Chance to pick up new skills from accounting traineeship

Fresh graduate Agnes Hong had sent out more than 10 applications for a full-time accounting job in February. But with the Covid-19 pandemic, her attempts were unsuccessful.

Then she came across the SGUnited Traineeships Programme, which offers fresh graduates the opportunity to learn new skills and to find out more about the career they want to pursue.

These opportunities include traineeships and apprenticeships like the one Miss Hong is currently pursuing with international audit and advisory firm Mazars.

Miss Hong, 23, who graduated from SIM-University of London last year with a degree in accounting and finance, told The New Paper: "I felt this would be a good opportunity to learn and gain a new experience since I could not get a full-time job."

Since she started her year-long traineeship in mid-July, Miss Hong has picked up more knowledge about accounting from her seniors and about the industry standard practices.

By supporting her senior colleagues in their work with clients, she was also able to apply the skills she had learnt in school in real-life scenarios.

More importantly, it gave her the opportunity to know what she wants to do in the future.

"To people, accountancy is just about numbers," Miss Hong said. "Through this traineeship, it confirmed that this is the path I want to take."

She added: "The good thing is... it exposes you to a wide range of opportunities. There is a steep learning curve and you develop hard and soft skills.

"A traineeship is a great way for an individual to find out what type of environment you can flourish in."

In her weekly job report yesterday, Minister for Manpower Josephine Teo said there were 9,000 opportunities in the professional services sector including traineeships.

The professional services sector includes a broad range of sub-sectors such as accountancy, advertising and engineering.

Speaking to the media after her visit to PricewaterhouseCoopers yesterday, Mrs Teo said: "I am heartened to see that around two-thirds of opportunities in professional services are jobs, and even for firms that may not be ready to hire, they have graciously stepped forward to host fresh graduates or mid- career individuals in traineeships and attachment roles.

"This way, they continue to make good use of the time to learn from their experience in the company. I hope job seekers can seize these opportunities."