Summer Vacation Scheme Associate Review

The internship itself was very enjoyable. It's extremely organised, which means youre never left fearing that you wont have anything to do, the people are extremely friendly, and there a countless number of socials which you get involved in. You're in constant contact with both your peers and your superiors so it feels like you're completely integrated from the get go.

I felt extremely valued by my colleagues. From everyone starting at the associate level through to senior manager level (there was one encounter with a partner who I felt was completely disinterested but I wrote that off as a one-off). In terms of the actual work, they trust you to work on most levels of the project - you must realise that without ACA training you are kind of limited in what you can do, but aside from the technical ability they treat you like an associate and assign you with both interesting and important work.

In the first two days you are given formal training - the first day is I.T training which talks you through how to use the laptops and equipment generally, I personally felt this took way longer than necessary, but they like to be thorough. On the second day, until lunch, you are given business area specific training, for example I was in audit so I was taught how to use the software that the auditors use at Deloitte, after lunch you are picked up by your buddy who take you to the client site and you get started with work straight away. With regards to the second days training, it was very in-extensive and from my experience I learnt next to nothing through it, but I was indeed supported loads by my superiors, and every time somebody assigned me a task they were more than happy to take me through how to get it done.

This varied depending on the client I was working for and just generally. For the smaller clients, there are smaller teams so its easier to get work as you're sitting in one room and there is always something to be doing. For one of my larger clients, the audit team was split across 3 rooms, so it was harder to be assigned work, you could do everything short of visiting each room every 5 minutes looking for work. That being said I was always working throughout the internship - there was only one day, where quite literally I was free from 9-5, but it gave me an opportunity to prepare for my final interview so it worked out.

As mentioned, its quite hard to be doing really important tasks when youre not ACA qualified, as you just dont have any technical knowledge, but apart from that, all the work I did was important in the sense that everyone relied on it up the food chain. Furthermore, the system that Deloitte use to centralise the work for a project can be updated by each member of the team, so as soon as I did my work, I would upload it to this centralised system, meaning that everyone had access to it should they need it. In that sense, i knew that I was being given responsibility because they trusted me to work autonomously.

The actual work I did wasn't technical, I could have picked up those skills within a day of actual employment, I didn't learn much about accounting at all. However I did learn about the audit procedure, I was able to exercise and strengthen my soft skills and most importantly I familiarised myself with the big four culture, which is important in itself. As far as assisting me in my degree studies is concerned I feel it did nothing, but when I end up joining Deloitte I will have saved a day by already knowing a lot of the jargon and knowing how their computer software works.

The general atmosphere in the office was great. The audit teams are very much like a tight knit family and it breeds a brilliant atmosphere to grow and learn in. Depending on the team you're in, they like to unwind in their own ways. One of my teams liked to do puzzles when the work day got a bit overwhelming, the other would do a daily quiz and keep a leaderboard. With regards to the work, everyone was asking their superiors for help, whether that be an associate asking an assistant manager or a manager asking a partner. Everyone was learning and nobody was afraid to ask for help.

At first it was unclear how the internship would go, we weren't told about when we would start working at the clients, but after that was all sorted, the internship itself was very well organised. I say this confidently because there were issues with the clients I was scheduled for and they had to rearrange, but it was done extremely quickly and efficiently and I was told pretty much instantly, which led me to believe that they had good contingencies in place beyond their standard organisation.

With regards to building my softer skills, I feel that was just a consequence of the day to day interactions I had, not from any particular planned activity. Having said that, I was given ample opportunity to exercise these softer skills and was allowed feedback when I requested it, e.g. for composing emails in a professional setting or prepping me when talking to clients.

Future prospects are great, they offered me a return grad position and they have a very well structured career progression ladder. They reward you at every stage and promotion from one year to the next is pretty much guaranteed. They also support you fully in acquiring the ACA (depending on the business line you join) - they give you both tuition and time off in order to do this.

The social scene was great, the group I was in had socials pretty much every day, in particular I was able to attend group drinks and a T20 cricket match at Lords. With my fellow interns, HR organise group drinks and a group dinner, and outside of Deloitte organised events we organised many ourselves every few days. When you're actually working at client sites you rarely get to see fellow interns, so we tried to get some face time with each other often.

I lived at home throughout so I didn't have rent to pay. Other costs included travel which was quite pricey considering its London, but I'm used to it so it wasn't something that struck me. Costs of socialising were also high, considering we would have our socials close to the office, that wasn't surprising, you can get cheap drinks in London but Chancery Lane is not the place to go to if you want them!

I didn't go out at night during the internship because of how tired I was from it, but of course its London there are countless clubs and bars from Shoreditch to Leicester Square!

Not during the time I was there, no. I feel its because I wasn't there for long enough to be exposed to these things, however Deloitte have many extra curricular's in their CSR and I know, had I been a permanent employee I would have had numerous opportunities to do activities outside of work.