Public Sector Audit Intern Review

It was certainly hard work, but the people were great and really supportive. My experience was shaped by the fact that the time I was there was a really busy one for the department, which meant that the work was slightly stressful at times as those around me were very much working to a time pressure, but it also meant that I was given more responsibility and was able to complete some really valuable work for them.

Very much so. Everyone was really friendly and when I did something well they made sure to tell me. The working environment generally was a really good one where everybody made sure to help each other out. Because everybody was working hard there were times when I felt a bit nervous asking so many questions, but everyone always made sure to answer them.

All the interns (myself included) had a catch-up call / meeting with our people managers halfway through the internship to see how it was going, whether there was anything else we wanted to do and to talk about the process for the end of the internship. This was really helpful and I definitely feel that I could have asked my manager any questions that I may have had at any point during the internship.

Very busy - I was working on a client site for the majority of the six weeks, so there was always more to do. I think this was mostly to do with the sector I was in (Public Sector Audit) as the summer is their busy season, because I know that some of my fellow interns doing commercial audit didn't have as much to do.

Lots of responsibility! To start with I did feel like I was being thrown in at the deep end, but it meant that I was able to learn quickly and it actually meant that I've come out feeling much more confident than I think I would otherwise have been. After the first week I was interacting with the client by myself. I was given one of the audit sections to complete pretty much by myself, which was daunting at first but meant that I have come away feeling that I made a real difference.

If I decide to go into Accountancy afterwards, then definitely the experience and knowledge that I have gained will be invaluable - having worked on a client audit for 5 weeks I definitely got a good feel for the type of work / hours I would be doing as a trainee. The main thing all-round skill I have gained is confidence.

Difficult to answer because I wasn't in the office very much! The actual office I was assigned to had a really good atmosphere every time I went there - people were hard at work but I definitely felt that I could ask anybody anything and the Receptionist went out of her way to make sure that I had everything I needed. In terms of the atmosphere in the environment I actually spent most of my time in (at a client) it was stressed at times because of the time pressure of completing the job, but there was usually a good amount of chat.

Mostly well organised, but with a couple of provisos. Because there were only two interns including myself at my office, we did our two day induction at another nearby office which meant that we weren't formerly shown round our home office. This didn't matter for me overly as I only ended up spending 2 days in the whole of my internship at my home office, but it meant that on my first day there I didn't really know where I was going. In general, however, they made sure that I knew where I was going and had certain events / trips organised to break up the work and give us a good all-round experience of the firm

They made sure to make me feel supported both in the work (audit) tasks I was completing and in the internship specific ones. So, in terms of the work, there wasn't any sort of formal training, but I was given a real life section of the audit to complete under guidance. This subsequently gave me training / experience in the company software and how to go about organising audit working papers. For the internship specific tasks, they made sure to give us training - because we had to give a ten minute presentation at the end of the internship we got two away-days at their UK wide training facility to improve our presentation skills and this was really really helpful.

If I go into Accountancy I would definitely want to choose this firm! It has a great culture and ethos and has the advantage of being a global firm but without the competition and high-pressured environment that you find with the Big Four firms. They put a big emphasis on socialising with your colleagues and having a healthy-work life balance, so they encourage flexible working hours etc.

Mostly yes - this was hampered by the fact that I was away on a client site for most of my internship, so didn't really get to see the other interns very much. Also, there was only one other intern in my office, but Grant Thornton realised this somewhat and that's why they made an effort to run joint activities with another local office that had more interns. Also, towards the start of my internship, they organised a trip to London for all of the UK interns where we had an evening in Bounce (a table tennis club) followed by a training day at the main London office. This was so much fun and meant we were able to meet interns from all over the country and learn about their experiences so far.

The cost of living in Edinburgh is quite high - especially during August because of the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. This wasn't a problem for me because I already had a flat there, but I can see it might be a problem for others so I would definitely advise being organised about it. Because I was out at a client site rather than in the office, I had to get a bus everyday, but because I would have otherwise been able to walk to work, the firm paid for all my bus tickets which was good!

The Edinburgh nightlife is really good as is that in Glasgow, where we were often going to meet up with the Glasgow office interns. Both are really sociable cities with lots of bars, clubs, pubs etc. The firm made sure to cash in on this and there was an organised office night out to a club in Glasgow which was great fun.

Quite a few. If you were a social media bug, there was an opportunity to help take over the company blog for six weeks, and as part of the internship everybody had to in someway help to raise money for charity that was inline with the firm's ethos. This meant working with the other interns which built up rapport. The big thing was that during the internship the firm's annual office football tournament took place, so people from all different offices converged on Glasgow to play before going out to dinner and out to a club. We were definitely encouraged to participate / go along to socialise.