Hi Salima,

welcome to the forum and really sorry that I missed your post.

the fact that your doing voluntary work in finance will score brownie points over those who have only theoretical knowledge, however, it's a world away from practice so you are still going to fall behind those applying for the jobs who are already working in practice or have worked in practice previously.

Use your experience to build a CV that will appeal to agencies such as Reed and take a serious look at temping in sales ledger / purchase ledger / credit control all of which will give you the much needed practice experience which will appeal to employers who despite what they may write in their ads really don't want to invest any time and money in basic training.

As you seem to be looking for a career rather than self employment, as a career plan think about using your existing experience to land temp jobs in order to pay for furthering you study and move from IAB to AAT (you will be able to gain exemptions for studies already completed with the IAB).

When you have completed AAT combined with your temping experience you will be in a strong position to land an accounts assistant job.

If you need further evidence that this is the approach to take just take a look at the Reed job site and see how many roles ask for ICB or IAB qualifications... I've yet to see one.

AAT on the other hand is a pre requirement of almost every job.

The good news (yes there is some) is that you did the right thing in choosing IAB instead of ICB as the qualification is recognised by other supervisory bodies such as the ACCA who do not recognise the ICB qualification for exemptions.

I wish you every success in your career and hope that you will take on my advice about temping and going AAT.

kind regards.

Shaun.