No one can be sure whether he will have to search for a new job some time. Even if you are satisfied with your job now, it is necessary to keep an eye on different options, i.e. more interesting and promising jobs or more responsive and successful bosses. If you have an offer at hand, it is easier to ask for a rise in salary or promotion. Let’s consider positions of finance directors and chief accountants.
Finance Director – Hope of Enterprises
The competence and professionalism of finance directors are key success or failure factors of enterprises. The experience of developed economies shows that finance directors provide most efficient services in cases where the overall management system is focused on continuous wealth maximization. In this case, the finance director is responsible for a corporate strategy, financing strategy, budgetary and management control, financial management as well as for the provision of information for strategic management purposes. The finance director adds value for owners of companies which is several times as much its salary. Of course, none of prosperous Russian enterprises can operate without relationships with foreign suppliers or customers. Therefore, it is crucial to obtain additional education, (e.g. MBA in Finance) or, at least, study IFRS on your own, which increases your chance of getting a high-paid job.
Chief Accountant – A Job in Highest Demand
What is the optimal strategy of searching for a job? First of all, it is necessary to have a clear idea about what job you would like to get. Every enterprise must have a chief accountant irrespective of the number of employees. It does not matter if there are only three employees in the enterprise, the chief accountant would always be one of them. A newly registered enterprise would search for an expert to fill this vacancy. If you do not have a job, you should send your resume to recruitment agencies and place notices near your local branch of State Labor and Employment Department.
Who can become a chief accountant of a small enterprise? Any accountant who is proficient in all bookkeeping sections and brave enough to assume certain responsibility.
Now the image of the accounting profession has improved, which is evidenced by the severe competition of university entrants and high demand in the labor market. The number of vacancies for chief accountants has been steadily increasing as more and more business enterprises are registered.
We provide recruitment services for accountants of private sector business enterprises. A hard lot of accountants in public sector enterprises is a separate subject matter. The payroll of chief accountants in Moscow ranges between US $700 and US $5,000. Of course, experts with financial or economic university degrees and professional experience as a chief accountant of business enterprises are in highest demand.
The proficiency in a foreign (English, in most cases) language and Western accounting systems (especially recently) is required to get a job in a joint venture or foreign company. A standard prerequisite for employment with large companies is IFRS proficiency. The term GAAP, i.e. Generally Accepted Accounting Principles, is used as a colloquial term to refer to IFRS.
The headquarters of a foreign company usually has its own chief accountant while an accountant based in Russia reports to the former and a local tax inspection.
When filing reports to the tax inspection, graduates of financial and economic universities face fewer problems as compared to graduates of various accounting training courses. In addition to conceptual knowledge, the affiliation with the «club» of accountants by means of university degree facilitates good relationships with professionals from tax inspections. If a graduate of training courses goes to see a tax inspector 3-4 times to file a quarterly report, one visit would be enough to update a professional on recent changes in the tax reporting legislation.
If an entrepreneur starts up his or her business, it will be difficult to employ a professional accountant, as described above. The salary and nature of operations are unlikely to sound attractive for an individual like that. There are two options. The first one is to invite a young inexperienced accountant, e.g. a graduate of relevant courses. His academic background will not be enough to work on his or her own. However, if such accountant is capable and willing to learn, sufficient experience will be gained within 2-3 years through advice of an experienced accountant and joint work on preparing financial statements. The second option is to seek a part-time experienced accountant who keeps accounting records of several firms at the same time. Of course, one can hire an audit firm but this will be costly for an entrepreneur starting up his or her business.
Relationships between Entrepreneurs and Chief Accountants
The manager tends to request lots of things from his or her chief accountant or finance director such as obeying to all orders and searching for financing sources, being available at the workplace and searching for tax minimization techniques, managing accounting staff and executing instructions without objections.
Many of these requirements are conflicting. In addition to knowledge and skills, a chief accountant must be:
– independent and «pushy» when searching funding for a business;
– humble in executing management instructions that are sometimes ignorant;
– a leader when managing accounting staff;
– scrupulous in complying with statutory regulations;
– an individual who has intuition, imagination and analytical skills in forecasting potential changes of environment and searching for tax minimization techniques.
Obviously, one individual cannot have all these traits and skills. The lack of understanding is one of the common reasons why a conflict arises between a manager and his assistant, i.e. accountant.
The chief accountant seeks understanding and respect on the part of the manager. The manager must grasp fundamentals of accounting, which enables him or her, on the one hand, to run the business economically and, on the other hand, to deal with an accountant using a common language. The manager should understand that a chief accountant who stays in office all the time is not able to improve his or her competency level and a humble employee cannot make important decisions on his or her own. An employee would like to have incentives for upgrading his or her qualification, e.g. by covering costs of training seminars held by tax authorities, GAAP courses, etc.
A good chief accountant has self-esteem and very often takes on a lower-paid but more interesting job in an enterprise with favorable internal climate.
The chief accountant is knowledgeable about the manager’s resources. It would be naпve to request complicated efforts aimed at tax minimization without a relevant rise in his or her salary. That is the way unlucky managers are trying to save the costs.
How to select an appropriate employer
One alternative is to ask friends and acquaintances. You may also search newspaper advertisements and make numerous telephone calls. Provided that you spend eight hours a day during one month you can be sure to achieve your goal.
Another alternative is to apply for recruiting agency to find you a job. You will be better of to send your resume by fax. Usually a resume includes
- full name,
- date of birth
- marital status,
- education,
- title and job responsibilities for the last 10 years,
- computer literacy,
- foreign language skills,
- desired salary,
- address and a contact telephone number.
The agency will assist you in getting a prestigious and well-paid stable job. There are certain advantages of applying to an agency listed below:
- Strong financial condition of a potential employer which enables him/her to pay agency fees;
- Since the agency fee is already paid, a potential employer would be reluctant to easily let you go when hired;
- It is expected that a potential employer would respect your professional skills better proven that he/she applied to an agency, although having a good quality personnel service of its own;
- You will be given «does and don’ts» for job interview and how to impress your potential employer. In addition, the DIICON recruiting agency offers interview training for candidates on a changed basis. Opinion and judgments of your classmates and potential employers will add value to the importance of training conducted.
- Recruiting agency may offer psychological quiz, which intend to prevent possible job rejection during interview and/or help you to avoid a potentially unpleasant work environment.
It may take long time to find a job via recruiting agency which is a major disadvantage of this process. Review of every application may take several weeks or months for a respectable company to accomplish multiple stage interviews with each of ten or twenty candidates. It is in the agency’s best interests that a candidate gets employed, therefore, they would be very determined to work with right applicants. Please, remember that you will get a job faster if you are a young highly qualified professional and you do not request initially high salary. This is very unlikely that an elderly and unqualified candidate easily gets a job via recruiting agency. However, you should not go desperate, but visit one of the Moscow City Department of Labor and Occupation Centers. They will certainly accommodate you. When you are charged a fee applying to a recruiting agency, be sure that potential employer is either facing financial difficulties or he/she rates your work at a low value.
You may also search for a job via Internet. This is the most cost-effective way for an employer to hire a right person; and the fastest way for a person to get employed. Please, check Job.ru and JobCenter.ru Internet sites for additional information. There are always new vacancy list available which get updated every other day.
You are encouraged to try every possible way for job hunting soon after you made up your mind to change a job. Other job alternatives will attribute to your self-confidence and comfort at present work place!
Michael Gavrilov is the Director of DIICON Recruiting Agency. He can be contacted at (095) 112 1031.