Wondered if anyone on here could point me in the right direction.
I am AAT qualified and ACCA level2. Stopped due to having children and have never got back to studies.
For the past 4 years I have been working from home helping my husband with his business. I have done his accounts for the past 6 years - manually and other administration as and when (on top of having our 3rd child). I have now decided that I need to get back out into the big wide world however this is proving much much harder than I thought.
I have had 3 interviews so far. 1 administration and 2 for accounts/bookkeeping. I turned the admin one down as that is not what I want to do etc (placement through an agency) and the others I got to the last 2 then lost out and the reason being my skills are not up-to-date.
So my question is refreshing my bookkeeping skills? Should I now do the ICB but I also need to refresh my sage skills as it is 10 years ago since I last used it.
If you feel you need to refresh your skills and gain a more up-to-date qualification, then the ICB will certainly provide what you are looking for. With your prior knowledge and experience their format of testing will suit you as you could move through all qualifications relatively quickly. All exams are attempted on an on-demand basis. A full list of colleges offering training for their qualifications can be found at the following link: http://www.bookkeepers.org.uk/where_to_study/distance_learning
It would be worth you giving a couple of colleges a call to see what thay can offer you.
I don't think doing extra qualifications with ICB or IAB would really help you to "update" your skills as neither are particularly recognised by employers. Your AAT and ACCA qualifications are at a higher level than either ICB or IAB too so it would be a backward step. You might find doing a Sage course would help, particularly if the jobs for which you have been applying are using computerised accounting. You can either go on a course at a college or look to see if there are any short courses being run by Business Link in your area or self-study - the various level packs can be bought on ebay or amazon. You could also try temping as this would bring your skills up-to-date in a practical way.
Seems odd someone would say they were out of date, unless they were quite a few years old. If they are very old then re-taking them, or ther quals, may help.
If they are not so old then perhaps they mean you have no recent experience. If that is the case then re-taking them might help, but perhaps it would be better to get work experience.
Like Semsley suggested try temping, or you could go self employed.
You can buy text books for the ICB courses and just take the examinations, or like Course Advisor suggested buy a course and train in something new, like Payroll for example.
