Vacation summer student. Review

I enjoyed the experience, the work was interesting and the people were great. My commute to the job was long which lessened my enjoyment a bit. The parts I found particularly enjoyable were where I was able to get involved in a project and really take ownership of the bit of work I was doing towards it. I also enjoyed work where it highlighted exactly how kpmg do their work for instance client engagement.

I felt very valued by the people I met in the office. I was asked to do important work which made me feel trusted by my colleagues. They also made an effort to include me by inviting me to work socials and eating lunch with me. The pub lunch at the end of my placement was a particular highlight. I felt much less valued by head office, they consistently missed self imposed deadlines when communicating with me and overall made a bad impression.

Everyone in the office was kind and helpful and always willing to give me support. I spent quite a bit of time working with people working towards their qualifications and they were always willing to answer any questions. My supervisor was excellent, she was always looking out for me and found time to help with difficult and time consuming issues such as my expenses. I thought it was great that the partners sat down with everyone else at lunch and were able to offer informal advice.

While my degree is not directly related I do think that I have gained time management and communication skills. My next year is working in a research lab and practice at sending people emails asking for them to do something will be useful as well as finding out exactly what they want in order to do a good job.

The program was well structured. The first three days in London were very useful. The first day was a good introduction to the firm and its values. The next two days were very useful, by going through the structure of a corporate tax return I was able to get a very general understanding of how the tax system works and what key terms mean e.g. it was very useful to know what the main pool was when looking at capital allowances.

The general atmosphere of my office was excellent. Everyone was there to work hard and do a good job. However everyone I met was also very friendly and had time for me. I thought it was particularly nice how everyone took it in turns when they had a minute to do a coffee/ water round

I felt the firm did invest in me. There are the obvious ways such as paying me a salary for what was effectively all training, the training days and expenses for hotels etc. However there is also the time which my colleagues spent working with me and helping me to gain experience to become closer to the ideal candidate they would like to hire at the end of the experience.

By being in the office and talking to a range of other employees I feel that I have a good understanding of what working at KPMG would be like. It was particularly useful to talk to people working towards their professional qualifications about the schemes available and the work involved in each. The one thing I couldn't experience is the seasonal changes in work for instance around the financial year end.

I felt I got a good understanding of company culture, both what central management wants and the reality. I really liked the culture in the office, work hard but also have a great sense of kindness and community while still having a good time. I was less sure about some of what head office was trying to achieve. I was shown a video twice in London which used footage of the 9/11 attacks in a way I found very distasteful and which seemed to run counter to the integrity of the company.

It was very helpful. Because I enjoyed the experience and working in the office environment I am considering tax as a career path much more seriously than before. The experience and the parts that I enjoyed and didn't enjoy so much also showed me that I probably wouldn't enjoy working in audit as much as tax. I was also persuaded that tax would suit me much better than banking. This was all due to working on real projects to understand what the job really involves.

I was paid and reimbursed expenses however I thought the pay was a little low. Other friends on similar schemes made more money for the same position and got other benefits such as accommodation or travel paid for.

Every day provided opportunities for networking during the normal course of the day for instance lunch or even working with another department on a project or sitting in on a call or meeting.

Opportunities for networking were great. It was fantastic to eat lunch with a wide range of employees including trainees and even partners. I found the advice that they gave to be very useful for my career. It was also useful to meet people at the networking events in London to see what the culture of another office was like. It was very useful to meet clients too as this helped me get an understanding of the sector as a whole.

Yes, I went on one social event and found out about how there is a rota for organising these events. I also received emails about sports events outside of work for instance rounders.

Yes, it was very worthwhile and enjoyable, the people were great and I learnt a lot. 4 weeks was also a good length of time as it still left some time over for me to have a holiday. It was worth dealing with central office and the delays etc. in order to do the placement.