Typical services offered are:

• Annual compliance and year end obligations,
• Checking and updating company books and records Maintenance of statutory registers,
• Filing of accounts and maintaining the registers,
• Administration of share option schemes Issues relating to corporate governance,
• Dealing with company formations and overseas company registrations.

The choice between pursuing an in-house company secretarial career or one in professional services tends to come down to personal preference. People often like the broad and varied nature of consultancy work and the exposure to a wide range of companies: in the morning you could be working on a flotation and in the afternoon putting together the annual report for a large PLC client.

Once you have decided on a career in professional services there is nothing to say that this must be the focus of your whole career. Although some PLC clients insist on candidates having worked in-house previously, for the majority this is not a problem. Well aware of the excellent training gained by employees especially in larger firms, clients in banking and finance are particularly keen on candidates coming out of the professions. Furthermore some professional services firms, (once again particularly the larger ones) second their consultants out to clients for certain periods of time hence giving them the opportunity to gain in-house experience as well.

 EJ Company Secretarial has established relationships with a wide variety of professional services organisations ranging from multinational firms with up to 20 consultants in their department to smaller accountancy and law firms who due to the increasing workload are recruiting chartered secretaries for the first time to take over work which in the past has often been done by accountants/lawyers.