Tax consultant Review

I work in the Tax team where I help clients in the financial services industries with their tax reporting. This mostly involves advising them on investments from a tax perspective and helping them prepare tax reports. I am doing an ACA during my programme so spend a lot of time on study leave preparing for exams.

I have improved my communication skills by working with team members and contacting clients. My technical knowledge has improved a lot on the job and I have a good variety of work that enables me to learn new areas as I progress. Time management skills are also important as I have a lot of ongoing client projects that I work on at the same time.

My programme has mostly been enjoyable. My colleagues are very friendly and good to work with, and I have a lot of peers in my cohort that I can work with. The culture is generally good and people are always happy to help or support me, however hours can sometimes be quite long.

The apprenticeship programme is very well structured. We get given a good amount of study leave and have ongoing check-ins with our training provider for catch ups. Support is very good both in and out of work. However I haven't been given a very clear long-term timetable of future exams, and some of the calls with the training provider seem repetitive and pointless.

My employer provides a lot of support, both in work and in terms of college. There are multiple different people I can talk to such as coaches and buddies for ongoing support related to work or outside of work, and the culture is supportive and encouraging overall. During exams we are given a good amount of study leave and we are not expected to do any work whilst studying.

The training provider provides a lot of support in terms of qualifications. The exam workbooks and materials they provide are very useful and are much easier to work through than the standard ICAEW material. They provide a lot of information about the non-exam requirements of the qualification, but I think there are too many check-ins with them.

The qualification has generally helped me get a better understanding of tax and accounting on the whole, but I haven't used my knowledge from my qualification directly in my work very often. I work in quite a niche area of tax while the topics covered in my qualification are quite general.

There are a number of extra-curricular activities at work but most of these seem to be wellbeing/support groups. I am not aware of there being many major sports groups even though I am in the London office which is by far the biggest. I was hoping that there'd be more 'fun' activities to get involved in.

Yes

I think it's a good place to start your career. The workforce is generally young and friendly, and there is a lot of support when you start out. There is a big emphasis on personal and professional development so it is a good place to develop skills and knowledge.

The interview process involved online tests, an online video interview and an assessment centre (one-to-one presentation, team activity and one-to-one interview). My advice would be to prepare for competency-based questions and to make sure you know the core values of Deloitte as questions will focus around these. In the group activity, make sure you get involved and volunteer to take the lead or present if you can.