Tax Advisor Review

My main responsibility for the year is to prepare tax returns for clients. I build relationships within the company and with the clients via email and telephone calls. All of the necessary admin associated with preparing the tax returns are also important to complete. I also help deal with billing and preparing spreadsheets detailing the work undertaken and the margins that are met.

I have developed my communication skills as speaking to clients is an important part of my role. I have greatly developed my technical skills in tax having gone on various courses to increase my knowledge so that I can correctly inform clients. Another skill that I have developed is my computer skills as everything is now done on a computer, we are a paperless office which helped a lot when Coronavirus became an issue.

I don't enjoy the programme that I am on and have asked that I come off the programme and into the company as a normal employee. The training aspect of the programme is difficult to make time for when there is a lot of work to do. I enjoy the work aspect of EY and my team are amazing but the actual programme I don't enjoy.

It isn't a very well organised programme. I didn't get to know when the exams were until very late in the year and BPP seem fairly unorganised in terms of letting EY know what we need to be doing. The training aspect of the programme has always been something that hasn't been very clear and has made it feel up in the air a lot of the time. This is partly due to being in the first cohort and therefore there isn't any previous details to go on within the firm.

My counsellor and manager are incredibly supportive and have helped me personally a lot. There is a general attitude of support at the lower levels within EY which helps. They also have a lot of support systems in place within HR and there is a large accessibility of support for all employees.

I don't feel that BPP provide much help or guidance at all. We have quarterly calls where we go through where I am but I have never felt like these were actually of any help or offered guidance about where to go forward following the calls. The most support has been from within the firm, not from the training provider, especially as the exam courses are run outside BPP at Tolleys.

It's important to have qualifications within the finance industry and therefore these are vital when going forward and progressing with my career. Having more in depth tax knowledge is very important when dealing with compliance and consultancy work and helps you gain confidence in dealing with all aspects of the job.

I work in a very small office due to the location therefore it is difficult to organise events as there is a small amount of people to choose from. That being said, there is always table tennis that gets played every month which is a good way to team build and get a little bit competitive. It's obviously different for all firms in the covid work environment.

Yes

I would recommend EY as a firm but I would not recommend the BA Programme that I am on. I think being a usual employee is a much better route within EY, however the programme was a good entry level at the time that I was looking for jobs in the sector.

Have a thorough think about the industry that you want to be in before applying for jobs. It's important that you enjoy what you do otherwise you aren't going to succeed as much in the job that you are placed in. Prepare well for the assessment day and interviews, looking into EY as a firm and thoroughly into the sector that you are applying for.