Assistant Tax Advisor Review

My job is mainly helping out on tax audits for the firms financial services clients. On a day to day basis it I have meetings with the rest of the tax team on that client to discuss what are the next steps. I then go to my desk and review the workings the client has sent over flagging any issues I think there could be.

I have learnt so many new skills in my role. One of the main ones being how to use excel really well, when I started I didn't really know how to do anything on it, it surprised me how easy it was to pick up. Also started learning more technical tax knowledge to bring into other client project. You pick up a lot of good general office skills when you first start aswell like time management and prioritising your work load.

I think it is quite hard when you first join from school as it is really different but after the first couple of months I found myself really enjoying the program. We have lots of opportunities to meet up with the other apprentices from difference offices at training events so you do make a lot of friends aswell making it more enjoyable.

The program is very structured from when you first start there is a set plan of what everyone who is the your program will do. I think this helps as you can ask the people who joined the year before how they found and what they would do differently, which is nice as they have been through the exact same as you.

You receive a lot of support from your employer as when you start you get assigned a counsellor who is a mentor for you and you can talk about any issues you are having with settling in or to do with work. Your counsellor is someone who is in your team as well so often you work with them which means they will observe you day to day so can really offer good advice and feedback.

We do our training with Kaplan college who provide a lot of support. You get a tutor who will help you through any questions you might have whilst revising. The website is also really helpful and has loads of mock exams and practise questions on so you are ready for all the exams.

I think that doing the training at Kaplan gives you a good basis of knowledge to go into the office and start to understand the language used. However as my role is financial services tax none of the training I have done at Kaplan yet has been specific enough to help with anything tax technical.

In my team we have a football team that play once a week and anyone can get involved. We also go out for month end drinks on the last Friday of every month which is nice to get to know the team outside of work. There are other one of socials all the time, such as if the team wins an award we go out and celebrate.

Yes

The job is really interesting and there is a lot of support to help you out if you are struggling so you really do learn a lot. You gain a really good qualification, which you would still have to do the exams for if you went to university. It is also a fun office environment.

Don't worry about not knowing anything about accounting or tax EY provide training for all of this, you just need to show you are willing to learn and have a positive mindset that will work well in team environments. Personality is more important that having technical knowledge in that application process