Strategy Group- Healthcare and life sciences consultancy Review

I had an enjoyable time at KPMG. Everyone is welcoming and willing to give honest careers advice and guidance. The area of the business I was in were flexible about me moving teams and collaborating outside the business area, to suit my interests and previous experience.

You can feel like a spare part to the team as you are not there for very long so it is hard to get full ownership of work. However, I would say the more work you ask for and the more connections you make you start to feel part of the team during the brief experience. Getting feedback at the end of the placement shows that the company are interested in what you have done.

Lots of guidance was given in the initial onboarding process from the student recruitment team. Assigned a buddy and performance manager, useful to discuss what I wanted to get out of my time in the company and how best to use a short placement. Getting performance manager feedback at the end of the experience is a nice way to review your experience.

The experience helped me understand how I could transfer my teaching skills to a different setting and what type of skills and competencies KPMG look for. I learnt about areas of consultancy I didn't know about before and gained valuable careers advice and guidance. I was offered a partner interview to go on to the graduate scheme after completing the placement. I was able to use my skills more broadly by taking on work from the strategy group and student recruitment.

The amount of work given seemed to vary depending on how busy the team was. There was no set project you had responsibility for, more smaller task on a daily basis to support on going work. Taking initiative and asking around for extra work is a good way of making the most of your time and networking with more people.

I got on well with the people in my team, which made the experience both fun and interesting. Everyone I interacted were more than happy to give me advice and guidance, even putting me in touch with other professionals to develop my industry knowledge.

As only in the company for 3 weeks I received a company induction on the first day, before going straight into working within a team.

It was really useful to see how different teams work on a day to day basis and gain insight into the graduate scheme experience.

The induction and general experience helped me understand the type of people KPMG employs. I found everyone I worked with to be happy and motivated in their job. I learnt that you are valued for the skills you can bring to different projects, enabling employees to work outside of their team.

The content of the work I was given was not reflective of the scale of work an employee would have due to the limited time I had in the company. However the people I worked with were good at explaining to me the different parts of projects they were responsible for and their approach. This was useful as I like the idea of working on varied projects within a sector of interest.

Adequate pay for the experience and to cover travel

These opportunities mainly occurred if you sought them out. There was a team lunch and graduate level forum that provided opportunity to network.

The graduate forum was a great way to find out about the graduate scheme and get honest advice about the role. The team lunch was a nice more relaxed environment to get to know people in the team I hadn't met yet including partners of the firm.

There were lots of posters up around the office highlighting events outside work. I also found out about how employees can get involved in outreach activities.

Yes, especially to see how their interests may be encountered in a business environment and how business strategy can be applied to other roles.