I finished university with a First in Comparative Literature, but worked in finance at my time in university. This motivated me to consider working in areas outside of my degree, and I felt that I had the skills necessary to work in other fields, and so I applied for the Tax Specialist Programme at HMRC, and got in!

As a Tax Specialist trainee at HMRC, I work with internal and external stakeholders to 'get tax right' for customers, whether through 1-2-1 work with customers or through working on projects around customer education and knowledge.

One of the things I enjoy most about my current position is that I am continuing on the learning process. I've always been a person who enjoyed learning new things, and in my current role I am on a formal learning programme and engage in a lot of informal learning that I can apply to my day-to-day work.

I studied a completely different degree, and the work I did before the Tax Specialist Programme in finance was completely different to what I do now. But when I read the listing for the Tax Specialist Programme I felt that I had the right sort of skillset to work in tax, and can happily say that I have nurtured and grown this skillset in my time on the Tax Specialist Programme. We often feel like because we've done one thing we need to stick with that one thing, but it's important to believe in your own skills and to embrace trying new things.

Being new to the Programme, positive feedback received from colleagues is my current greatest achievement!