Build A Personal Tax Brand: Secrets To Being Hired For Tax Jobs You Should Learn Now
Many tax professionals lose wonderful opportunities to be considered for the best tax jobs because they do not know how to position themselves to be selected for these roles. This article focuses on my experiences in tax professional search and what I learned from the actions tax professionals took to rise to the top of the profession. If you are thinking about entering the tax profession, or already in the profession and want to know how to be considered for a tax roles, there are steps you need to take. For the purpose of a tax professional audience, I will break this article into five categories: Public Accounting Tax, Corporate Tax, Law Firm Tax, Independent Tax Services, and Government Tax Roles.
In writing this article, understand the information comes from my experience in working on more than one thousand tax searches over thirty years. You learn a lot when you are speaking with tax professionals in private conversations about their experiences working in these uniquely different tax work environments. You will learn what I learned about these vastly different tax environments; you will learn from this article what tax professionals liked working in a particular environment and the reasons why they decided to leave for another work environment.
Public Accounting/Consulting Firm
A public accounting firm is an ideal place for anyone to enter the tax profession. You will learn alot in a small boutique accounting practice or a mid-level to large firm. This is simply a great place to begin building your tax and accounting career. If you are fortunate enough to catch the attention of a mentor to guide you, all the better. This is the ideal environment to enter the tax and accounting profession and begin your tax career.
The greatest amount of turnover in public accounting is at the 3 to 5 years of experience where tax staff/tax seniors want to continue to grow. Many tax staff/tax seniors may want to stay until they make manager before they leave the firm. However, the truth is if someone has decided to stay and make manager in public accounting, compared to a tax staff/tax senior who has combined 5 years of experience in public accounting and a corporate tax environment; the hiring executives in corporations prefer hiring the candidate who has combined public accounting/private industry experience. This is a fact. Ask any corporate tax director and they will tell you the same. My advice to younger tax professionals is to focus on the learning experience, not the title.
If you are in public accounting and want to move to another firm, I would then understand the title is the primary driver for most in an accounting firm. What I would advise key hiring managers in public accounting is the best way to retain your professional staff is to invest in their training and education. For instance, you could train your staff in partnerships by sending them to a high-quality partnership education seminars like taxforums.com. Charles Levun and Michael Cohen are nationally trusted trainers in tax partnerships. They go through multiple case studies in their seminars which are highly rated sessions. They generally conduct annual training seminars on tax partnerships in May and June which you can find here: https://www.taxforums.com/default
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