"I find the flexible working hours and family friendly environment invaluable as I have a young family."Sarah Cahill, Promotion to Assistant Principal.
I currently work as an Administrative Officer in the Investigation and Prosecutions Division of the Revenue Commissioners. My background was in Finance; I obtained a B.Sc. in Management & Marketing from Dublin Institute of Technology and then chose to pursue the Chartered Tax Adviser qualification from the Irish Taxation Institute.
I worked in a number of small to medium sized accountancy firms during my tax training and post qualification period. I joined Revenue in 2010 and my work consists of the management of project based investigations where substantial tax risk has been identified. This position has required me to have specialist tax knowledge and has allowed me to further develop my management, interpersonal and negotiation skills.
I have also gained valuable experience and familiarity with the tax appeals and legal process through working with the Revenue Solicitor’s office and Senior Counsel in relation to numerous appeals and High Court Judicial Review.
The main factor that drew me to a career in the Civil Service was the opportunity for progression and advancement available within a large organisation. I also find the flexible working hours and family friendly environment invaluable as I have a young family.
Promotion
Shortly after I completed my bio for gradpublicjobs.ie I was promoted to the position of Assistant Principal. Having first entered the Civil Service four years ago as an Administrative Officer I was delighted to have achieved this next step in progression within that time.
In gaining promotion to the next level I had to show the selection panel that I had the qualities, skills and attributes of each competency through discussing my role and approach on projects and key pieces of work over the previous 2 – 3 years.
I made a point of always ensuring my performance goals at the beginning of each year were informed by competencies for Assistant Principal so that each project and task I worked on helped me to develop and improve my skills in a focused way.
I approached my managers about gaining more experience and was interested and willing to take on new and different projects and tasks. It was also important to effectively demonstrate the skills I had to enable me gain the opportunity to improve and acquire new ones. I also sought out opportunities to get involved in working groups and committees to increase my knowledge of the business and to make new acquaintances across other areas of the Department.
While I have now been promoted to the position of Assistant Principal I am currently awaiting assignment to my new post. I am looking forward to moving to a new area and expanding my experience in a different area of the business.
gradpublicjobs.ie
Sarah Cahill
