Trainee / career entry after studying business administration, finance or commercial law (m/f/d)

Role Summary

Starting your career determines how quickly you can actually do something. At Vogel, you'll get more than just additional work straight after your studies: you'll work on real clients from day one, come into direct contact with managing directors of medium-sized companies early on and learn how to provide advice where it counts most - close to the client.

Vogel is one of the most successful medium-sized consulting companies in Germany - several thousand companies entrust us with their tax, commercial and strategic issues. Our work runs in three lines, each with its own responsibility: tax consulting, accounting & controlling and digitalization consulting. That's exactly why we can offer you something that hardly anyone else has - you don't have to decide in advance.

You have completed your studies or are about to do so - economics, finance, tax law, business law or a comparable subject. Your first twelve months are deliberately open: you work around four months each in tax consulting, in accounting & controlling and in digitalization consulting - each with your own mandates and your own responsibility, not as a spectator. At the end of this year, you will decide together with us where your focus lies. Vogel will then support you with the appropriate qualification step - master's degree, management career or professional exam, depending on your direction. In both lines, the path leads through your own mandates to leading your own team.

What you delivered after 6 months

• You have completed the first of your three stations and are in the second - in both with your own mandates, not as a spectator.
• You actively accompanied initial client discussions, with your own preparation and your own requests to speak.
• You master our working environment confidently and use AI in your daily work.

What you delivered after 12 months

• You have completed all three stations and worked on real mandates in each one.
• You have chosen your focus and been able to explain why - based on your own work, not based on an idea.
• You have actually started your qualification step, accompanied by Vogel.

What you delivered after 24 months

• You have found your own specialist area - an industry, a subject area, a tool - and are building noticeable depth there.
• You manage a partial client base independently; Your manager is now only the escalation end point for complex special issues.
• You are a concrete candidate for the next step in your line.

Where the position is developing

Once you have chosen your focus, the path leads to the manager or expert level of your line - with a development path in both directions, a professional expert career or a management career. The way there depends on the contribution, not the year of employment; We don't know of an automatism "more experience equals higher level".

Responsibilities

YOUR RESPONSIBILITY

Tax advice

• Assess where commercial law and tax law diverge and prepare tax returns for companies and entrepreneurial families - with your own responsibility and review by your instructor.
• Accompany assessments, legal remedies and tax audits and learn where the actual points of contention lie in tax law.
• Participate in creative advice - transformations, succession planning, structuring. Here you can see that tax advice is essentially intellectual work.

Accounting & Controlling

• Have your own mandates in ongoing accounting, investigate any anomalies and participate in the monthly and annual financial statements.
• Prepare the BWA meeting with the entrepreneur and explain what the numbers actually say.
• Work on forecasts, planning and liquidity considerations - where the numbers begin to answer business questions.

Digitization advice and your own tools

• Implement the client's systems and set them up - interfaces, document flows, the connection to its source system. You sit with the company and get the technology up and running.
• Support clients who book themselves and train their staff on the tools they work with.
• Of course, use AI for research, analysis, drafting and plausibility checks, and bring in your own ideas on how to make client work faster and better. Anyone who sees AI as a threat is wrong here.

Requirements

THIS IS WHAT YOU BRING WITH YOU

Experience & track record

1. Completed or about to complete a degree in business administration, economics, finance, business law, tax law or a comparable subject - ideally with above-average performance.

• Error 500 (Server Error)!!1500.That’s an error.There was an error. Please try again later.That’s all we know.
• We are not a remote company and do not have major home office policies; Individual remote days are no problem.

1. HOW DOES THE APPLICATION PROCESS?

Slim, fast, transparent — and graded according to profile. For entry-level roles (internship, work study, career entry), two interviews and a short work sample are usually sufficient; experienced roles are a little more detailed. For selected senior roles, we are looking into incorporating a joint working day in the future so that both sides get to know each other better. The following always applies: scheduled deadlines, quick decisions, substantial feedback - regardless of the outcome.

1. HOW DOES VARIABLE PAY WORK?

Linked to performance on a quarterly basis and assessed qualitatively. The scale increases with the level: up to 20% Associate, 27.5% Manager, 35% Senior Manager, 42.5% Director, 50% VP. Expected value with good performance - you meet the requirements, set your own accents, pass the keeper test - is around 50% of the maximum; the maximum bonus is not the norm. The focus is on a holistic assessment by your manager: ownership, quality, learning curve, collaboration, impact.

1. HOW DO I DEVELOP MYSELF - WHAT CAREER PATHS ARE THERE?

Two active paths: Mastery (technical depth, expert career) and Pioneer (leadership, management). You choose the direction after onboarding, usually in years 1-3. Starting a career is not a special path, but rather the early part of the same route - from working student or intern to associate, for the best ones without having to reapply.

1. TEAM, CULTURE, HOLIDAY?

A shared lunch is an open daily option - not an obligation; If you like, you can join us; anyone can eat at any time. Plus dinners, social events and offsites on a regular basis - not as a mandatory program, but because a good team also shares time outside of work. Benefits: thoughtful and substantial, not symbolic. Vacation: 28 days.

1. I KNOW SOMEONE - IS THERE A REFERRAL BONUS?

• Yes — EUR 2,500 for each successfully filled position (no internships). A short context is enough: who you are thinking about, for what role, why. Doesn't have to fit perfectly, but has to be substantial.
• Salary: €61.2K – €79.2K • Fixed: €51k – €66k · Bonus: €10.2k – €13.2k · EV: €58.14k – €75.24k