In Prague, the industry that I am working is tax consulting. Which is great because I have always wanted to go into consulting– especially wealth management. I wanted to go into wealth management because it takes away the cubicle wall from the people you work with, and allows you to talk to your customers. I especially am double majoring in finance and accounting because one time I looked up what majors would be great to get into consulting or wealth management, and it said those two were a great combination. Tax consulting is a little more accounting, than I normally like, but I love that I am looking at what clients are doing. In tax consulting I work with clients who want to merge their companies and how to mitigate the risk of high taxes. I also work on writing off business expenses for tax purposes– mostly from their business travels. I have to manually organize receipts, than add scanned copies into a segmented folders, and then condense them into an excel file where I determine if the receipts can be said to be a tax write off or not. With little to no background or story behind the receipts I try to use my best judgement. But it is ok because I have a meeting with the client with my managers asking if they were categorized correctly.

Key strengths that are necessary for this job is organization and be able to be pretty anal about the product coming out. I mean there has to be precision, with a lot of care, and effort in the statements or projects that are being submitted to clients or the government. If not, this can cause you to be audited and could lead to get into legal trouble. Without the right training or not asking the right or correct questions, can lead you down a bad road. I don’t know if they have the type of governance of statements like they do in the United States, but I can only assume. Another feature you need to have to be successful in business is to be charming and personable. When you walk into the meeting, you have intended goals, and you will get what you want from that meeting. What I have learned that mindset is called a CEO mindset.

Some competencies that are necessary to be successful in the industry that may be unique to my host country is that the ‘CEO mindset’ that I just mentioned is way different. I feel like in Prague the most successful people who are the smarted and earn the most money know multiple languages, take many breaks throughout the day, and is a very strict boss. My boss, not my manager, seems to be very strict on his workers on having projects done on time and done the way that he prefers. To be honest, when they talk in Czech I am not 100% sure of what my boss is saying but with his demeanor, their demeanor I have concluded that some criticism is being trade between the two. One verbally and one mentally. Compared to the United States I would say the CEO mindset is, like i said, how charming you can be. This on top of being one of the smartest in the room. Being one of the smartest in the room is a given in American CEO work culture, but it is not bragged enough. What the work cultures have similar to be successful is they are the most respected in the room, they also read as much as they can. Overall, I think the culture in Prague is less warm and welcoming than the United States. Or the United States where I am from, outside of Philadelphia. A less warmth room can most likely be found in Las Angeles, California.