Peter Hedgethorne
Director, Plus Accounting
We have employed placement students from the University of Brighton on numerous occasions over the past few years. We find that they are very capable of applying their theoretical knowledge to the practical tasks that we ask them to do, and they are enthusiastic about doing so.
The scheme provides us with a useful source of junior staff, and we find that they pick up the necessary skills very quickly. It's also good to have some different faces around the office. The type of work which we give them is mainly accounts preparation and basic bookkeeping, with possibly some tax work as well – if they show good aptitude for the tasks then we encourage them to do more complex work.
We feel that they gain good experience of the practical aspects of accountancy, which is quite varied in a firm of our size.
We understand that this sort of experience holds them in good stead for their job applications – our latest student obtained a training contract at Deloitte, and whilst I am not saying that she would not have achieved this without the experience gained from her placement, I am sure that it must have been a positive factor for her.
In addition, we have offered positions here to some placement students if they are interested in continuing their training with us – they often continue to work for us part-time during their final year and we currently have two ACCA graduate trainees who originally came to us for their placement year and joined the firm full-time after they graduated.
