Auditor Review

The internship was a great experience. I felt very welcomed by people of all levels of seniority in my team. My line manager was great and made it his job to ensure I was always working on an audit, it was then my responsibility to get work from the audit manager and the more good pieces I produced the more trust and responsibility I was given.

I felt extremely valued by my colleagues. Everyone I was introduced to always had so much time for me and seemed to genuinely enjoy getting to know me.

Before the internship I was assigned a buddy who was extremely helpful with my initial questions however once I had started I didn't have that much contact with my buddy. I was however helped a lot by 2 of my buddies friends. My line manager was great, always making time to have 1-1 meetings so I could update him with my progress. He also ensured I was placed on an audit team to ensure I was given a variety of work and saw audits in a variety of stages. My head of audit and chief auditor always took time to meet with me.

Work fluctuated throughout the 10 weeks. I was constantly on an audit but the different stages of the audits did mean different amounts of work for me. The couple of weeks prior to the group project, individual report and CSR deadline were very very busy and did mean that I placed more of my focus on them rather that the audit work than I wanted to. I much preferred the final 2 weeks once the assessments were all completed as I could solely focus on audit work.

I was given the level of responsibility I expected, having no previous audit knowledge. I began just shadowing other auditors and listening to meetings but as trust was built I was given bigger and bigger tasks to complete. All of my work was reviewed and edited as I would expect but there was clear evidence of improvement throughout the process.

Training and opportunities were available to me throughout the whole process. There are plenty of online training tools that you can sign up to for free if there is an area you would like to learn more about. Everyone in my team was so approachable and all made them selves available to me if I had any questions.

Very positive. There is a great work ethic in my team and everyone helps each other. Mondays are chaos as everyone seems to be in making finding desks a struggle, however as an intern you are always guaranteed a desk as you cannot work from home. Fridays on the other had seem much more relaxed, especially with dress down Friday.

The organisation of the internship could have been better. Given that I did the spring week and found out I had a place on the internship over a year before it started made only finding out my actual location 2 weeks before I started is not really acceptable. As I don't live near my office location I then had a rush to find accommodation and as a result had to more places half way through. I was also told that my team didn't know I was joining them until 2 days before. During the internship there was plenty of support for me, however I felt my line manager wasn't told enough about what was expected of him with regards to assessing me.

RBS has plenty of training and develop sessions and online learning's available to people of all levels if you are proactive to go out and find the opportunities. A lot of time by various members of my team, and other teams, was given to me allowing me to ask questions and learn about peoples journeys with RBS and previous companies, which in turn inspired mine.

Very. My journey so far with RBS (having completed the spring week and internship) has overall been very positive. It is a company I could definitely see myself working for In the future. The grad program looks very well structured and allows you to gain the accountancy qualification whilst you are working which is a huge plus for me. The programme is 3 years long and you are guaranteed a job at the end of it.

Yes. There were not very many interns in IA in London this year however overall I was always being invited to events with interns in other teams. My team was always invite me to drinks they were having after work too. As I am not from near London I don't really have any friends down here but did meet some lovely people.

So expensive to live, travel and socialize but this is to be expected in London.

Plenty of bars and clubs in the area and many more a short tube ride away.

A few, the most memorable being the IA Olympic games in regents park. This was great fun and a great way to get to know people from all clusters.