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Telephone Reference Check
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• Research tax treaties, IRC, Treasury Regulations, et.al to determine consequences to clients for various
international and domestic transactions.
Did the candidate hold any other positions at your organization? Staff Associate
What are the candidate’s strengths?
Alex’s strengths are numerous, but his most prominent are as follows:
• Extremely strong work ethic
• Works to find solutions to a problem or knowledge gap himself before asking questions or for help
• Hungry to have the breadth of his knowledge of particular tax issues to expand to be a more well-rounded tax
professional
• Enjoys learning and is quick to understand and adapt to new responsibilities or areas of tax or business he is
initially unfamiliar with
• Personable and does well with client facing
• Enjoys mentoring and teaches well to less senior co-workers
• Leads by example and actions
• Understands and follows directions
• Learns quickly from mistakes
• Laser-like focus on tasks at hand and drives projects to completion
Weaknesses?
Alex’s weaknesses are as follows:
• Gets too focused on the goal at hand at times ( forgets that’s it’s ok to go home on time)
• At times, spends too much time trying to solve a problem before asking for help.
How would you describe the candidate’s quantity and quality of work?
Excellent. I had Alex work on a number of projects for me and the quality of work was always top-notch. For a specific example, Alex aided me in writing two 160-plus tax opinions for a client. The opinion was extremely technical and covered tax concepts and code sections he had no familiarity with. Alex took the time to understand each section and did a masterful job applying the facts to the code sections at issue. He made my job easier and I had very few edits to his work.
How would you characterize the candidate’s problem-solving skills?
Excellent. Alex has a voracious appetite for learning and applies himself if there’s a topic he doesn’t understand. He will look through a problem thoroughly and look at all possible solutions and angles before asking for help. When he does ask for help it is always a thoughtful and educated conversation.
How would you characterize the candidate’s technical/computer skills?
Excellent. Alex has had numerous projects where he has to demonstrate his computer skills. He has been great using Excel, Word, PowerPoint, Access, Vizio, OneNote, and Outlook.
Did the candidate work on multiple projects at once? If so, how did he/she handle prioritization?