Getting real experience in the Virtual Office

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Real: Inside the Virtual Office

Theo Garrun

The unemployment problem in SA is made worse by the fact that many jobseekers are ineligible for employment because they have no workplace experience.

This is even the case in areas of skills shortages such as accountancy and finance, where graduates are basically unemployable because they will not be able to add value to their employers in the short term.

The answer lies in taking graduates and fast-tracking them into the world of work via work readiness programmes.

Guarantee Trust Corporate Support Services has successfully implemented such programmes over the years. It has also run many Fasset-funded projects. Fasset is the Finance, Accounting, Management Consulting and other Financial Services Sector Education and Training Authority.

It has again secured a work-readiness programme for unemployed commerce graduates for the second half of this year.

This programme is fully financed by Fasset .

Over the past 10 years, this programme has successfully placed more than 3 000 graduates into the accounting and commerce fields.

Applications are open now for the mid-year intake. The process closes at the end of this month.

A degree or diploma with Accounts 3 is required. Applicants from rural areas will also be accepted.

Seeing that “no experience” is often a barrier to entry to the profession, this work readiness programme deals with the problem by providing innovative practical experience during the training period.

This generally leads to the graduate getting placed at a professional accounting firm on to a Fasset-registered learnership en route to a professional qualification as an accountant either through the SA Institute of Professional Accountants or the SA Institute of Chartered Accountants.

There are positions available for 210 graduates in Gauteng – 150 in Joburg and 60 in Pretoria.

The programme also runs in Durban, Cape Town, Port Elizabeth and Bloemfontein.

The programme is made up of life skills and technical accounting components.

It is a good opportunity for accounting graduates to sign up, so gaining training and work simulation experience.

The programme continues an exciting new opportunity for the participants to obtain experience in the work environment with an accounting office simulation programme known as the Virtual Office.

In the Virtual Office, participants will be exposed to the rigours of being a trainee accountant in an accounting firm.

It is an accounting office simulation section that exposes participants to basic record keeping, ledger compilation, management accounts, financial statements, working papers, income tax and provisional tax returns, statutory returns and statutory registrations including VAT, unemployment insurance fund and PAYE.

The trainees will be completely familiar with the above skills, having completed them for different businesses for a 12-month accounting period.

This intense intervention is designed to provide graduates with the experience professional accountants require from applicants.

This office simulation process is part of the standard five-month work readiness programme involving actual communication and other life and office skills.

Learners who have gone through this programme are effective employees in the workplace.

l Interested graduates can call Guarantee Trust Corporate Support Services at 011 466 3312 during office hours to apply for entry to the programme. Visit www.guarantee.co.za for more information and online applications.