Annette Goldstein, WP / StB

30 years of professional experience

Danckelmannstrasse 32 / Kaiserdamm

14059 Berlin-Charlottenburg

Telephone: +49 30 3030 89 99
Fax: +49 30 3030 89 19
office@goldsteinconsulting.de

Training

Job Opportunities

We recruited our permanent employees who are not yet qualified professionals exclusively from the pool of individuals who have undergone an intensive period of practical internship training with us (see detailed description below). People who do not fall into this category need not apply.

If you have not yet gone through our intensive training internship and are interested in a solid, six-month basic training, we would be delighted to hear from you - but please, via email only.

Tax Consultants/Certified Accountants/Lawyers

If you have already passed qualifying exams or have a minimum of three years experience with tax law as a lawyer (or alternatively five years experience in commercial law), please contact us by email. We will get back to you, as the case may warrant. Please do not bother sending us unsolicited job applications by letter post.

Intensive training for beginners in the profession

Parallel to the academic semester, we offer an intensive internship training program starting on March 1 and on September 1. Even though we do not cultivate overtime as a virtue as the major firms are prone to do, we do expect and require the will and ability to concentrate for eight hours a day and a commitment to the work.

Our internship training program is very popular and we recommend applying early (only by email and copies of the relevant references and certificates in pdf format). When applying, please use the following email address: praktikum@goldsteinconsulting.de

To qualify for our internship program, you must either have earned a university degree with above average grades or be in the final year of your college education and have earned higher than average grades in your basic studies.

Please do not apply if you do not have an absolutely sure grasp of the basics of double entry bookkeeping - we will teach you everything else in your six months of training.

Graduates of our intensive internship training program with above average performance have the opportunity of continuing work after training as a student assistant and we will give you guidance in writing your degree dissertation (applicable only for the subjects of accounting and auditing).

Please read the following description carefully and honestly answer the question yourself as to whether you are ready to work to complete more than just a mandatory sandwich placement.

The course outline of the six-month intensive internship

It is our goal that you will later look back gladly on your internship with us. For this reason alone, we know that a trainee is neither an unpaid gofer nor a full-time coffeemaker. Equally as well, we do not want our internship training seen as a student side job.

To be precise, what we offer is first and foremost a transfer of know-how. Yes, we do pay a salary after the 2nd month. No, you unfortunately cannot finance a carefree life in Berlin with it.

As a rule, our internships last six months and consist of three constitutive modules that build on each other.

Module 1 (1st month):
You gain an insight into the world of auditors and tax consultants. You watch over our shoulders without getting in our way. Be punctual, friendly, and helpful, and make sure your shoes are shined.

Module 2 (2nd & 3rd months):
Have you successfully mastered the tasks in module 1? Congratulations! In module 2 you will be trained for a specific area of responsibility that matches your strengths as well as meets our current needs. This could be researching tax rulings, assisting in annual accounts audits, sounding out the depths of VAT legislation or helping to draw up one of our audit reports. Demonstrate that you like to learn and show initiative in dealing with new concepts.

Module 3 (4th, 5th & 6th months):
Step-by-step, you will become capable of independently handling work that you first became acquainted with in module 2 - naturally with assistance. Practice balancing between asking questions at the right time and dealing on your own with the tasks delegated to you. By the way, almost all of our employees are recruited from the ranks of those who have completed all three modules with us.

And what do we expect of our trainees?

1. Talent!
We expect neither a perfect report card nor an arrow-straight career path. But you have some kind of ability or character attribute that YOU want to let blossom in a professional environment of dedicated service providers.

2. Have fun with numbers and - even more important - are enthusiastic about the realities they mirror.

"Nothing is as exciting as economy." An internship in the field of accounting will involve dealing daily with numbers, accounts and balances, and even accounting records (!), which, by the way, is not as dry as it sounds. The "Consulting" in our company’s name refers solely to services in the fields of taxes and accountancy; jet-setting with nifty little briefcases between New York and Tokyo is not typically among the tasks given our trainees.

Whoever is completing an internship in a chemical lab should be able to read chemical equations. An intern in an accounting firm, in turn, should have a command of the multiplication tables (up to ten) - the rest we will teach you (so you had better quickly review the “Gabler-Skripte” before the interview!).

3. Enjoy learning and have the courage to accept demands being placed on them.

You will be fully integrated into our team. We still observe the 40 hour week and, no, we do not have flexible working hours. It would be nice if you are familiar with MS Office (macros are not Tuscan noodles) and if you speak at least one foreign language well enough for business purposes (no kidding).

If you are convinced that you can contribute something - whatever it is - then apply with your "unconventional" biography and training background and present your "USP". Convince us that you meet the three prerequisite criteria.

But spare us and yourself the trouble if you are sending out cut & paste mass mailings. We are as individual as you and your application should be so as well.

FAQ about the intensive training

Question:	My course of study provides for an internship of 20 weeks - can I end the internship after 5 months?
Answer::	No, because the amount of material to be learned can hardly be covered in that period of time.

Question:	How much will I earn?
Answer::	The salary is paid incrementally after the 2nd month and amounts to a total of 3,100 euros.

Question:	Why isn’t the salary paid out in equal amounts?
Answer::	For one thing, the increasing amount of salary is a reflection of your increasing productivity. For another thing, we do not want to offer any financial incentives to combine a sandwich placement with an extended stay in Berlin, especially for internees from outside Berlin.

Question:	Other and larger accounting firms offer significantly higher salaries. Why do you pay so little?
Answer::	While we offer our trainees a 40-hour week, others - especially the larger firms - expect substantial overtime without compensation. If you calculate the salary to the amount of working hours, we are more than competitive. Moreover, you should consider for yourself how wide your range of experience will be if your internship is limited to just one of the very many departments in a large firm. If you, as a trainee, consider an internship first and foremost as a means to earn money then don’t be surprised that firms are increasingly misusing trainees as underpaid temporary help.

Question:	Do you have a dress code in your office?
Answer::	Yes. As a provider of refined services in the financial sphere, suit and tie and pant suits or ladies’ suits are customary in the industry. Look around in a branch of any major bank and you will see the type of clothing you will be wearing during your internship. The close of the week is usually observed by us as Casual Friday.

Question:	As an intern, will I be taken along on outside assignments?
Answer:	As a rule, we make an effort to take you along to our clients after the first month. Provided, however, that your knowledge of accounting has increased significantly under our direction during the first month of training and you display exemplary good manners.