#GradStories Danielle McCullagh, Corporate Tax Associate, Deloitte

What are your main tasks in a normal week?

There are two sides to it so on the compliance side we would prepare client's corporation tax returns, we'd look after their filing deadlines and payment deadlines throughout the year and then on the advisory side of things we would give tax advice on different transactions so if a client was doing a restructuring or group refinancing, mergers and acquisitions that kind of thing, we'd give advice on the tax implications of those transactions. So in any week, I could be doing a range of those things.

What skills do you need to have to be successful in your role?

So you definitely need organizational skills and any day you can have a range of tasks on your desk and you need to be able to prioritize those and decide which ones are most important and which ones you need to get to immediately

You also need to have good communication skills so on an engagement you might be in constant communication with the client and you're also in communication with your team and you might be working with more than one team within the department so it's important to be able to communicate to them your workload and how tasks are progressing.

What do you love about your job?

I get to work with a range of different clients across various industries and I get a good insight into those industries, what the clients are doing and what's going on. I find that really interesting. I also like working with the range of different teams so I might be working with a couple of teams within the department or there might be cross-collaboration across the firm. So I get to meet new people and work with new people all the time and I really like that part.

What did you do as a student that helps your career?

I did business in law in college so it was two sides to it. The law side definitely helps me with tax because in tax there is a lot of reading and interpreting legislation and things like that. So law definitely helps me there and then on the business side, I did some accountancy and tax modules which definitely helped me with studying for my exams. You don't necessarily need an accountancy or law background, you get loads of training on the job and things like that but there were just some things in college that definitely helped me.

What was your career break?

In third year, I decided to do an internship and I actually did an internship with Deloitte in the consultancy department and I really enjoyed that but at the end of the internship I decided that I wanted to do my financial accounting and tax exams so I asked Deloitte whether it was possible for me to switch into the tax department and they offered me an interview with tax and then I went from that internship and started in tax the next year.