I've been a Civil Servant for 34 years, starting as an AO in what was DHSS, processing benefit claims. This was a real baptism of fire, dealing with desperate people and desperate situations and exposed me to parts of the population that were a long way from my life. I learned good people skills from this and a real focus on how important good customer service is-doing what you say you will and still having to deliver even when things are difficult or unpopular. This gave me a good grounding for moving onto National Insurance in a compliance role for business and individuals. HMRC merged in 1999 with NI and that was the start of my accidental career. I'm proud to have worked my way up from the bottom as I believe it made me who I am. Whilst no against direct entrance programmes, gaining experience within different grades and roles creates a rounded person.

The Tax Professional Programme is difficult, but that's ok because it prepares you for a leadership position within a world leading tax authority, embrace it. Although, you might often find it hard to juggle learning, casework and Quality Assurance Framework tasks, don't forget to get involved in activities that might switch your focus to other rewarding things, like volunteering, or getting involved in HMRC's Regional Pillars work, or being an ambassador / lead for one of the many networks we have. This will allow you to pause from your day-to-day activities and make you feel like you belong to a community of like minded people, rather than a student or a compliance caseworker.

Something that has helped me to move up in my career at HMRC is taking on new tasks from working on additional projects for the HO's in Customs to training new starters to the business. I actually wrote and delivered a training package for new starters when I was AO in Customs, I felt this not only increased my skillset but it also helped me to make sure that anyone starting in the same role as me learnt the job from the perspective of an AO. I have also taken on projects where I have led a group of people, for example, clearing an email inbox where we had a large number of emails. I delegated colleagues to cover particular time slots, making sure that the emails that had been waiting the longest for a response were dealt with first.