What would you do differently in your career if you could start again?

In 2012, I hosted a q&a session for the then first years at Deloittes. I had a couple of hours or so of grilling, some good, some less good, some hard, some easier questions. Afterwards, they gave me their list of questions, to help with any future sessions I run.

Now that I have started to blog, I have decided to write about my answers, in case they might be of interest to others starting their careers. I have had to adapt things, excluding any references to clients, and being sensitive to my firm’s interests. Separate blogs written over time will deal with the various questions.

‘What would I do differently’ was one of the toughest questions. I think the answer is ‘not much’. The main thing is that in my early twenties I was painfully shy (I was told once that I wasn’t shy, but diffident, but thirty years later don’t know the difference) and was quiet to a fault. It was only through the encouragement of my wife and Dale CarnegieGuidebooks | Guide Books that I managed to alleviate this aspect of my character. I particularly recommend How to Win Friends and Influence People – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, now available in a digital-era new version, though I read the original 1936 version.

So, aspect one: do the things that you fear.

In similar vein, each year try to do something different. I have been lucky that my thirty years at Deloitte have been thirty different years. I haven’t wanted to leave because tax is as interesting and challenging today as it was in 1984; and client’s need our help just as much. The questions and answers differ, but the questions still need answering. My career would have been far less interesting if I had let one year be the same as the previous one, or if I had stopped learning. Today, now that I have a great deal of tax knowledge, I also have a great deal still to learn. Just as in chess, the more you know, the more there is still to know.

Finally, I wish someone had told me the importance of networking and keeping in touch with colleagues and clients. I learnt this in my late 20s/early 30s, spending my 20s with my head down, ‘doing the work’. By the time when I started to appreciate that the work doesn’t just come in, many people of my era had left, become scattered far and wide. If I had had my time again, I would have cultivated contacts from the start. Maybe Facebook, LinkedIn, and other such tools make it easier, but the stand out people will make it a habit early on.

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