Job Profiles - Administration jobs

Kiren Poonian
Summer Placement – Development Tax Trainee Team

I’m embarking on the third year of my Economics degree at the University of Birmingham this October, having spent eight weeks on a Summer Placement with HMRC.

This Internship really gave me a great insight into the true flavour of what a career with HMRC would have in store. We received presentations from a number of departments upon their role within HMRC. I also managed to participate in a few customer meetings – crucial in gaining first hand experience of a Tax Inspector’s work.

My main task involved producing a report regarding ‘Recruitment in HMRC’ and presenting it to an audience of regional managers. It was an immense task that challenged my time management, research and public speaking skills. I was amazed to find I actually thoroughly enjoyed the presentation and was really pleased to get many positive comments.

I was also really surprised to discover the diversity and breadth of opportunities in HMRC. It is a vast organisation and I was intrigued to discover how the various departments and individuals interact and co-operate to complete different tasks. the kindness and generosity of HMRC people was also greatly appreciated. Absolutely everyone was willing to give time to talk about procedures, life at HMRC and ask how my Internship was going. I felt thoroughly welcomed and by the end of my eight weeks, truly part of the Trainee team.

HMRC has a really positive approach to your work-life balance too. Their ethos on this comes across really strongly. They’re eager to maintain the balance and have put in place measures like ‘flexi-time’ to ensure it is. They’ll give you an immense amount of responsibility and trust, even as an intern, to organise and prioritise your own work time and manage your own working hours.

The Internship has noticeably improved many of my key, transferable skills, including my confidence, communication and presentation skills.