Tax - corporate compliance associate Review

My normal role is to work on creating tax computations for companies, working with managers who have their own big clients. This gives you some real exposure to FTSE100 clients and how they operate. I have previously been in an accounting services team where I was working more on bookkeeping. They have been great in accommodating what I want to get out of my career.

Leaving school to go straight to work has developed and enhanced a lot of skills. These include soft skills when you have to adapt your emails, conversation etc to fit colleagues, managers and even clients. Then the technical skills are usually picked up with no prior knowledge which allows to to not pick up any bad habits and get to grips with the work with good training and support.

So far I have enjoyed my programme a lot, I have got to meet loads of different people and I genuinely feel my voice is heard if I have any issues in work or come up with any suggestions. The study is hard especially when balancing it with work but if you get your head down for a month or so at a time it's easily manageable.

I have found that there is very clear career progression in place which is great when you can see how your studies link in with promotions etc. There is good training programmes which are in place for my business unit however these often change which means they're not always perfect. They always seek feedback though so it can improve year on year.

At PwC you are allocated a people manager, I have had two so far and they have both been great. Very willing to hear from you when you have any issues and they will always try to accommodate your wishes. An example for me was when I requested to transfer to a different office over to Manchester; from the moment I asked I had moved within 2/3 months!

Kaplan do have a lot of support available if you seek to find it, there's always someone on hand if you encounter any issues, likewise you will have a course contact who taught you the content and in my experience they are more than happy to help if they're around. There have been some technical issues with their software but they do try their best to resolve this.

The exam content helps with work massively. The exams cover various topics in detail over the 3 years and you're always learning new things. In my experience there will always be times where you encounter a new problem which you will find you have covered at some point in your studies.

There has always been quite a few different things to get involved in if you wish. My team try to do a social every couple of months which might be going out for food or for a few drinks. Alternatively there is always things going on around the office which you can get involved in including sports and fund-raising activities - a recent trip was planned to Mount Fiji!

Yes

The main benefit I find is that there is so much diversity in the firm, loads of different types of work to get involved with. The support from management means that if you wish to learn about different types of work a bit further they will always try to help you work towards that.

During the application process try to be yourself. I find that every person I have met at PwC is always very nice, no one thinks they are better than one another which creates a great learning environment. Do your research, and I would say if you're reading this you're probably in a better position than most! You can find loads of stuff online about the assessments etc.