Careers insights

RSM South Africa provides international secondment opportunities to trainees. The qualifying candidates stand to benefit from the opportunity to work abroad for 3 to 4 months, with exposure to a different auditing methodology, while exploring a different country. This was one of the many reasons why RSM South Africa was my employer of choice.

At RSM, trainee accountants are trained to interact with clients in a professional, ethical and timely manner while ensuring the client is receiving a high level of professional service.

The road to qualifying as a Chartered Accountant is not as easy as it may seem. To the public who are not in the accounting profession, they may ask themselves: “How hard can it be?” It only entails a three-year B Com degree, an honours (CTA) year, three years of training on the job and two board exams all completed over roughly a seven-year period.

“We are what we repeatedly do therefore excellence is not an act but a habit” – Aristotle

The journey from an aspiring business professional at varsity to an Audit Manager in public practice has probably been the most daunting and taxing period of my life to date. In the 4 years and 3 months between receiving my degree and being promoted to Manager, there were numerous struggles, set-backs and obstacles.

RSM recently spoke to the first year accounting students at the University of Johannesburg. Below follows information on the suggested study timetable we discussed.

I’m from RSM in Auckland, New Zealand, and in 2017 I was offered the opportunity to go on a secondment to the RSM office in Cape Town to work in the audit department. The secondment was over a period of 3 and a half months, concluding at Christmas time.

Doing a secondment abroad has been a long term goal from the first year of my studies at RSM UK. Back when I started in London, the firm was called Baker Tilly, and I was lucky enough to qualify at a time when we’d just rebranded and joined a large international network of firms. Riding that wave, I put my hand up to do a slightly longer than usual secondment.

Beautiful, strange, amazing, tough and awesome are few of the many words that spring to mind when reflecting back on my secondment experience to New Zealand.

Employee secondments can benefit employers through developing good business relationships on a global level and sharing and enhancing employees' skills. At the same time, they can offer employees a valuable career development opportunity, with the chance to make new contacts and gain experience within a different working environment.