Building rapport with your colleagues

Having the ability to get along with your colleagues – and create long-lasting professional relationships with them – is essential for any tax professional.

Whether you are new to the numbers game or a seasoned accountant, fostering positive relationships with co-workers creates a richer work environment and can help your future within the industry. While it's par for the course that some personalities may clash, garnering the skills to cope in such situations is key for any career-driven individual. Here are four great ways to build rapport with your colleagues and show your team your good side.

1. Communicate effectively

Things can go awry when there is miscommunication, especially when office stress and multiple deadlines are added to the mix. Learning to be clear when communicating with colleagues about collaborative projects, your workload or the expectations of your role will help you avoid any unnecessary conflict. If you are ever in doubt about a task or project, following up with questions is the best way to side-step confusion. Professional relationships thrive on open and honest communication.

2. Be positive

No one likes a Negative Nancy. So even if you think you are innocently venting about problems, if you do so too often people will peg you as a pessimist.

Having a positive, can-do attitude puts other people at ease and also shows that you are capable and interested in your work. Next time you feel the urge to complain about something work related, take a step back and look on the bright side. Positivity is infectious, so your vibe will rub off on your colleagues, leading to a more positive work environment for everyone.

3. Learn to listen

Often when we have conversations with colleagues, our minds are focused on the long list of other things we need to get done, meaning you miss important information. Making a conscious effort to focus on what the other person is saying is called active listening.

To be successful with active listening:

• Pay attention to what the other person is saying.
• Show them you are engaged in the conversation with signals like nodding and eye contact.
• Provide feedback on what they have said by paraphrasing.
• Try not to interrupt them while they are speaking.

Practising this type of listening can really help you understand your co-worker's needs and build trust with them.

4. Be reliable

To make your colleagues trust and admire your work, make sure you are a reliable employee. Get to the office on time, produce high-quality work and be there for your team when they need you. Later down the track when your superiors are determining who best to promote or entrust with the next big project, your hard work will pay off.

These four tips are great ways to improve rapport with your co-workers, but they work best when combined. Create a positive work attitude built on effective skills and you will be the go-to worker in the office.

______________

Read more about the communication skills you need to succeed in tax by downloading our free ebook.

Five resume red flags to avoid

According to a recruitment study, your resume has mere seconds in front of a senior associate, hiring manager or recruiter before they make a decision about your application.

HR staff are trained to look for disqualifying factors. With just seconds to impress, here are five glaring red flags that vex recruiters and see them weed out candidates at a glance.

Messy formatting

Little to no white space on the page, decorative or small type and the complete absence of page margins signal to HR that you may not be their ideal candidate. Beyond your apparent lack of organisation and overgenerous data selection, this may suggest that you don’t have a clear vision or, worse, that you’re imprudent.

Your resume needs to be reader-friendly, but it also needs to be deliberate. This isn’t the time to get experimental with font types or test your Microsoft Office artistry – and your resume certainly shouldn’t act as your memoir. Professionally prepared resumes are considered and highlight only the most esteemed aspects in a career history.

Steer clear of graphics, too many colours and too much information to create a resume that will speak clearly to your prospective employer.

Gaps in your employment history

While HR may anticipate that most resumes will show at least one substantial gap (i.e. over six months) in their employment history, unexplained periods of career inactivity are cause for concern. This is one of the times where things should not be left unsaid. It’s perfectly acceptable to include a short sentence that will explain any gaps of multiple years, such as “Left position to further my education by undertaking a course” or “Left position to travel for a set amount of time”.

In the same vein, too many short-term jobs to a scrutinising eye can suggest you lack the commitment or stamina to persevere in a position. In this instance, it’s worth explaining that your career movements instead reflect a desire for continued professional development.

Using time-worn phrases

It seems tired and clichéd that this particular red flag will always make the ‘do not’ list, however it’s still something job recruiters find in resumes. Such terms include “hard worker”, “forward-thinking”, “dedicated”, “detail orientated” and “driven”.

Hiding behind time-worn phrases can appear evasive and will encourage HR to question your talents, work ethic and your own viewpoint on what you can offer the company. Get creative with your resume and use language to frame your strengths.

Lacking results

One step towards making your resume easier to read for time-poor hiring managers is to convert your data from qualitative to quantitative. Numbers, metrics and percentages can often be more impactful than words. Without such data, your resume can appear haphazard or altogether too vague. Would you hire a candidate without seeing hard facts on their successes?

Unprofessional details

A resume is a package deal. While the content is critical, so too are the finer details such as the file name, your email address or your Skype handle. With hundreds of applications for any one job, make sure you include your name on the file to ensure you don’t get lost in the masses. Emails are free, so don’t let your sentimental attachment to an older email address hold you back in your career. Lead with your best professional foot forward.

For a fruitful career in tax, mastering the art of writing a professional resume is the first step to success.

A mentor can be a helping hand up the career ladder

Nineteenth-century American writer Ralph Waldo Emerson once declared: “What I need is someone who will make me do what I can.”

As it turns out, it’s not only poets who need a helpful push to reach their potential.

A forum for emerging leaders in tax

On Friday 25 May, the technical program of The Tax Institute’s 11th annual NSW Tax Forum will feature a new, dedicated ‘Emerging leaders’ stream.

It’s a four-hour program designed to help nurture the future of the tax profession.

Practitioners will benefit from attending if they:

• have less than 5 years’ experience in tax
• need to build their tax-related technical skills
• have not attended the NSW Tax Forum previously
• would like to interact with like-minded professionals.

The stream encompasses four sessions that cover issues relevant to emerging tax advisers.

10 reasons to consider an intensive course with The Tax Institute

Education providers sometimes offer intensive, compressed versions of their courses. It’s an alternative that’s becoming increasingly popular with students, who report higher satisfaction levels because of the time they save with this study mode.

Moreover, researchers over the past 20 years have concluded that intensive courses do no disservice to students’ educational outcomes and, in fact, offer many advantages.

The Tax Institute’s fast-tracked ‘CTA1 Foundation intensive’ subject provides students with tax fundamentals in just 6 weeks, as opposed to the usual 14. Students can accelerate their professional growth and can update their knowledge of Australian tax basics in record time.

Here are our top 10 reasons to enrol in The Tax Institute’s CTA1 Foundation intensive.