Work and study – tips to get the most out of the experience

When you join Langham Hall as a Trainee Accountant you will be given study support towards achieving your preferred accountancy qualification (ACCA or CIMA). Mixing study and full time employment can seem daunting but it is a rewarding challenge that will open career and promotion opportunities and further you knowledge of the field.

Contributors

Members of
Real Estate and Private Equity teams

We spoke with member of our Real Estate and Private Equity teams who shared their top tips to successfully juggle a thriving career while becoming qualified accountants.

These are their best recommendations.

Work and study tips:

  • Create a study plan
    This will help you pace your studies. Start as early as possible, ideally immediately after you got your results for the last exam. Have mini deadlines/milestones with what you want to achieve, and leave enough time to practice at least 5-6 past exam papers before the actual exam.
  • Condense your notes
    It helps to have minimised step solutions for questions with wordy answers but also for tackling the heavy numbers based questions.
  • Strategically plan your leave
    Book holidays strategically around exam dates, in advance, at the start of the holiday year to allow you enough time for exam practice as well as coordinate with your manager to maintain team deadlines.
  • Use resources
    Look for past exam questions and resources in your accountancy body’s webpage. Practice past exam papers closed book and to time, just like in real exam conditions. This will help you improve your time management and question answering technique. Read the technical articles as these will help you get a feel for what the examiner is looking for and can sometimes provide hints on topics which will be included in the upcoming exam.
  • Understand the marking criteria
    Mark your mocks using the marking grid from your professional body’s website (if available) and spend time reading the model answers from ACCA/CIMA website for the questions where you did not score well. This can highlight patterns in questions and where you can score the most marks.
  • Pre-exam
    Check exam registration deadlines, exam dates and locations. Ensure you are well rested.
  • During the exam
    Spend a few minutes at the start of each exam planning how much time you allow for each question (proportional to the number of marks per question). Be tactical with your time by tackling the questions that you are most comfortable with first and move on to the next question when you run out of time. On the day of the exam, it is not what you know/what you have read that increases your odds of passing, it is what you actually put down on paper under tight time conditions that makes the difference.
  • Ask if you don’t understand
    Langham Hall is full of people that have been in your position, there will always be people happy to help.

If you are interested in a career at Langham Hall, reach out to our HR team and check the latest vacancies here.