Spring into Deloitte participant Review

As a participant, I enjoyed the Spring into Deloitte programme to a large extent because we were given insightful presentations across three service lines. Also, I had the opportunity to test my skills through a case study and some group exercises. The whole office environment was extremely pleasant and that made me enjoy the insight a lot.

I felt really valued during my time at Deloitte in the sense that whatever questions I had were really willingly answered by the managing staff as well as the graduates from the various service lines. What's more, the fact that I was given the opportunity to have a mock interview with a manager and receive feedback immediately showed that they cared about the participants doing well in their first interview,

For the most part, the instructions for each stage of the programme were quite clear from the start. Yet even if some of the instructions were a bit ambiguous for a given exercise, you could ask straight away for further clarification which was provided.

Despite the relatively short length of Spring into Deloitte, I feel that I received crucial information about what each service line does and what type of people would be suited to work in each one. Moreover, I had the opportunity to sharpen my interview skills, how to quickly extract relevant information from case studies and make reasoned judgements.

The insight was structured quite well as the two days were evenly split in terms of presentations, talks and exercises. I would have preferred if the dinner was arranged in such a way that allowed us to network with more Deloitte graduates, other than the two who were sitting on our table but this is a minor point of objection. The fact that the order of presentations and exercises was mixed meant that I was able to remain engaged throughout the insight's duration.

The general atmosphere at Deloitte was extremely friendly and comforting. All Deloitte representatives, from graduates to partners, looked really keen to speak to us and answer our questions, The office is state-of-the-art and encouraged me to be productive. The atmosphere is ideal to do a longer insight or a summer internship.

As the programme lasted for two days, there wasn't much of specific service line training or any technical training. This is understandable though as the purpose of the insight was to give us a good understanding of each service line so as to help us make our minds. To the extent that we received feedback on our mock interview, I feel Deloitte invested a lot of effort into our development. Perhaps it would have been better if we received feedback on the Harris & Taylor case study as well.

In terms of specific service line-related tasks, we were given a basic idea as to what tax, audit and risk advisory deal with but not in too much detail which is again understandable given the short length of the programme. However, in terms of the clients that Deloitte works with and why each particular service is relevant to their needs, the impression that I formed was accurate and I understood well each role's duties.

They described Deloitte's principles quite effectively from her experience but also observing the relationships of the graduates with each other, I could identify what the company culture is like there. In addition, at the dinner on the first night, our conversation with the graduates gave us further insight into the company culture, ie that social events play an important role in maintaining the team's unity and how the company can accommodate some flexibility for its people.

As far as the three service lines are concerned, adequate information was provided to help us decide about audit, tax and risk advisory for the summer vacation scheme. However, because Edinburgh is a regional office, there weren't any representatives available from other service lines such as consulting or financial advisory. As a result, any questions about them were addressed to graduates from the other service lines who were willing to answer them but were not entirely sure. Consequently, I could not judge whether it would be worth taking the risk to apply to another service line but without the fast-track option.

Deloitte were really organised at providing us with the expense forms from the beginning of the programme. On the second day, she collected our forms and informed us that we would be refunded within 9 weeks. I think Deloitte's stance on this matter was reasonable.

At the office, there were many graduates who visited us, presented to us their role In Deloitte and were very happy to answer all our questions. Perhaps I would have liked to speak to some more senior managers in the company just to get also a perspective of what the promotion prospects are. Overall though, the graduates were quite well informed to discuss with us about promotion issues among other things.

The main networking event was the dinner at the hotel. It was a great idea but the only problem which was mentioned in a previous question is that the layout of the tables meant that you were limited to meeting only the two graduates who were sitting on your table. For instance, I am more interested in risk advisory than audit and tax, but there was no representative from that service line at my table. Nevertheless, I was able to ask my questions the following day at the risk advisory's presentation.

Definitely. The graduates at the dinner table were describing to us about their past social experiences with Deloitte. For example, Romano from audit has been playing in the regional office's football team and was about to go to Prague to participate in a football tournament with Deloitte teams from countless cities. It was certainly made clear to us that huge emphasis is given on the social aspect.

Without a doubt, I would recommend this programme to my friend if he/she is interested in these professional services. It was a great learning experience and because there was no actual assessment taking place at the end of the programme unlike with other companies, I didn't feel stressed at any moment of the programme. I would have loved it if it lasted for a few more days.