it from the other direction.
What do you already have?
You may have years of workplace experience. You may already understand how a business operates. You might have developed organisation, communication and problem-solving skills without ever thinking of them as something an accountant needs.
And perhaps you’ve discovered that the financial part of your current role is actually the bit you enjoy.
If so, your next great career might not be quite as far away as you thought.
At Accountancy Learning, we help people study AAT qualifications through distance learning, whether they’re completely new to accountancy or ready to build on knowledge they already have.
Take a look at our AAT distance learning courses and see where your next step could take you.
If you’re not sure which AAT qualification is right for you, we’re always happy to have a chat. Give us a call on 01392 435394 or email us at [email protected].
