How to choose the right firm for your CA Articleship

Choosing the right CA Firm for your Articleship

A good CA Articleship experience is helpful in understanding the practical aspects of what you have studied like Accounting, Auditing and Taxation in general, and Costing, Financial Management, Information Systems and Controls Audit, etc. as well, if you are lucky to get those opportunities, which in turn helps in your overall studies. Hence choosing the right CA firm for your articleship becomes extremely important, not only for your CA Final exam, but for success in your future practice.

CA Articleship in Big Four Firms vs Midsize Firms

I am clearly striking off small firms from this discussion because it is the option of last resort and does not guarantee a good experience in all cases. So, the choice is between Big Four Firms and Midsize Firms. Let me tell you upfront -

Neither of the Big Four Firms or Midsize Firms is a complete experience

What do Big Four Firms and Midsize Firms offer?

1. You will learn Auditing at its best and the operations/auditing of large clients. The same will not apply as is to the small clients in Midsize Firms.
   
2. Further, your role is much more specialised at Big Four Firms - you learn one aspect of accounting in every detail. However, in Midsize Firms, your role isn’t defined and you learn everything. You do not generally specialise in any particular area.
   
3. The way of working, the procedure and the method of achieving the same ultimate objective differs greatly in Big Fours and Midsize Firms.
   

In short, Big Fours = Large clients, specialised work, and Midsize Firms = Small clients, a variety of work. As such, I believe, it is important to gain both the experiences to become the best in your field and competitive in your career. The best way to gain both experiences is doing CA Articleship in one, and job in the other – e.g. Articleship in a midsize firm and the first job in one of the Big Four firms. This ensures that in a 5 year period from CA Articleship to 2 years post-qualification, you have learnt to handle both smaller and bigger clients and the breadth and depth of work as well.

Which is appropriate for me?

Now the question of where should you join arises. The answer is that it depends on where you wish to be in the long term. Some general scenarios are as follows:

• Auditing & Accounting related jobs in larger companies – Articleship in Big Four Firms.
• Jobs in big companies in other fields – Articleship in Big Four Firms, with an effort to learn other things on your own, which may be a prerequisite in those other fields.
• Jobs in small companies – Any option is fine, preferably Big Four Firms.
• Jobs in Big Four Firms – Articleship in Big Four Firms
• Privately owned practice in a non-metro city – Articleship in a Midsize Firm
• Practice in a metro city – Articleship in Big Four Firms, either in Auditing or Taxation department.
• Small-scale business/family business – Articleship in Midsize Firm
• Establishing/working in a Start-up – Articleship in Midsize Firm

What should I do if I'm not confident about my future career path right now?

If you don’t have a clear choice of a future career, then go for the best opportunity available with you, where a bigger firm is a better firm. CA Articleship in Big Four Firms will give you a platform from where you can do any kind of job. On the other hand, CA Articleship at Midsize Firms will help you learn all kinds of assignments and give you a platform from where you can enter into any field of choice. So accordingly, the choice between ‘job security’ and ‘choice security’ remains in your realm, as the choices we make defines the person we become.

Factors to consider while choosing a Midsize Firm for Articleship

As your CA Articleship will shape your career ahead, it is important that the decision is made on the correct parameters and not on random recommendations of people around. Following are the factors which you must keep in mind while joining a midsize firm –

• The number of experienced Partners – More the number of experienced partners, better would be the development of the firm as a convention, and in turn, more opportunities for you to learn. Always look for firms which have at least two Partners.
• Size of the firm and number of Articles – Prefer firms which have at least 15-20 articles and a few Chartered Accountants as Managers, apart from the Partners. Learning at such firms is generally better than firms where the number of articles is few and who directly report to the partner.
• Areas of work and scope of your assignment – This is something you can understand from other senior Articles or ask at the time of interviews. The whole point of working in a midsize firm is to learn a variety of work and therefore, it is important to choose a firm which allows you to gain experience in different types of assignments.
• Overall Work Environment – An encouraging and cheerful environment at the office usually helps your overall development. Look for hints and have a “real talk” with existing articles in the firm, to understand the actual situation. Remember, people usually glorify their work problems, so don’t take their words at face value.

Factors to consider while choosing a Big Four Firm for Articleship

As such there aren’t many differences among the Big Four Firms as they all operate in almost the same way, especially when it comes to training articles. So, once you have decided to join a Big Four firm, the only question left to ask is the choice of city and the choice of department. Choose a city near your hometown and a department on the basis of your future plans. Big Four Firms usually hire in the auditing department and the options of Articleship in other departments like Business Taxation, Indirect Taxation, Financial Advisory, etc. are rare.

Factors to NOT mind while joining Articleship

• Stipend – Your total loss of stipend will be compensated in a single month after becoming a CA if you focus on gaining experience and not earning money.
• Work Pressure – You learn more in adversities. Work pressure is always going to be there in real jobs, irrespective of what career roadmap you choose. So it is better to learn to handle it at an early stage rather than running away from it.
• Friends – Consider Articleship as an opportunity to network with new people as networking is a skill that is important in long run. So don’t worry if you don’t have friends at the firm, and definitely don’t join a firm simply because you have friends there.
• Study leaves – In general, all firms allow at least 3 months and on average 4 months of study leave for CA Final examination. More study leaves don’t help your preparation, it usually gets wasted. So, don’t keep this as a big criterion while choosing a firm.

Commonly committed mistakes

• “Marks are important, learning can happen later” – And then a student makes the dumb decision of doing a dummy Articleship. Don’t do that! You read a thousand books and yet an article trainee would be more intelligent than you on the field. You may get good marks, maybe even deceive interviewers if lucky. But after that when it comes to real work, you won’t be able to survive the competition at the next level, even if you are All India Rank 1, because marks don’t matter after getting a job.
• One year here, one year there – A lot of over-enthusiastic students often come up with foolish ‘brilliant ideas’ like doing the first year of Articleship from one firm and then balance from another. That doesn’t help! Articleship training is for three years because, with every passing year you learn different roles and different situations, and it takes time for a senior to develop that trust, to handover important responsibilities to you. If you keep changing your firm, no senior would ever be able to handover responsibilities to you even if you are talented.
• “My Uncle is a practising CA” – Yes, that’s the very person you have to avoid while choosing your CA Articleship firm. Keeping a safe distance between your personal and professional life is an accepted convention, and it applies to your Articleship as well. Pursuing CA Articleship under a relative bars you from independent learning, it becomes selective learning.

Conclusion

The choice of CA Articleship firm is a very important decision and therefore, make sure you choose wisely, as your career path depends on it. And once selected, do your job with utmost sincerity with a focus on learning. Never say a no to any learning opportunity. You can blame the education system for its rigidity in ranking students' knowledge, however, Articleship is an open platform and a real-life experience. So make no excuses for not performing well in this department of your career. Give your best here and I assure you the best career ahead.

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About the Author: Saurabh Toshniwal is a qualified Chartered Accountant and a Cost & Management Accountant. He was previously associated with Deloitte Haskins and Sells, Bangalore and is currently working with Ernst & Young, Bangalore. Saurabh is a public speaker and counsels students through his mentoring drives.

Disclaimer: The views expressed here are solely those of the author in his private capacity. Exambazaar does not bear responsibility for any opinions expressed herewith.