Business Tax Services Intern - Edinburgh Review

My time at EY was enjoyable and the best introduction to the accounting industry as I could have had! I had assumed I would be photocopying, making tea and possibly sitting in on a meeting if I was lucky. The reality was that I was tasked to do chargeable work straight from the get go. As a summer intern at EY you are expected to complete work that the current crop of graduates would be doing, normally they are away to do their ICAS examination training so you have to pick up where they left off. Because of the work I was doing I did not feel like a temporary intern, the team really included me in everything they did including social activities which made the experience all the more enjoyable!

Because the work I was doing was the same as a recent graduate would do I felt like the work I was doing was valuable. I also think this made my colleagues value me. During my time many social events were organised and I was welcome at all of them, I didn't feel like a temporary worker who was there to do my time and leave. Everyone was willing to help no matter what level of seniority in the firm they were. From my point of view the atmosphere in the office was inclusive and positive, this made a big difference to me feeling valued by everyone in there.

When you join you are assigned a councillor and a buddy. Your councillor is a manager or director, they follow up with you several times throughout the internship to check what you're doing, what you have done, and how you are feeling about the whole thing. If something is wrong with your internship they will help you sort it out. They are also there to monitor your progress and they play a big part in deciding if you will be extended an offer of work after the internship. Your buddy is a recent graduate or close equivalent, they will take care of you on a day-to-day basis and help you with minor problems. In addition the Student Internship Program team are on hand to make sure everything is going well for you. The support and management I received was first class, whenever I had a problem I knew exactly who to contact to get it set right.

Very! You are encouraged to seek work from many different people, one piece of work may lead to another and before long you find yourself engrossed several different projects. It's fantastic that you can get to work on so many different things but you have to make sure you let people know what work you have on, otherwise if you take on too much you can get bogged down easily. As an intern people are quite keen to make sure you're not getting too much work to do so you have time to reach out to other sectors of the firm so you can get a real impression of what everyone does.

Obviously as an intern there is a limit to how much responsibility you can have, mainly because you don't have any professional qualifications. That being said, I was given quite a lot of responsibility during my time at EY. I was assigned work to complete and if it was going out to a client I would send my work to a more senior person, they would review it and send it out to the client, any changes that had been made would be sent back to me so I could learn where I was going wrong. I was also tasked to organise social events and internal meetings. In my penultimate week I gave a presentation to my team about a new piece of legislation.

Coming from a non-accounting degree background, the technical skills I learned won't help me too much in my degree. But that isn't to say the transferable skills won't, I think a refreshed work ethic which I haven't had since school will help me in my final year of university! As I plan to work in accounting and finance after university I think the skills I have learned during my internship have been vital for my career progression. I feel far more confident in my knowledge of accounting practices and able to take on technical challenges I wouldn't have thought possible at the start of my internship.

The general atmosphere in the office was very inclusive. When I got to work in the morning people would stop for a chat to see what was happening and have a bit of a laugh. Frequent team meeting had a serious purpose but also a social element making sure everyone had good relationships with people they didn't sit next to often. Social meetings after work were commonplace, either organised a few days in advance or spur of the moment after work drinks were frequent. I was invited to all of these and I got the impression that most people were friends as well as colleagues. I felt valued and happy to go to work in the morning, the office was a nice place to be with a good atmosphere.

EY have a special Student Internship Program team who organise the internship. On our first day we had an induction day at the Canary Wharf office (all interns, London and regionally based), This was a well organised day which let us know exactly what was happening and what to expect in our respective offices. From then the internship team was never far away, they hosted weekly sessions telling us about different aspects of work at EY and had phone calls with us to check on our progress. There were slight issue with getting access to IT systems initially but I am unsure if these were unique to me. I got the impression that the internship was well organised, I never felt like an afterthought.

EY Invested a lot of time into my personal development. The Summer Internship Program team held regular sessions relating to our development. We were also invited to workshops that other members of the team are invited to, a majority of it went over my head but someone was always keen to explain what was going on to me afterwards. As an intern you also have to complete a project. For me, this took the form of a presentation to the team on a new piece of legislation, I was given time to research the topic and talk through it with senior people. The amount of personal training EY gave me was above what I had expected.

EY were keen to tell me about career prospects after my internship and university. They also take on a number of internship students for graduate jobs. The graduate program has you doing your ICAS/ICAEW qualifications and working. I have spoken to graduates who are on/have completed the scheme, they say it is hard work but very rewarding in the end. I have enjoyed my time at EY and the graduate scheme is exactly what I am looking for. If I were to be extended upon completion of my internship I would jump at the chance!

The initial induction day was good to be able to meet interns from across the UK. When I got back to my regional office in Edinburgh I had started friendships with the other interns. Although they were not in my service line and worked on different floors we kept in touch and went for lunch/drinks after work numerous times. Everyone was keen to talk about what they were doing and find out about what you were doing. The recruitment process is good at finding people who want to be there so it was natural to socialise with likeminded people in the same situation as me. EY also helped to facilitate this my holding events for interns.

I did my internship in Edinburgh, although it isn't the cheapest city in the UK the area where the office was had no major difference in price to the rest of the city. The office was in the centre of Edinburgh so there was no shortage of places to go after work and for lunch. The team often frequented many different establishments and even had relationships with some that were keen to book tables for us. Socialising is a big part of working at EY.

Again, being in the centre of Edinburgh during the fringe, nightlife is not in short supply. We went to the fringe as a team a couple of times and we also had the EY summer ball at a really cool venue.

Yes. When I was there I was invited to the Art Club, the Cycling Club, and the 5-aside Football Club. There is no shortage of outside work clubs, some of them train towards goals like the Cycling club were aiming to complete a race between Glasgow and Edinburgh. EY also hosts many virtual networks including EY mothers network, EY LGBTQ+ network and many more where like minded people can talk about the issues they are having (not just professional) and organise events via this means. EY seemed keen to support a work life balance for their employees. This attracted me to the firm initially.