Assistant Tax Advisor Review

I work in the tax advisory team. My day will often involve catching up with project teams to discuss progress / work to be done, corresponding with overseas teams, working on reports / step plans for clients and project management / admin.

I have improved my organisation and time management skills. My confidence has also improved. I have built some tax technical understanding, but not as much as I would have envisaged, as juniors are largely given project management / admin work.

I enjoy learning about our clients' businesses, the issues they face and how we can assist them. However, as mentioned above, as a junior we often do not have much opportunity to get involved in actual tax technical work, which feels like wasted potential.

The firm is open to hearing people's views and actively encourages people to share their views. However, this does not always lead to actions being taken to improve things and there is a lack of consistency in how people are valued within the firm.

Over the five year programme your time is spent mostly in the office and then a couple of times a year you will go out for a few weeks to college and then take your exams. It is fairly well structured, although an improvement would be to take the first exams in a shorter amount of time and spread out the more complex exams over a longer time period.

Our training provider is Kaplan - we attend college with Kaplan a couple of times a year. The tutors are generally very good and open to questions/discussion. There is a lot of useful material on the Kaplan website too.

During college / exams my team is supportive and does not ask me to do any office work whilst I am out. In the period between college and exams where we are back in the office, generally my team are understanding and encourage you to leave on time to focus on revision.

The salary is satisfactory.

There are opportunities to get involved EY's sports teams (e.g. netball, dodgeball). There are lots of activities which help contribute to the EY Foundation charity, for example an annual Sahara Trek.

Yes

It is valuable to have worked at a Big Four firm. Depending on which team / service line your work in, the work can be very interesting and you can excel.

Talk to current school leavers at EY as well as other firms to understand their work, whether they enjoy it, whether they recommend it and whether it appeals to you. Five years is a long commitment, so you should talk to as many people as possible / read reviews to help you decide if it something you would like to do. Before undertaking the online tests (e.g. maths, verbal reasoning), take a few practice tests which you can find online. The interviews are largely strength based, so make sure you have examples which you can use to demonstrate your strengths. At the assessment centre engage with the other interviewees, be yourself and be confident.