Summer Vacation Scheme Audit Intern Review

I thoroughly enjoyed my time at Deloitte as part of the 3 week Audit Summer Vacation Scheme. I wanted to go into the insight and find every reason to work for Deloitte in the future, and found so many reasons to do so. On the back of the placement you get a guaranteed partner interview that could lead to a job offer, as was the case with myself. I was thrilled to accept the job offer without a moments hesitation.

Deloitte have made me feel extremely valued for well over 18 months now, from the moment I entered the firm as a Spring Insight Student in my first year of university, quickly converting this opportunity into an internship with an efficient interview, becoming their brand ambassador, and now enjoying an internship and subsequent job offer. I have experienced hotel stays, socials, welcome events, constant email updates and personalised help. Deloitte seem the only firm to want me as much as I have pursued them.

I had a rough start at Deloitte in the sense my first manager on an audit file I was working on was far from helpful. That being said I cpuld use the buddy system to make contact with someone who quicly set me up with some great help. From the first week onwards I received really impressive one on one help on my next two audit files, despite the fact many staff were extremely busy. The use of skyper for business made help easy to come by.

I am lucky enough that the internship qualifies for my professional development module at the University of Birmingham in my final year, which will give me the opportunity to reflect on what I learnt in the internship as part of my degree. The internship will perhaps assist me most in the sense the job opportunity it gave me post graduation will take so much pressure of me in the final year of my degree. I won't be doing the mass of applications I did in the first two years of my degree and my studies will benefit as a result.

The insight was well structured from the off. We had an induction which included a hotel stay, which bought all interns from across the country, as well as your own offic together. Following that, there was a clear training day opportunity in your home office, followed by audit internsmoving onto different client rotations for three weeks. Socials were slotted as easily as possible into the insight, as well as partner meet and greet opportunities - the programme was flexible enough to allow me to drive back from a client in Swindon for the day to meet with a partner and enjoy a social. That being said the internship relies heavily on high quality and understanding managers of audits.

Deloitte was quick to instill a positive atmosphere for the interns from the off, with a hotel stay induction that included networking meals and plenty of freebies (alcohol!!!). This led to facebook groups of interns, notably in my office at Birmingham, which enabled us to meet up for lunch in socials we organised as well as the varied three socials that Deloitte put on for us. Although people were off on different clients, working extremely hard, Deloitte was keen to get us all back for the socials whether it be a private area of a bar, bowling or meal, to network with each other and our assigned buddies.

Deloitte gave each intern their own laptop and equipment to complete the insight, sending us round E-Learnings to complete in addition to the training that we all completed together. I felt I learnt a huge amount on the placement about Deloitte's software, getting help all the way through my insight. Additionally we had to get feedback at each stage of the internship for the partner interview which naturally led to identifying weaknesses and improving your performance.

Arguably the insight was just a bit too fun! The audit rotations were great for helping you look at different clients the company works on, however maybe didn't give you a chance to fully immerse yourself in, as they were just too short. The opportunity to get buddied with a Deloitte employee, and numerous networking events gave you a chance to really pick the brains of people you would aim to follow in the footsteps of, learning what their worklife was like. I certainly liked what I heard as I took the job offer!

Having applied to so many internships you quickly become immune to any differences between companies, just taking a scatter gun approach. Following the internship however I see Deloitte and their culture as unique and above any other rival. To give an example their "Agile Working Scheme" which gives employees flexibility over working hours and location, shows a genuine caring and unique culture in amongst ultimately extremely hard work.

I was fairly sure I wanted to join a big 4 firm and gain chartered acountancy qualifications before the internship, and now I have been convinced. The three weeks I spent with Deloitte in Audit helped me learn that audit is absolutely the service line that suits me. The opportunity to get a 3 year training contract on a good wage that gives you professional qualifications is something that suits my aims in life, and gives a great opportunity to review your position in the firm after 3 years.

I was paid a per annum rate of approx £18,500 for the internship which lasted 3 weeks (I will let you work out how much I was paid!) I also received expenses for any mileage I did to out of office clients at the rate of 45p per mile - extremely profitable when doing two round trips from Birmingham to Swindon, as well as £30 per day for food on top of the paid for hotel stay and parking expenses.

In the internship we had the initial induction opportunity and the networking meal, 3 socials of two meals, a private section of a local bar (whilst a big Euros football match was on!) and bowling. There was also free drinks Friday in the reception of the office to give networking opportunities with all Deloitte staff in attendance. There were also set up partner meet and greets, and chances to network further on away job in evening meals

Deloitte were really keen to promote the social activities the firm offers at every juncture, from the induction day to the partner meet and greet. Events that were promoted in particular were the sports teams such as football and hockey, ride across Britain which is run by Deloitte and enables employees to take unpaid leave to participate in it, secondments, free drinks Friday and the strong support for groups such as LGBT.

This internship helped to really clarify what I want to do in the future, why I want to do it, and what it will take to get there. The firm really impressed me when I felt like I would be the one aiming to impress them more. I worked on a variety of clients, from FTSE to SMEs all across the country and learnt a lot from the experience. The internship also crucially guarantess a graudate conversion partner interview. Although this isn't a guarantee of a job all five of the Audit interns secured a job offer and accepted it. This is a huge advantage and fantastic opportunity going into the final year of uni.