I have an interview as a Trainee Tax Professional and want to prepare some...

[tebthereb]

...questions - can you help? I want to be able to ask some questions, but having only a limited knowledge of the tax profession I am not sure of the sort of questions to be asking relating to the role. Any people who have entered tax, what sort of thing could I ask?

[flying charlie]

Yes include a question about the types of taxation you will be dealing with, shows you have a readiness for what is ahead and that you are willing to take on responsibility, which is a conclusion they will come to when they assess your performance in relation to the other candidates who might just want to know about pay and entitlements.

[agius1520]

What training they will be offering. Either a whole professional body like ACCA or ACA will cover tax but they may just go straight for the CIOT ( chartered Institute of Taxation). You want to confirm exactly what you will owe them and what they will be offering you in terms of time out of the office and study support. This is the most important item to know.

It would also be worth knowing what sort of tax you will be dealing with such as companies or individuals and what diversity they will give you and opportunities for the future.

[earl]

its certainly the right profession for you.you look like a pirate according to your picture.

[Snakey B]

Ooh, good luck. It's a nice career.

Sounds like you just want to ask questions for the sake of being able to ask questions! Can you really not think of anything that you actually DO want to know about the place you'll be working at for the next few years? I assume you have visited the firm's website to find out more about how they position themselves in the market and some essential facts like whether they have other national and international offices and so on.

Don't, whatever you do, ask questions that you won't understand the answers to. If you're going to ask whether you'll be taking the ACA or the CTA, make sure you know what the difference is and why it matters to you. If it doesn't matter to you, leave it until your second interview. And don't try to show off with a "clever" question about tax - you're only going for a trainee role, they aren't expecting you to know anything - and you can't blag expertise when you are talking to an expert, you'll just look daft.

Honestly. Don't get too bogged down with the whole tax thing. What you are doing here is potentially entering into a career. 7 hours a day, 260 days a year, for the next 45 years is quite an impressive percentage of the rest of your life. Is it the right career for you?

Assuming here that you have some element of choice at this point, you need to do a little soul-searching. You already have a rough idea of what an office job involves. What is it that you would like to do all day? What are you neutral about? What would you hate? Are there any deal-breakers? Then keep your eyes and ears open while they are talking to you.

Concentrate in the interview on finding out whether the positives exist. For instance, will there be opportunities to travel? Will you be able to study towards a qualification (I expect the answer here is yes)? What career progression can you expect after you qualify (turn the tables and ask them where THEY see you in five years time)? Would you be able to get a secondment abroad if you wanted one? Would you be able to specialise?

Also, ask them how quickly you could make partner in the firm if you were prepared to do whatever it takes to get it - that should be an interesting one!

As the previous poster said, try to find out what sort of tax you'll be doing. The main "divides" are corporate (companies) or personal (individuals and trusts), planning (project work) or compliance (tax return prep and payment advice), and whether you work on international clients (cross-border). In a smaller firm you will be expected to do everything, right down to VAT returns and payroll and even accounts preparation. In a larger firm you may find yourself in a niche from the start e.g. working in the expatriate tax department.

I said all that mainly to give you an idea of what they might say to you and what it means. Unless you have a real burning desire to do such-and-such a specific thing, I wouldn't turn down a job on the grounds that e.g. you want to work in financial services tax but the job is for an all-rounder in a small firm. Really, the important thing in the next three years is that you qualify with first-time passes and along the way you get experience in a professional office environment and learn to work with people and deal with clients and so on. As a newly-qualified, you will be highly marketable and (to an extent) it often doesn't matter too much what experience you have - you can move at that point into a job in your area of interest.

To get a feel for the likely atmosphere, ask how many trainees they take on each year. Ask what they typically go on to do after they qualify (do they stay or leave, although don't actually say that!). Ask how many people are in the department and how the department is structured - will you be reporting to one person or to several? Remember all of this and have a think afterwards about how it affects you and what you want.

If all else fails and your mind goes blank, "what would a typical day involve for me?" is a good fall-back.