From apprentice to boss: Improve your career prospects by expanding your experience

“Growth mindset is more important than technical skills” if you’re aiming for CFO or partner, so here’s what you can do to get there.

These days, having a chartered qualification helps, but it’s no longer essential. There are other ways to build up the skills and experience to become CFO or partner.

Gareth John, Policy Director, First Intuition, the training provider: “At senior leadership positions, you’ll still need to know accountancy basics such as bank recs or tax computation. I regularly ask CFOs and partners today whether accountants need to know double-entry. Their answer? ‘Absolutely!’.”

Chris Argent, Founder, Generation CFO, The CFO: “It’s only the people digging their heels in and saying, ‘I don’t want to learn anything new’ who’ll be caught out by AI. As accountants, we’re analysts by heart and we’ve been training our entire careers – it’s natural for us to keep learning. I think most of us will be fine when it comes to embracing AI.”

Karen Young, Director of accountancy & finance, Hays, the recruitment expert: “Employers value a willingness to learn and a growth mindset more than specific technical skills… Thanks to AI, entry-level roles are in a state of flux. But apprentices will still need to learn how to interpret AI’s output to see if there’s anything wrong with it.”

Volunteer and put your hand up for everything

The training provider: “I always advise trainees to volunteer to do things that aren’t part of their job description. Take on that extra bit of work. Help your manager who seems busier than normal. Organise the team social event every Friday.

Don’t sit back and wait for people to come to you: if you finish a job at 4pm, find the manager and see if you can help. If you go above and beyond, giving that extra 5-10%, you’ll get noticed which leads to interesting opportunities. Every time you say ‘yes’, it opens new doors.

Outside of work, if you volunteer to be treasurer of your local cricket club or help a charity’s finance team, you’ll find you’ll take on responsibilities at a quicker rate than other trainees.”

The recruitment expert: “Offer to cover for senior colleagues during their time off. You might not be able to cover their entire job for a week, but you might be able to take on a couple of their tasks.”

Try to understand how the entire business works

The training provider: “CFOs/partners need to have a holistic view of how an organisation operates. Many apprenticeships offer a rotation programme, which gives you the chance to work in different departments such as sales ledger, treasury or management accounting.”

The CFO: “Even as a trainee, you can ask a colleague for coffee to find out more about their department. If you’re working as an accounts payable clerk there’s no reason why you can’t find out what your credit control team is doing, or what operations are distributing.”

Seek every opportunity to improve communication skills

The training provider: “At CFO level, stakeholder management is more important than technical accounting: their FDs and finance managers can do that. Instead, CFOs need to develop relationships: with the CEO, the chief people officer, clients, investors and the bank.

Many people enter accounting thinking it’s just about debits & credits or bookkeeping. But because of AI/automation, these broader communication (or ‘impact’) skills are becoming more important, especially if you want to progress towards senior leadership.

How to develop these skills in your first job? Try to accompany your CFO to a meeting at a bank, or prepare some information for shareholders, perhaps even presenting it.” 

The CFO: “Don’t think you need to have a strong personality to be CFO. You can be an introverted, quiet person and still be a leader. True leadership is about being authentic and being true to yourself.”

The recruitment expert: “Ask your boss whether it’d be okay to present a five-minute slot during the next team meeting. Pushing yourself out of your comfort zone is a great way to practice communication skills.”

Ask for extra responsibilities in your development plan

The CFO: “Try having conversations with your manager or learning & development team about your career goals. Tell them you want to understand more about the commercial side of the. business, or how to automate processes.”

The recruitment expert: “There’s a growing need in many businesses for sustainability reporting – a great area to add value to your CV. Many young people have a passion for the planet and making the world a better place, so put yourself forward for any sustainability-led projects. For example, if your company is removing diesel vehicles from its fleet, see if you can help with the reporting for the impact statements.”

Try to have a ‘zigzaggy’ career

The recruitment expert: “If you only work in profit & loss or management accounting – and you’ve never had responsibility for the balance sheet or financial accounting – you probably won’t make CFO or financial director. The more opportunities you have to work in different areas of finance and accounting, the better…”

The training provider: “I often see aspiring partners who’ll ‘zigzag’ departments every few years: working in areas such as audit, services or in corporate finance. Those working in industry might want to look at business partnering roles.

This makes them more ‘pickable’ as a partner because they’ve got that variety of experience. If you work in the same department for 10-15 years, you might become an effective finance manager but struggle to step up to CFO because you haven’t got that holistic view.”

The CFO: “Dare I say it, having a varied background could get you ahead of somebody who has stayed in a traditional pathway. If you’ve worked as an auditor or tax accountant, you would have gained some great experience but you’re not leading that strategic life as a finance business partner.”

Christian Koch is an award-winning journalist/editor who has written for the Evening Standard, Sunday Times, Guardian, Telegraph, The Independent, Q, The Face and Metro. He's also written about business for Accounting Technician, 20 and Director, where he is contributing editor.