Audit Review

I very much enjoyed the placement. It have me the opportunity to work in teams in which I was valued and also gain an insight into what it is like to work for such a large reputable company. Although I am only a student, I still had the opportunity to speak to clients and trusted with challenging work. The student recruitment team also organised an induction in Manchester with lots of fun activities such as restaurants, Pizza Express pizza making which gave me the opportunity to get to know other interns and also feel that EY was investing in us.

I felt like I was valued by the teams I worked in. I was trusted by the team to deliver tasks which would add to the audit opinion, and this helped me feel that I was contributing to the team and the firm as a whole. My colleagues helped me in times of confusion and also were a pleasant to be around.

My supervisor took into consideration that I was only an intern but still gave me work which would push me out of my comfort zone to help me learn. Usually, the supervisor would delegate a task to me, explaining how and why it is done and then give me the independence to complete it. They would show me previous audit work to help keep me on track. I felt that if I was confused about anything, then my manager would happily help.

The audit work I was completing was for the half year audit opinion or planning for year end. This means that there were less pressure to get work completed to a time-pressured strict deadline. However, I often worked longer hours than my contract due to the large amount of work which needed to be completed. I usually had a half an hour lunch break each day, and started my working day at 9am and finishing at 6:30pm. The fact that the firm trusted me to do work which was important and valued meant that I didn't get bored as I felt I was contributing to the team.

The team delegated me tasks which would be reviewed by managers to help form the audit opinion. I was given the most simple tasks required in the audit as these were more understandable. However, the tasks I completed were still only reviewed by the manager and not checked to transaction level. Also, I was trusted to speak to the client personally.

It gave me the opportunity to observe my studies in practice and understand why the standards I have studied are important in the industry. I developed my professional skills as I regularly engaged with clients. Also, It helped me with my organisational and time management skills as I often had numerous tasks to complete and I had to ensure that they were completed in time and to the best quality.

The environment was positive and motivating. I felt that I could approach any member of my team and they would help me. Each employee I spoke to was friendly and interested in talking to me although I was only there for part time. The working conditions were quite quiet, this enabled me to the complete my work more easily. However, sometimes It meant that the work became repetitive as I didn't have conversation to break it up.

The placement was very well organised. The student recruitment team organised our induction in Manchester, where all interns across the country were put up in a hotel with conferences in the day time and social activities in the evening. All food was provided too. Additionally, when we were in the office for the first day, we were given our clients straight away and given contacts of people in the teams we were in.

We had a lot of training. During our induction we had information about the company, workshops on how to deal with clients and also information provided on the industry as a whole. Additionally, we spent half a day doing IT training to help us with the EY software. We were given a counselor over the 6 week placement who would regularly keep in contact with us to see how we were progressing.

I was offered a graduate job for when I graduate in the same office and department as I did my internship.

I regularly got emails about sports after work and also were contacted by first year employees at EY for social events with them. I also went for drinks with other interns after work on most fridays. However, it was difficult to attend everything as I was usually at a client site away from the office.

I already live in Birmingham so used to the prices of the area

We went out for a few nights over the internship and we had a great time!

There are lots of opportunities to do CSR and sports.