HMRC Tax Specialist Programme (Graduate) 2017 (CSR/2923/16)

For those of you waiting on HO / O roles how it works is - those who have passed the AC but not been offered a place (because the required number scored higher) are the ones considered for largely HO roles - if there is a need for them in your chosen location. Having failed that, if your score is TSP worthy, and there are no HO roles - O roles will be provided. They are having a massive trawl right now so alot of offers will be given. Strange way they are doing the process this year. They are asking for DBS docs to be submitted before the conditional offers are made. This is only because last year the DBS' took so long that there were more costly negative effects later on - e.g recruitment dates varying months apart for people who needed the same training. This means some people started in jan some in april some 7 months before - therefore the training would have to be catered individually.

thanks for the information, probably a long shot but I was wondering if you knew the likelihood of being offered a conditional once we've handed the documents in? Although it's probably less cost than how it was done before surely it's still a waste of money taking our documents if they're not going to offer a role?

I would just be guessing if I said it was likely or not - but I do know that currently HMRC are recruiting a large number of people so now is as good as time as any to have had you application go through. HMRC would have already spent a lot by sending people to assessment centres etc so they do try very hard to make use of that cost - but the main reason why conditional offers have not been made is because there is a lot of shuffling and reorganising going on at the moment. HMRC only hire on a needs basis and they need to firstly understand what they need - this seems to take a very long time. They are in some areas building completely new teams, and in other areas it would be just about understanding workloads and if more staff are required. In addition to this there are also current HMRC employees - who would have applied for TSP or Fast stream and are placed on O HO roles - these candidates do not stay in these roles permanently - so there is a lot of coming and going. Considering all of this is complex and long but will all work in your favour.

I think ultimately HMRC are trying to work out their organisation at the moment and HR have been instructed to have people on standby ready for timely starts. This would largely just be a new take on recruitment seen as it has been a mess for years.. some people wait well over a year from their conditional offer to job start date. I think the recent mistakes is the main reason they are trying something new. Everything will be merit based and it will entirely depend on just how much they need. When they figure that out they will pick the best 10 or 20 or whatever their requirement is and reject the rest.

Having said all this - from my personal opinion - I don't think they would be doing DBS' for no reason. I think HR must suspect that HMRC require roughly (for example) 70 more O's for which they might select the top 40 for DBS. Of course the estimates could be wrong and they might only actually need 10.

thank you so much for taking the time to reply such in depth, I really appreciate it. I feel like I may have got myself a bit over excited at the prospect of being called to hand my documents in without there being an offer there, but nonetheless I still live in hope! What you've said exactly makes sense, I guess all I can do now is wait.

I've received my contract but there's no mention of study days, performance bonuses, health insurance, or a salary bump midway through the programme... Did people get different terms?

I've received my contract but there's no mention of study days, performance bonuses, health insurance, or a salary bump midway through the programme... Did people get different terms?