Top Quality Graduates boost specialist tax consulting firm

Specialist tax consultants Bourne Business Consulting LLP has boosted its team with its biggest ever intake of graduate trainees.

Following a recruitment campaign that included a specially designed brochure and advertising with online graduate recruitment providers and directly with universities, Bourne attracted almost 200 applications from high quality graduates.

Once the applications had been whittled down, Bourne held two assessment days, which included an opportunity for candidates to meet people at different levels of the organisation as well as tests. As a result, eight applicants were offered ñ and accepted ñ training places and started work in September 2007.

They are now well into their training for the Association of Tax Technicians (ATT) qualification and are due to sit ATT exams in May. If successful, their next step will be to start studying for the Chartered Tax Adviser (CTA) or Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, (MRICS) qualification.

Ian Mackie, executive partner at Bourne, said: ìOur intake of eight trainees was a 100 per cent increase on our previous recruitment exercises and we are delighted to have welcomed such high quality graduates to the team.

ìWe believe very strongly in getting our people involved in practical, hands-on work, from a very early stage. Working with a ìbuddyî, the trainees were involved in client work within the first two weeks of joining us and our emphasis on giving them the opportunity to be fully involved in interesting, practical work is one of the reasons why weíre successful in retaining our staff.

ìWe compete with the Big Four so itís also particularly pleasing that several of our applicants were already familiar with our name when they saw our recruitment material, which is a very positive sign of our reputation within our field.î

Bourne Business Consulting LLP, based in London, was named Best Tax Team in a Boutique Firm as part of the Lexis Nexis Taxation Awards 2007. For more information, contact Bourne on 0207 960 2730 or visit: