Summer Intern Review

Working with a wide variety of clients, teams and performing different tasks all helped me to enjoy my summer internship at KPMG. I got the opportunity to get a better understanding of what it's like to work for a big 4 firm and more specifically, in audit. I would definitely recommend anyone who is thinking about working in the industry once they graduate to get a feel for it by doing an internship as I'm sure they would enjoy it as I did.

I got treated just as any new employee to the firm which really helped me feel part of the team. It was just a short internship but in that small space of time I got to work with a number of teams, big and small, and I always felt valued. You were given important work to do by your team and could see the impact it had on the overall audit. Everyone I met and worked with were really friendly and helpful, especially compared to other jobs I’ve had!

Overall, the support and guidance I received from my colleagues was very good. At the office, I was assigned a councillor who I had regular meetings with and was there if I had any concerns or problems. Any task that I was assigned to do were clearly explained so I always felt confident in what I was doing, and my colleagues were always willing to help if I needed help.

On the majority of days I was busy, but this is not as bad as people often make it out to be and I never felt overwhelmed by the work load. Some days I stayed a little longer than expected but there were also some early finishes on occasion. I had some quiet days as well but there was always something to do if you asked.

From the onset of the internship I was given a high level of responsibility. I completed a variety of tasks which contributed to the overall audit. Many of these tasks required communicating with the client to collect evidence and discuss issues. Although I was given responsibility I never felt over pressured, in fact it made me feel like I was making a real impact on the audit and that I was a valued team member.

There wasn’t much training given as it wasn’t required for the role. I feel the skills developed will only really help me in group projects during the rest of my studies and won’t actually help me on my course. But I think I’ve developed a lot of my skills such as communication and time management which will help a lot further down the line in my graduate career.

The general atmosphere in the office was overall very friendly and there was a nice mix of work socials and other events e.g. charity events. Even colleagues who I didn’t work with would often stop and chat with me about the internship, which I thought was really nice. I didn’t spend a lot of time in the office as most of my time was spent at the client site. Of course, the atmosphere varied a lot between different client sites, some good and others not so good.

The internship was clearly very well organised from the start. We began the internship with an induction week which included various fun sessions and thing like I.T training. After this, I was given a timetable which had the clients I would be working with and locations very early on so I always felt I knew what I was doing. Whilst working at the client site, we’d have team meetings at the start of the day which included the plan for the day

The induction week prepared me well for the rest of the internships with all the knowledge and training I needed. Got to take part in a number of sessions to learn more about the firm and audit which I think will really help me going into the future. They also went through in detail about the professional exams that you would take if you came back as a graduate even though this was not part of the internship.

If we performed well over the course of the internship then we had the opportunity to receive a job offer and come back as a full time graduate the year after. I was lucky to receive an offer and will be coming back to join the firm once I graduate. It’s really nice to know I don’t have to stress about applying for jobs and doing interviews in my final year etc. If you work hard and show the right attitude, there’s really no reason why you shouldn’t get a job offer!

We were all like-minded summer interns so we often organised fun social events like nights outs and other activities. We were often working with different clients so interaction with other summer interns on a day-to-day basis was quite limited. We had a group project to do as well so we organised times to meet each other and work on that together.

Lived at home so was minimal and socialising was always affordable

the internship was in Manchester, so of course the nightlife was great!

There were various opportunities to get involved in such as work socials, sport,and charity events.