LexisNexis Tax Awards - 20th May 2010

Review by Simon Godley

This year’s LexisNexis Tax Awards were held on Thursday, 20th May, at the London Hilton, Park Lane. Attended by Talentpool’s Director Simon Godley, the event was packed with approx. 700 tax specialists from all corners of the market, and the event’s sponsors, who are mostly a range of tax recruitment firms. This year’s comedy entertainer (basically warm up act before the awards ceremony) was Hugh Dennis (of Mock the Week and The Mary Whitehouse Experience fame) who was very good, a very polished and highly amusing act.

Of course, the highlight of the evening is the awards ceremony itself, and below I can reveal the winners of each category:

Best International Tax Team – Ernst & Young
Best general tax team – Sagars LLP
Best high net worth team tax team – Smith & Williamson Private Client Tax Team
Tax writer of the year – Mike Thexton, Thexton Training Ltd
Best in-house tax team – AstraZeneca Plc
Best tax investigations team – Grant Thornton
Best tax team in a boutique firm – ASE Plc
Best technological innovation – Thomson Reuters ONESOURCE Transfer Pricing
Best sole practitioner tax practice – Tax Innovations Ltd
Best VAT team – Ernst & Young Health Indirect Tax team
Taxation’s rising star – Caroline Villar, Legal & General Plc
Best tax team in a law firm – Olswang LLP
Best tax team in a large firm – Mazars Employment Tax Services Team
Best Big Four tax team – Deloitte Tax Depreciation Team
Lifetime achievement award – Roger Murray
Tax personality of the decade – Alison Lovejoy

Congratulations to all the winners from Talentpool, and a big Thank You to Stuart Cousins at LexisNexis for inviting us to the event. We look forward to having the chance to attend again next year.

Tax search & recruitment firms - does size matter?

By Simon Godley

As we see at the time of writing this article, we have a hung parliament and there is to ensue a major tussle amongst the political parties to determine who can form an overall majority government. So clearly for UK politics (under the current system) size does matter. Along with strong leadership and incisive decision making.

But there are so many other areas of life, and more importantly in business, where size really doesn't matter. One example is the internet - outrageously successful web businesses such as Google and Facebook, with an enormous international reach, but really don't have many offices or employees compared to other business models. What has underpinned these businesses for their success are very good business ideas combined with acute technology skills, and very high levels of persistent innovation.

So let's turn to recruitment businesses, and does size matter there? Well, I think the perception amongst a lot of hiring managers is that it does matter, and they feel reassured in some way if they are talking with a large international multi-office recruitment business. Well, I'm sorry to be blunt here, but the reality is that for specialist markets like tax, it is simply not true that the larger recruitment business are the best or most effective. In fact, if anything, there is a negative correlation. In fact, there is evidence to suggest (because I've spoken to clients about it) that the larger the recruitment firm, the less effective they seem to be at being able to access well matched and specialist candidates.

Rather than size, what I think really matters the most in contributing to how well a (tax) recruitment firm performs is:

Their market network - the better their real / tangible network (and I use the words real and tangible because I'm not including e-networks such as LinkedIn), the quicker they can get assess to highly specialist candidates that have a strong match to a role / company.

Their longevity in the market - the longer a recruiter has worked a specialist market, the better their network (as above) and the more they fully understand the mechanics of job roles, and therefore what to look for in candidates and candidates' experience to match to a particular role.

Their skills in matching - note that I have also highlighted the word match in the above two attributes. Just as a successful web company needs to know how technology works, a successful recruitment company needs to know how to properly match candidates to opportunities. Often I think this is given a cursory mention, but it is the cornerstone of a successful recruiter. The ability to be able to find out what experience is really needed in a job role, not just what is written on the job spec. Then, the ability to seek out from candidates' experience if they will perform well and succeed in the role in the short and long term, and how the 'cultural' fit is between candidate and employer.

I think it is because of the above issues that a company like Talentpool, one of the smallest tax search / recruitment companies by size is very well placed to recruit for some of the very largest organisations in the world, and linking them up to the best candidates for their opportunities.

Tax Job of the Month

This month I am featuring a European Tax Manager opportunity with a well established and successful real estate group. In terms of level, it is for someone at Tax Manager or into Senior Tax Manager grade (using Big Four firm levels as the benchmark).

The role reports to a Head of Tax, and will focus on planning / structuring / transactions work, with a minimal level of compliance co-ordination across Europe. A candidate with c.1-3 years' in-house tax experience, having worked on transactions or deal-based work would find this role the next natural step in their career.

Based in London, with some (not extensive) travel
Salary level approx. £75,000 - £85,000 + Bonus + Bens

For more information, please call Simon Godley on 07771 762353.