Balancing ambition for Students episode 2: full transcript

Read the full transcript of episode 2 of the Balancing ambition podcast below. To listen or watch this episode, click here.

Our host: Zoe Smith, AAT
Our guests: Ali Jaw, founder and director of Severn Accounting and part of the AAT Members Advisory Council, and John Toon, chartered accountant, speaker, consultant and investor.
Synopsis: AI can analyse data, automate tasks and produce answers in seconds. But it can’t replace the judgement, empathy, curiosity and real-world understanding that people bring to their work. Our guests discuss how accountancy careers are changing – and why developing your human skills could be one of the best ways to prepare.

Zoe: Today we’re talking about AI: certainly one of the hottest topics across every industry right now. But in this episode, we will be focusing specifically on the human skills that are becoming even more important as AI becomes more prominent in the workplace. Skills like communication, critical thinking to collaboration, adaptability, and professional judgment.

We’ll be exploring these skills people need to develop as technology continues to transform the world of work.

Now at the start of every episode, we always ask our guests if they can share with us one ambition: something that you are planning on wanting to do over the coming months.

That can be big or small, professional or personal. So, Ali, I’m going to come to you first. Is there anything that you have planned as your ambition for the next 12 months?

Ali: Pretty simple really, Zoe. Just keep growing and keep simplifying as much as possible. Helping clients understand the number at a very simple level rather than complicating it, because running a business is tough enough.

And so my overall aim for the next year or so is to keep growing deep learning, understanding how AI works even deeper, yes, but simplifying it for the client.

John: I think, you know, my main career ambition for the next six to 12 months…my role at HRB International as head of technology is really to help our firms mature and to adapt to the technology landscape that’s changing around them every day.

And so the big thing for us is around AI education, development and implementation and to get our firms from decision-making to operationalisation of these technologies and practices so that they can reap the benefits as we go forward.

Zoe: So back to our topic then, about human skills in an AI world. As you said, things are changing every day, at the moment, with AI, aren’t they. It’s something that’s constantly changing. How do you think that that is impacting on the way that we work in accountancy and finance?

John: I think for me, you know, the biggest challenge for I think for accountants, whether they’re in practice or in business, is you see that pace of change is accelerated so much.

And people are already struggling with the pace of change before AI came along in terms of like, what’s the best kind of technology to use in my business, how do I implement it, how do we make sure it’s successful?

And that’s kind of just exploded, you know, ten times, a hundred times, whatever the number might be.

So I think the challenge for firms and for people in organisations is really around not getting too bogged down and trying to keep on top of everything, because that’s going to be impossible, and really about trying to just sort of understand how these trends are changing, what’s going to stick, what’s not going to stay, and what’s going to pass us by. And then adapt to that and change.

I think the key thing for me, in terms of what skill you really need to embed in that, in your culture of an organisation, is around curiosity and being willing to see something new, try it out. If it doesn’t work, move on. If it does work, great, utilise it and accelerate its development.

Zoe: I think that’s a really great approach to have and a good attitude, isn’t it, about making sure that you can adapt to whatever comes.

Ali: Yeah, just like John, I think the change is quite rapid with AI and you can get bogged down on all the shiny topics that come in via AI, So it’s a case of, like John, just be curious, but also making sure that you understand what’s happening rather than just following the trend. Because the trend is here to stay; AI is here to stay.

It’s not going to take over the accountants’ world, but certainly the skills needed: it’s going to be very, very important in terms of being human, being able to make judgement calls, to see what’s right and what’s wrong – understanding basically – and to be able to communicate at that level because the change is rapid, but just stay grounded, understanding that AI is here to stay but it’s not going to take over the sector, as many people are alluding to.

But of course, you have to stay curious because, especially for us in our sector, in practice, clients are now, very, very savvy when it comes to AI.

So you have to be on top of your game. Of course, you cannot just spend all your time learning about  AI, but you must know what’s going on.

Zoe: It’s always been so important as accountants that, hasn’t it, to make sure that you keep your CPD up to date, you stay up to date about the accounting standards that are changing, regulation, tax changes, industry updates.

That’s always been something accountants have had to do. But it’s even more important now, isn’t it?

Ali: Absolutely, yeah. With CPD especially, I’m very happy actually, especially for us at AAT, that a lot of branches now in the bank network are actually picking up topics, AI topics, because it’s relevant at the moment; you can’t run away from it.

So, I’m very happy that we are helping and arming our members with the skills they need in this current day and the age of AI.

Zoe: And a little shout out then to our branches and our members. We want to encourage them to be attending those sessions, going to the branch events and making the most of those CPD events to be able to improve their knowledge and understanding of AI.

Ali: So I mean, like the branches events for me, as a member, and the value they provide.

I just wish that more of our members are aware of what’s happening there, because just come and attend a branch meeting, take up a role maybe event, like you would be amazed at what you can learn coming to the branches.

Zoe: And there’s nice events, you know. You go to Birmingham, they’ll give you chips as well! So that’s nice. So that’s good.

Coming back to the topic sorry, away from chips. So do you think that, because of the amount of AI that we have in the way that is impacting on the work that there’s it’s more valuable for accountants to make sure that they’re keeping their professional standards and ethics?

John: I mean, clearly the answer is yes, right? I mean, that’s fundamental to trust in our industry is having a level of professional standards, a level of ethics, in terms of you making sure that, you know, when you’re providing advice to, to clients, that it’s reasonable and you can back it up with something.

I think we’re all aware of some of the horror stories that we’ve seen over the last few years in terms of, you know, people providing poor tax, particularly around things like R&D and employment, expenses and stuff like that. And so, you know, I think it’s paramount, really, to do that.

I think the challenge, as well, is also that we’ve seen as a consequence of AI, is that we’ve also seen some poor headlines where firms have – not just in the accounting profession, but in legal profession and other places – have relied on AI and not done their normal due diligence in terms of like checking and reviewing the data and information again before they send it out, which is just frankly, embarrassing, really.

Clearly, it’s here to stay. I think, you know, there are elements where you can also then potentially use AI to supplement that, to help with your professional judgment, to help with your review of data and information.

And I actually think, in the same way that we kind of saw cloud accounting kind of be a bit of a superpower for smaller firms and smaller bookkeeping practices to broaden their horizons in terms of the amount of work they can do.

AI does almost the same for firms in terms of, you suddenly can get access to a whole bunch of additional information and knowledge, you can potentially then branch out into providing more specialist advice.

The risk, of course, and it kind of goes back to the CPD thing, is making sure that you are comfortable with what you are then providing to clients is reliable and reassuring.

Ali: When you say due diligence, you have to verify what’s happening, because as we were just talking about earlier, AI can be very confident, but confidently wrong as well. If you don’t do your due diligence, it might look right on the surface, but you have to be curious, as you touched on earlier.

And of course, ethics is going to be very, very important. As an example, in practice we cannot just, for instance, use client data and just dump it on the AI tool, because you haven’t got the client’s consent to do that.

Overall, GDPR, as well, is very important to make sure that you are following those rules.

And as an accountant that professional scepticism has to happen because otherwise you might just lead yourself to the wrong path and it can be very dangerous.

So yes, due diligence and be curious, making sure that whatever you put out there is actually ethically right but also professional scepticism, know that you are regulated by a professional body like the AAT. And you want to make sure that you don’t break them rules.

Zoe: Yes. Don’t upset AAT!

So what would you say are the main qualities and experiences that AI can’t replicate?

Ali: For me personally, I think it’s judgment, to be able to read the room. Emotions, like where we’re sitting here, you’re smiling and talking. AI can never do that, in my view, even if they make robots, yeah, they couldn’t do that.

That’s the one skill, the human skill that I think is here to stay, and to be able to make judgement: to be able to see a scenario and then decipher the scenario and also make sure that you can make a judgement based on the scenario.

AI will give you the results but as an accountant you still have to have that skill to be able to make the decision or help business owners to make the decisions.

Zoe: Yeah, because the clients, that’s what they want, don’t they? They want somebody to be able to help them look at the data make…yeah, what does it mean to them. And they still need that human touch.

John: The judgement is really the key bit of what sets us apart as professionals as well. And that sets us apart from anyone else that wants to pretend to be an accountant, but hasn’t gone through the process of getting there and keeping up their CPD.

Yeah, I think I will play devil’s advocate a little bit here, and I will say that I think potentially in the future we’ll start to see more of the models being able to perform some kind of judgmental type decision-making.

And, you know, they’ll be able to learn from the inputs that we’re providing them already as we continue to use these tools. So there is a bit of a risk there.

I guess to maybe to extend the point about, we’re here in the room, sitting around having a conversation.

You know, you’re absolutely right, AI cannot replicate that and I think the key thing for us is, for business leaders and people going forward, is to figure out what is it that clients want from us, what is it that people that we work with want from us?

Because I do think we’ll probably see a more stratified approach to the way that we deal with clients, you know, and I don’t want to kind of split us across age boundaries, but that’s the typical way that you do it.

And you might find that your older clients, might want to continue to have that face-to-face, being able to pick up the phone and being able to come into the office and have a meeting.

Whereas younger clients may well get to a point where actually, you know, they’ve grown up with these models around them.

You hear stories about people having relationships with some of these models as well, getting like personal advice from them and stuff. So they do place a great reliance, I would say, on the outputs of these things, whether they’re reliable or not is a separate question.

But that does mean that maybe as businesses, we need to think about the way that we approach future customers because they may not value the personal relationship in the same way that maybe the current cohort of clients do.

Zoe: Yeah, because there definitely is going to be a different expectation of clients, isn’t there, of things that they’re going to be asking for? So, it’s making sure that we’re aware they’re going to want information faster.

They’re going to want to have something straight away to take into a boardroom that you just need to be able to provide.

But it’s about getting that information that can be generated quickly. But then putting the reasoning, the thoughts, that professional judgment behind it in that way.

Ali: Which is really important, that you explain it to them, in the level that they stand to make the decisions.

I think, John, you’re right, I mean, like the Gen Z as they call them might be actually in that bracket. So perhaps those ones wouldn’t necessarily have to come to see you face to face. But I still think, in business, you do business with people, in my view.

 I mean there’s a saying that you deal with people you know, like and trust.

So for me, having that personal relationship is still very, very relevant, I think. Yes, and I still think as we go into the future, is still going to be relevant.

Zoe: Definitely, that human touch is really important.

But do you think the AI is making accountancy more of an exciting career for things that are coming through?

John: I mean, I think for sure. Maybe it’s because I’m more of a technologist as well, but I think our world of accounting has never been more disrupted than it is at this moment.

And, you know, that just means that the opportunities are just exploding exponentially almost, in terms of the kind of traditional accounting training is changing, the way that you absorb and collect knowledge is changing, the way that you disseminate that out to clients and to share that, all of that is changing.

Our communication channels are changing. There’s a myriad of stuff this is happening out there.

And, you know, as I said, I kind of work for a global organisation. I do also think that the world is getting smaller.

I know it’s a kind of a cliché, but it does mean that we’re not just operating solely in the UK anymore; having competition from within the UK, there is potentially competition from outside of that, whether it’s competition for talent, competition for clients and businesses and those kinds of opportunities.

So, I just think there’s immense opportunity if you’re curious, relatively intelligent individual out there wanting to get into a business that is fascinating, where you get to deal with different types of organisations and different types of people all the time, plus have a whole bunch of challenges thrown at you almost daily, then there isn’t a better place to be.

Ali: I couldn’t agree more, I think it is an exciting time in the profession, certainly, as accountants, because the days of, number crunching and, you know, bogged down in a spreadsheet and all that stuff, the manual work, is actually being taken over by the AI.

So, therefore we have more time now, to be able to focus on that strategic level, where you can actually make more of an impact for the business owners hopefully.

Giving them the right information, the right advice, to steer them to the right direction to make the right decisions. It’s super exciting at the moment.

John: I think also we see that firms of businesses are increasingly stratified as well, across this breadth of not just technology adoption but kind of business maturity, operational maturity, the way that they go to market with their customers and clients and stuff.

That in itself presents a huge opportunity for people to get in there and start making a change.

I think the ability for someone even at a very junior level in an organisation, whether it’s a practice or a business, to make an impact and make a significant change.

It’s like unbounded almost because you come in and say “hey, I’ve used ChatGPT, or Claude, or Copilot, to do this” and suddenly accelerate the way that business operates.

Ali: That’s super right. Just to give an example about the junior, like we said recently, we’re very AI savvy or tech savvy, I would say, the client in the construction sector.

He had to go to the client’s site and we say: “you just need to go to the client site and make sure you study all their processes”. The lad goes in, comes back.

By the time he comes back to the office, within a couple of hours, he was able to reinvent, really, to be honest, how the client works in terms of their processes and systems, and design brand new systems.

And up till today – and this happened about a couple of weeks ago – the client still couldn’t believe it that there was this speed. It’s done and it’s a very genuine level.

That person, maybe a few years ago, would have been still in his PC or on a spreadsheet all day.

So that tells you where the sector is moving: even very junior roles are having that strategic opportunity to make them a massive, massive change for a business.

Zoe: Definitely. And I think our AAT qualifications are still teaching the basics because they need to know, they need to understand what’s happening.

But whilst we’re teaching them how to do a bank reconciliation, our juniors don’t have to do that anymore because they’re being done, which gives them the opportunity to then go, and as you said, have an impact.

Now they know what’s happening; errors are being picked up and things like that, but actually their time then can be spent supporting clients, having more of an impact and also seeing things differently of how they can make improvements and put forward recommendations.

Ali: Interesting that, Zoe, that you mention basics, because that’s key still.

And regarding all these AI, if your basics are not right, you are in trouble. You have to make sure that you focus, especially as a student, for instance, focus on the basics.

Get the basics right and then AI I will be your best friend. But if you get the basics wrong it can drive you through the wrong way, or you know, in a little bit of a hole.

Zoe: No, you’re right, you have to understand.

Ali: You have to understand it.

And the great thing about AAT, in my mind anyway and in my opinion – humble opinion – no one does the basics better than AAT, in terms of the fundamentals.

Zoe: And I completely agree with you.

John: It’s a good thing you’re on an AAT podcast right now!

Ali: But it’s true, the practical basics, no one does it better than AAT.

John:  I’m going to throw a challenge down to that. I don’t disagree with the sentiment in terms of like how AAT gets people up to speed with the basics and how they disseminate that.

I went through AAT before becoming a chartered accountant. Absoutely loved it, romped through the exams, thought it was great.

But, I do wonder – and this is purely a hypothetical to throw out there at the moment – if maybe we’ll start to see some kind of segregation in the marketplace in terms of do we fundamentally need to understand some of the basics of things like double entry, how to do  a bank reconciliation, how to maybe run an accounts receivable, accounts payable ledger and stuff like that.

Just simply because technology, not just AI, but broader technology has started to replace that in a completely different way.

And the analogy that I tend to use in this is that as drivers of a car and I think we’re all drivers here, we probably all learned on different types of cars. Some of them might have had a manual choke, some might have had a manual gearbox and a whole bunch of other things.

A lot of that technology now for people who’ve got kids like me: my daughter’s 15, she’ll probably start to learn to drive in a couple of years.

High likelihood is that she’s going to drive an electric car. She’s probably going to learn in an electric car, which means no gearbox, no engine to worry about. Certainly no choke and none of the manual bits and pieces that we had: she’s never seen a window that lines down like I used to.

But the fundamental core skills, of getting her from A to B in a safe manner, are exactly the same skills I learned, more or less.

And again, the training has changed a little bit over time, but the difference between her and I learning is that, when I learnt, you also learn how to change the oil in a car, you learned how to change the windscreen washer, you learned how to do a bunch of other things which are which are no longer relevant or potentially no relevant as we continue progress.

If my car breaks down, I don’t know how to fix it, but I go to a garage and someone does know how the engine works and how the electronics work and all those bits and pieces.

And so I do wonder if maybe we’ll start to see the segregation in the marketplace where the debits and credits and the bank reconciliations aren’t the domain of every accountant in the world, but they are the domain of a very specialist or subsection of that, where they do that.

And if you want a real practical example of it, go to the Big Four and ask anyone in the audit department how to do a bank rec or how to do debits and credits or how to put a set of financial statements together.

They fundamentally don’t know that because they’ve never needed to know that.

But are they exceptional at auditing? And do they really fundamentally understand what a set of financial statements should look like and whether they’re compliant and everything else? Completely.

They’re probably on a different level when it comes auditing, certainly to me, and probably many others.

But I’m a generalist and I was always a generalist, and so we need to figure out where is the future going to go for the profession.

And that does that mean: not just for AAT but for the institutes and ACCA and a whole bunch of others, and the broader faculty of peoples and members in these organisations.

Zoe: I think we’ve definitely seen how our qualification has evolved.

So, as well as still making sure they’ve got the basics, so they understand what’s going on, there’s been an awful lot built into our qualification to be able to help them to look more at data analytics, to help them to understand the benefits of automation and how AI works.

And so I definitely think that within the qualification, the focus of what’s required is much more about helping them with those higher-level professional judgments that they have to make, the recommendations.

And we’ve really developed also within the qualification, the communication skills, and that’s become more of a focus of the thread that goes within a qualification because it’s not just about number crunching anymore.

It’s about being able to demonstrate and communicate and to be able to put forward those recommendations and have much more of a consultative role, I think, is what our qualifications are now helping trainees to be able to do that.

John: And I think, you know, we’re a similar age and probably had a similar sort of training experiences and stuff.

I think one of the bits of training does give you, is it kind of gives you that spidey sense when something’s not quite right.

Whatever it is, I don’t quite know what it is, can’t quite put my finger on it.  

Zoe: But you can see it. You can look at it, you know there’s something there.

Ali: Going back to your car analogy, knowing there’s something wrong with my car. What if you don’t actually realise that something’s wrong with your car? There’s a noise coming in but you just keep driving.

Zoe: You need to know.

Ali: I’m just taking him back to that analogy. If you don’t know that your car is wrong, you might just keep driving the car.

Zoe: And then it all falls apart a little further down the lane.

John: But you and I have probably seen that already with organisations where they just keep carrying on with their accounts.

They don’t really know what’s going on, but something doesn’t agree, and then you get hold of it and you’re like “oh, those opening balances look a little funky”, or there’s something weird going on.

Even outside of the profession, if you were a business owner running your own set of accounts: they’re doing the bookkeeping, the doing elements of accounting.

They may never have trained or learned some of that stuff, but they kind of got there through just their own sheer force of will, if you like.

And look, I’m happy to be challenged if I’m wrong.

Ali: I agree with you on a lot of things that you say about how the sector is changing and the institution, like AAT need to pivot and all of that stuff. I do agree with you.

And I think obviously as a junior or as a student, for you to be able to pass your exams, you need to be able to understand and be able to answer those questions in the exam room.

So, hence you cannot pass if you don’t understand the basics. So hopefully that will be

But I do agree with a lot of things that you say in terms of where the sector is moving as an auditor, you’re right, they probably wouldn’t need to understand how double entry works, but they would have had to understand it before they actually become an auditor.

Hopefully while they’re doing the auditing process, they can spot things quickly because they have to do the legwork at the beginning of their career as a student.

Zoe: We’ve established that critical thinking is going to be really important.

For our students, h,ow are they able to demonstrate those critical thinking skills, do you think when they are applying for jobs or in an interview setting, what kind of tips do you think that you could give to help them to demonstrate to their future employers that they do have critical thinking skills?

Ali: To your employers, don’t just keep saying to your employer “I’m a critical thinker”.

You have to take them through your thinking process.

As an example, say you are a junior who’s never worked in the accounting sector, but you have probably volunteered at an AAT branch, for instance, as a treasurer, you’ve handled finances – which is why I’m saying come to the branches: there are roles that you can actually use to your advantage.

We’ve given you the finances, and you could demonstrate to a potential employer “actually, I have handled the finance of a club or a branch. And I was able to make sure I did the budgets so the club doesn’t run out of funds”.

Explain the process: how you set your budgets all the way to making sure you deliver those budgets against your actuals.

Another example is, you’re working in a coffee shop, for instance, it’s nothing to do with accounting, but it’s a basic coffee shop. And you are very, very busy dealing with customers.

Again, through your interview process with a potential employer, you could explain how you have to deal with a challenging situation at a busy time in a coffee shop, how you navigate and what did you what changes you made during the busy times to adjust.

Dealing with people, speaking to people, communicating with people. All of those skills are very, very important to potential employers, I think.

Zoe: Yeah. And I think that’s that’s really great. There’s probably a lot of our listeners that will be able to have some examples that they can draw from similar to that, that they could then bring out when they’re in that interview setting.

Ali: It doesn’t just have to be, in terms of an accountancy practice. You can work any role which isn’t accountancy relevant, but still going to be relevant to your future accountancy role.

John: And I actually think having some other kind of business experience, business skills, even if you want to move into practice  role or move into a business role, it really, really helps, to fundamentally understand what the machinations of an organisation look like.

If you’re working in a café, what happens at the end of the day when you’ve got to close up the kill and cash up and do all that kind of stuff, and you’ll actually see how an organisation operated and get a real hands on view of all of that.

And you probably won’t be able to kind of reflect back on that until you’ve got maybe a couple of years into your study and figure out “how does this all play out?” in terms of going back to the double entry skills and the bank reconciliation skills, but that that’s one of those things where that reflective experience is really good.

I mean, going back to that point about critical thinking, Zoe, I think for me, it really is about challenging everything.

We talked about the risks of using AI before and just making assumptions that what you’re getting is reliable and it’s accurate and everything else.

That’s one of the key things that you could demonstrate, you know, is to say “I got this response back, and what I also did is I went off and I verified that the references to tax case law, the references to an accounting policy were reliable and accurate.”

In terms of demonstrating that interview, I actually think it’s quite difficult to do that.

But the way that you probably articulate that is, again, it goes back to elements of like curiosity. It goes back to talking about your experience and talking about how you would overcome a challenge.

I think the most important thing about critical thinking is it doesn’t mean you have to be always you, right. You can challenge someone and get pushback.

Yeah, we’ve had it already on the podcast! You can challenge someone and say “this is my thinking, what’s your thinking?”

It goes back to that kind of collaborative approach to get to a point, and it goes back to the judgment thing as well, how does it get to a point where everyone kind of agrees in principle, and gets it, at least gets to a consensus, if not full agreement? I think that’s really important.

And so articulating that in an interview is very difficult. But I think if you’re given the opportunity in terms of the questioning to show how your thinking would be to approach a challenge, that’s the best way to do it.

Ali: I think that’s a very good point, John.

How I would do it if I was in the coffee shop scenario, I would say, for instance, I would say “I work in a very, very busy coffee shop. I realised that probably every Saturday of the week there’s a certain product, usually we run out of stock. So what I did was to just do the analysis and thinking that we have to have more of that stock on a Saturday, because I realised during the last couple of months or whatever, we’ve always run out of that type of product.”

Hence you make sure that you’ve done enough ordering to make sure that when the busy period comes in, that stock – you haven’t run out.

 So you explain that you’ve used your judgment and your analytical skills to know that while you are working as a barista, customers will be coming asking for a particular product. At a specific time of the week, you are running out, then you explain what you’ve done to make sure that doesn’t happen.

Zoe: Nice example. I like it.

Now just going back to a point you made earlier, Ali, about the fact that students going to a branch, being involved in branch events, can really help.

Are there any other sort of events, activities, things that students can be doing outside of the classroom and the learning that they’re doing there, or the work experience that they have, that can help them stand out to employers when they’re trying to go for their first accountancy role?

Ali: I would say, even if you volunteer, for instance, it doesn’t have to be a job.

Zoe: Volunteering is great.

Ali: Volunteer in any other role, even if it’s a charity, because that shows that you have some sort of human touch to yourself.

Say a charity that’s close to your heart, you’re studying as a student, you definitely have some capacity to be able to give back and use your skills that you’ve learned, to be able to help a charity of your choosing that you are interested in.

Zoe: And actually, that worked for me. So I volunteered my daughter’s nursery, as a treasurer. And it was by doing the work, the volunteer work, and taking on that role as a treasurer meant that then I read a Frank Woods book and I taught myself double entry bookkeeping and I did that.

But then actually taking the end of year accounts into an accountancy firm, that’s where I got a job. So, you know, volunteering helps.

It’s a good thing to be able to do, for employers to see that.

John: I think I think the other thing that firms are looking for is an element of personality.

I think firms, in terms of practices in particular, change the way they recruit. In the past, it always used to be: are you good at maths, are you good at English?

Zoe:  Do you want to earn a lot of money? Are you good at maths? Are you good at English?

John: Yes, it was always very academic. You know, it was always very focused on that. And I think the world has moved on a lot.

And, so certainly when I was recruiting in practice roles historically, you know, es academic rigor or academic qualifications are important because they’re a bit of an indicator of intelligence, let’s say, in inverted commas.

But, also what we’re looking for is personality.

So, having a great covering letter as well as a CV is really helpful.

Actually following instructions: I see you lots of firms and people I know who run practices say  “oh, I put this role out and I said I wanted to covering letter or I wanted someone to record a 30 second video, and I just got a CV through the door.”

Well, if you can’t follow simple instructions, I’m afraid you’re never going to get an opportunity. And it’s a challenging time at the moment; I know that, I think the latest stats where there’s like a million 18-24 year olds unemployed at the moment.

Mu own personal experience, when I was studying AAT, because I started out at level two and I tried to apply for a training role. I applied to probably 400 accounting practices to try and get a training role and I got two responses. One was a no, one was come for an interview. You know, 398 firms just didn’t even have the courtesy to reply.

Zoe: And that’s resilience, it taught you resilience.

John: Exactly. And it’s really frustrating and I had no idea if the one response was going to be successful, you know, in terms of the interview.

But I think if you can demonstrate, like you say, resilience and also demonstrate some element of personality and willingness to do other things, because again, it goes back to kind of like, what are the traits that we’re looking for now in a modern accountant?

And so, you know, we talked about some of them to curiosity and professional judgment etc., etc.. but also we’re looking for, we’re almost looking for people to be chameleons, right?

We deal with lots of different organisation types, lots of different personality types. And you’ve got to be able to fit in and you’ve got to be able to associate with people.

So if you you’ve done something like play for sports team or you’ve done something to a very high level that makes you stand out, it gives you something to talk about, it gives you something to engage with people around you.

Ali: A team player, a sports team shows that you are a team player.

Zoe: High performing, good at collaboration, taking on instructions.

Ali: Really relevant to the sector. It doesn’t have to be the academic side of things, passing exams, but the personal, interpersonal skills, are just as relevant, so I agree completely.

John: And since we’re talking about technology, right, we’re talking about AI, I think being able to demonstrate you’ve got some familiarity with some of these things.

Whether it’s as blatant as saying, “hey, you know, I used AI to help me write my covering letter, but I’ve actually taking the judgment and reviewed it before sending it out so it’s not a load of nonsense.”

Just being able to talk about some of those things is really useful.

The other thing as well, we talked about CPD earlier. The profession is always demanding some kind of continual development and training.

And again, going back to the curiosity point, if you’re maybe a student that’s experimented with Claude, let’s say, you vibe coded an app or done something silly like that, it doesn’t have to be anything functional, in terms of, accounting related.

But it just again, shows that you’ve got willingness to kind of take a risk and experiment and do something different.

Ali: That’s going to be relevant in an interview. Like if you can build an agent, that’s where the sector is moving in the accountancy space, especially in practice. If you are tech savvy in that respect  where you can build an agent, for instance.

Zoe: So, we’re going to move on to our quickfire round: myth or reality.

I’m going to say a statement and I’d like to hear myth or reality. Probably it’s going to split the room, but let’s see.

So, AI is going to make human skills less important in the workplace. Myth or reality?

Ali: Myth.

John: Reality.

Zoe: Oh, I knew I’d split the room. But we’ve heard your views, so we’re going to move on.

So, AI will eliminate more jobs in accountancy than it’s going to create. Myth or reality.

Ali: Myth.

John: Myth.

Zoe: Good. I’m pleased we both agree on that. That’s a good one. So many opportunities are going to be out there, isn’t it? It’s about the way we adapt.

Ali: And give people to grow as well. Understanding business at a deeper level. AI is going to give us the freedom…

Zoe: …to make those strategic decisions.

Last one then: the future of work is humans and AI collaborating, not competing. Myth or reality.

Ali: A reality, in my view.

John: Mmmm…

Zoe: You’re going to say we’re going to be competing and fighting against AI?

John: I mean, I think it goes back to the other question, which was is there a future for accountants in this world?

Yes, absolutely there is but I do genuinely think AI is already starting to replace specific tasks.

And technology broadly has replaced specific tasks in the accounting space.

You think about accounts payable clerks, right? Do you have an accounting role or a job role, for accounts payable clerk anymore?

I mean, it’s like a unicorn. You don’t see them very often anymore because they have been replaced by technology

Ali: But they’re doing more exciting stuff nowadays.

John: But I think that particular role has disappeared but that particular person who might have been doing that role is now doing something else, potentially.

There is, the biggest challenge I think, particularly in accounting practice, probably less so in business, is we have a bunch of firms that are really good at delivering compliance.

And the likelihood that in the future, for many, many firms, compliance is going to become even more automated, as a consequence of AI. 

And that’s also probably going to have an impact on price. So, the margins for practices is going to start to fall.

So, the challenge for practice is to figure out like how do I how do I get ahead of that? How do I anticipate that? How do I pivot? How do I train my staff to do the other stuff that we’ve been talking about?

And also, potentially, how do I make those difficult choices if maybe some of those staff aren’t going to be capable of changing into those new roles and stuff.

I think that’s a big challenge. So I’m not I’m not a pessimist about the accounting segment, per se, as a consequence of AI, but I do think that over the next few years, we’re going to see AI challenging particular roles and particular jobs and certainly tasks that we kind of just take is bread and butter.

But what we’ll start to see is a pivot away from that, but it’s going to be fascinating to see how the broader accounting industry moves with that.

And the timelines is the great unknown of this. We can say it’s all going to disappear in two years, or it could be ten years, like we just fundamentally don’t know.

Ali: I mean, I do believe, though, perhaps, maybe it’s going to be good for both, in terms of how we work.

I think it’s a collaborative effort rather than us against AI, in my view, because I think AI are tools and it’s for us accountants, human accountants to use those tools to be able to actually make things even better, and the strategic level.

Because as we said earlier, there are certain traits that AI don’t have that humans have, and that’s our advantage as well. 

Zoe: Coming back to your lovely trainee that went out and made a difference, that impact that they had, AI couldn’t go in and do that in the same way.

Ali: That’s right, AI couldn’t go and see how people are doing this, unless you have a Elon Musk who knows maybe design one one day but for now at least AI couldn’t go to a factory and see how things are working and then be able to design something to help them get even better.

So, in that respect, I think those roles – you are right, some of the roles will go, but the generals will just move to a different role.

Zoe: New opportunities.

John: I think that’s the thing, it’s incumbent on accounting business leaders to make sure that change happens and not to just put your head in the sand and pretend that nothing’s going on because otherwise, you know, you’re going to be left behind.

It’s it a great place to be as well? You know, we were talking about recruitment before, isn’t it a great place to be if you can sort of say, look, we’re a real modern practice or a modern business trying to take advantage of this AI world.

We might not get everything right, but what we’re at least trying to do is experiment and move forward and to keep pace with the change that is happening around us, and hopefully then deliver that out in terms of like, good quality client service.

Zoe: So, thinking back to when you did your exams and you were studying – all those hundreds of years ago!

We always like to leave our students with a practical study tip for them to be able to take away.

If you were able to give an AAT top tip to our students, what would your top tip be?

Ali: For me as a student, I would say: focus on the studies.

Of course, to pass your exams, but don’t just stop there as well. Because today, just to pass your exam, memorising stuff and whatnot will take you to a certain level. You would pass your exam most likely, but it wouldn’t progress your career to the long term.

Put your focus on understanding what you are studying.

Zoe: Not just answer the questions, but understanding why.

Ali: You have to understand what you are doing because without that: just memorising stuff, without understanding it, you will get stuck in the long term. So you have to make sure that you dig deeper.

Even if it means sometimes you might have a failure and think you are doing your exams and you unfortunately fail. Don’t see it as a failure.

See it as your perfect opportunity to get to understand the subject matter more.

That’s my number one advice. That I would give, try to understand your subject at a deeper level, because that’s going to see you in the long term in your career.

Zoe: Perfect. Thank you Ali, that’s great.

John, from you?

John: I mean, for me it’s all about exam practice.

The studies, I agree, you need to understand the topic.

But I think the real pressure point is when you get to sit those exams, and for me personally, I think ideally you want to try and pass those first time.

Because it saves you personal time, it saves you having to go back to the cost and expense of doing it all over again and things.

But also you can learn so much actually from doing past papers in terms of exam technique but also the knowledge, what the expectations are and things like that.

When I was studying, like a million years ago, I would probably start six weeks out from the exam and I would pretty much every weekend, I’d be sitting like a paper on a Saturday and then doing the same on a Sunday.

You were talking about my lack of diligence; that was my only diligence. I did that all the way through AAT and when I did the ACA as well.

Zoe: I agree with you that actually that early preparation for exams is really important, isn’t it?

To make sure that you know all of the syllabus, you’ve gone through it all, you’ve practised, you’re familiar and comfortable with it because you have to have that knowledge, you have to have the why.

You also need good exam technique. And leaving it to the very last minute isn’t the right way to prepare.

Lovely. Well, thank you ever so much for your time. It’s been wonderful to have you as guests on Balancing Ambition.

It’s been great to be able to have these conversations, you know, and to be able to discuss it and talk about it and have different points of view. I think that’s been important to have.

Thank you so much for sharing your experiences, your future ambitions and your advice. And thank you to our listeners too, for joining us today.

Ali: Thanks for having us as a thank you so much for having us.

John: Yeah, it’s been a pleasure.

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Harry Rogers is AAT Comment’s news writer.