The Hindu Business Line : <I>Search for job satisfaction </I>

I am a commerce graduate and a chartered accountant (CA). I qualified in 1989 and I am 40 years old. I started my career in a manufacturing company in Chennai as an accountant and was later promoted as senior accountant in the finance department. Thereafter, I worked as an authorised assistant with a share broking firm. Since 1996, I have been working in a real estate company in Bahrain . I have no job satisfaction as my work does not involve accounting, taxation and auditing. Please advise.

Ramasamy Meiyappan

A positive aspect about your profile is that you have multi-domain experience and work experience abroad. True, CAs face stiff competition from MBAs and the software boom — ERP, SCM, CRM and so on. Accounting is no longer the exclusive domain of the CAs. With e-governance catching on, the manual paper-based filing of statutory forms is dying out. However, with various legal requirements and mandatory accounting standards, CAs do have a role to play. One must possess additional skill sets to survive in a competitive environment.

Practising as a CA may not be advisable, unless you have sufficient professional backing. You could, however, branch into Information Systems Audit. You can prepare for the Certified Information Systems Auditor (CISA) Course conducted by the Information Systems Audit and Control and Association, US. Details are available at http://www.isaca.org.

Another option is to become a FI/CO Consultant of mySAP ERP. The details are available at http://www.sap.com/asia/services/education/index.epx. This will require effort and the right aptitude.

Job satisfaction is not always guaranteed. Sometimes, it is a matter of perception. It will depend on how well you adapt to the existing environment, harness opportunities, tackle challenges and move forward.

Send in your queries to CareerCrossroads@gmail.com.

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S. Kannan