Accounting Technicians
Accounting
Technicians
Our Accounting Technician programme is
a two-year programme. On one level, it will see you through
your Association of Accounting Technician qualifications –
meaning there will be a lot of studying involved at the same
time as you’re learning on the job.
On an entirely different level, it will also give you a fascinating
insight into how a successful global business works. We only
take on a select few in this area each year, precisely because
we want to give you the very best exposure and experience
we can.
You'll be working in the Finance function at Rolls-Royce
in Derby. Finance in Rolls-Royce is not just about reporting
the numbers. Management Accountants are expected to play an
important role in developing the business. This involves analysing
data, extracting relevant information and then presenting
it in a way that helps us make some of our most important
decisions, get the most out of the investment we put in, and
improve the way we work.
Finance are key people in planning the business, looking
at forecasts for how we are likely to perform – which
ultimately determines how much we can afford to invest in
the future.
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What you need
We only have a very few vacancies for the Accounting Technician
programme each year, so it's important we make a good match.
Here are a few things we look for:
You must be a UK national.
You will need two A levels at Grade C or above. Ideally one
of these will be Maths, or a GNVQ in Business or similar.
You’ll also need five GCSEs at Grade C or above, two
of which must be Maths and English at Grade B. Other equivalent
qualifications are also considered.
You need to be able to get to and from work in Derby and be
prepared to travel to Nottingham on a weekly basis.
Clearly, you must have an aptitude for numbers, be interested
in how business works and be prepared to work very hard! We'll
be interested to see how you make decisions, how you work
with other people, how you organise your work and yourself,
and how you go about learning new things.
One last thing: we’re very, very keen to take people
on who love working as a team. You’ll notice when you
walk in that, despite the size of our company, we all enjoy
working closely with other people. So, we’ll be interested
in how you’ve worked in a team, whether that’s
at school, in sports activities, at work or in social or voluntary
organisations such as the Guides, Scouts or Cadets.
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Training &
Development
We aim to give you a broad range of experience across the
business – to build up your knowledge of how we work,
develop different skills and learn from a wide variety of
people.
During the two years, you will spend up to six months at
a time in different finance departments across Rolls-Royce
in Derby. So, the work you do in each department will vary
quite widely.
You could be in the Finance Service Centre, where they are
responsible for handling the 30,000 or so invoices that pass
through the department – totalling some £18bn.
Or you could find yourself working with the Management Accountant
for one of our operating units. Here, your challenge will
be to understand and report on how much it costs to run the
unit, including all the pay and benefits for the people, the
costs of the machinery and the raw material and any other
resources – and, of course, how much profit the unit
is making.
Or you could be on an attachment in one of our customer-facing
business units, helping to put together the financial aspects
of a deal with an airline or a cruise ship company.
Of course, you won’t be thrown in at the deep end!
With every attachment, you’ll have a specific supervisor
who will be responsible for you, setting your work and objectives,
monitoring your performance and helping you when you need
it.
You’ll also have an individual training officer, whose
job it is to guide you through your training programme, making
sure you get the most out of every attachment, and to ensure
your overall progress is as good as it can be.
You’ll travel to a study centre in Nottingham on a day
release basis to study for your Association of Accounting
Technician exams. This is essential to your training programme
and you’ll be expected to work hard at passing your
exams – it will be essential to the future development
of your career at Rolls-Royce.
There are 3 stages to the Association of Accounting Technician
exams – foundation, intermediate and technician. You
will be required to reach technician stage, and depending
on your qualifications, you may be exempt from the foundation
stage.
Don’t worry – you certainly won’t be without
support. You will find that everyone here is more than willing
to offer help, advice and encouragement, and your course,
exam and institute fees will be paid for. You’ll also
have study leave at the appropriate time.
Many of our Accounting Technician trainees go on to study
for their CIMA (Chartered Institute of Management Accountants)
qualifications, sponsored by the company, if they are interested
and capable. This is, as you might imagine, an excellent foundation
upon which to build a successful career.
We’ll offer you a variety of courses to help you broaden
your talents. So, you will do a basic book-keeping course
at the study centre in Nottingham. There will also be other
courses from time to time run inside the company. These are
more likely to centred around developing your interpersonal
skills (like presentation skills or time management) –
although there are some other useful options like Advanced
Excel that might be appropriate as well.
At Rolls-Royce, we believe it’s important to have a
rounded view of life and we encourage our employees to get
involved in activities and roles outside the traditional world
of work. Many of our trainees volunteer to run school projects
and exercises, or they might become a member of team doing
something for the community.
All these things contribute to your personal development,
which is just as much part of your training programme as learning
to become an Accounting Technician. We hope that, as much
as anything else, you’ll enjoy getting involved.
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Recruitment and
selection
Once we receive your application we'll send you an initial
acknowledgement by email. We will then review your application
against criteria including your qualifications, work experience
and other achievements. Your application will be reviewed
by a real person who knows what we're looking for - not a
computer.
We'll keep you in touch with the progress of your application
- mainly by email. You can also check by logging on to the
on-line application system.
If we like what we see in your application, our next step
will be to invite you for an interview. We’ll suggest
a date and time to you, but if this isn’t suitable (say
it clashes with a mock exam) we’ll sort out a different
date.
We’ll now have all the information we need to decide
whether we’d like to offer you an Accounting Technician
apprenticeship, and you should have a pretty clear idea of
whether you’d like to join us.
If you are successful, we’ll send you an offer letter.
If you haven't had your A level results the offer will be
conditional on you getting the grades we require.
What happens if you don’t make it?
If you're not successful, it's not the end of the world. Maybe
a job as an Accounting Technician isn't for you. In some cases,
people gain some more experience and are successful when they
apply a second time (but please listen to the feedback you
get – we will be honest about whether we think it might
be worth you reapplying).
Whatever the outcome, we hope you'll find the experience
useful, particularly as you’ll come across application
forms, tests and interviews again and again during your working
life.
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