Tax Associate Review

I am a Tax Associate in the Private Client Services team. This involves completing tax compliance and advisory work for a range of private clients ranging from high net worth individuals to company directors. The advisory work comes with experience and completing exams, and this started in my third/fourth year in my role. The majority of my compliance work is completing tax returns or other documents related to the tax return, for example foreign tax reclaims.

I've learnt a lot of new skills. A large part of this is because of the professional training I received via the ACA and CTA qualification (Chartered Accountancy and Chartered Tax Advisor exams). In addition to this I've also been able to develop my personal skills including communication, organisation, leadership and decision making through practical experience.

Generally speaking I enjoy the programme. Balancing study and work can be difficult at times but it's always been manageable. The staff at BDO are great and they were very welcoming when I was a new starter, and those relationships have developed from there. I'm treated as a professional just like any other member of staff which is nice.

The programme is structured well. I am on a four year course, during which the first 3 years I sat accountancy exams for the ACA qualification, and in the fourth year I have my final ACA exam and my two Chartered Tax Advisor exams. The programme is spread over the right amount of time, for me, as it does not involve studying continuously throughout the 4 years as there are breaks between the exams.

My employer provides a lot of support. Firstly this comes from paid study leave days. These are given to us depending on the exam and if we attend college or it's a self study exam. They also9 provide the opportunity to resit an exam if you fail it. Furthermore in some circumstances they allow you to study during work days if there are quiet periods.

A good amount of support. The training provider structures the courses in an effective way, starting with the teaching period all the way through to mock exams close to the actual exam date. They provide us with paper copies of learning materials as well as an online learning environment. During covid they ran college sessions via a Microsoft Teams-like set up which worked really well.

The ACA and CTA obviously teaches me the technical skills I need to be able to fulfil my role to the fullest extent. Without the technical knowledge I would be really limited to what work I can do. I don't find that I use the ACA technical knowledge all that much but it is really useful to have the accountancy background. This would be more relevant to those working in audit.

Yes there are. These are organised both locally and nationally, for example our Ipswich office sometimes arranges local events, but so does the firm on a national scale too, for example to BDO national football tournament. The firm does also organise professional networking events but these are generally aimed at more senior colleagues.

Yes

BDO is a great place to work. The culture is fantastic, the people are good and the partners are supportive as colleagues and employers. They provide a good training structure, provide you with the practical experience you need to develop and pay a good salary too. The client base is varied (FTSE 100 listed companies to small/medium sized enterprises, ultra high net worth individuals to small property owners) which provides you with a range of experiences and teaches you new skills.

During the application process make sure to be genuine at each stage, whilst remaining professional and confident, as this will make you an attractive prospect. Believe in yourself and try and be the best person in the room because, ultimately, you're there to impress and you can only do that if you believe you can do it. Spend time researching the roles on offer to ensure that you are choosing the correct team to join, e.g audit, corporate tax, private client services.