Intern - Industrial Placement Student Review

I found the placement at EY to be very enjoyable. Working within the Audit department of a regional office, there were numerous opportunities to get involved and have fun both in and outside of work and the office made us all feel very welcome. Whilst admittedly the work you do as an intern in audit is tedious and boring for the most part, there are chances to work with interesting areas of accounts.

I was given far more responsibility than I believe placement students at other firms get and this ultimately led to my contribution feeling valued on every job I worked on. Feedback/recognition is a large part of the EY working process and as such constructive criticism and praise is given to you as deserved. This helped with my motivation and development greatly throughout my time at EY.

Coaching is an integral part of operations at EY, with teams providing top down coaching to the position/s below them to allow them to complete new areas of work and continue to develop. As an intern I found the coaching I received to be great for the most part, however often found that some colleagues would explain the bare minimum so that I could just about complete the work and feel this hindered my development slightly. Furthermore, initial inductions at EY weren't particularly useful and made it difficult to initially settle in.

This all depends on the clients you get put on and the situations of those clients and the colleagues on your teams. I was very fortunate to work on an array of clients where I was granted a decent level of responsibility and workload and therefore was consistently busy throughout my placement. The months of January - April or 'busy season' as it is known in audit was particularly busy with the working hours ranging from 9 - 12 hours a day.

I was given far more responsibility than I believe placement students at other firms get. Ultimately, not a large amount of responsibility is placed on first years in audit in the grand scheme of things, however colleagues delegated sections of work to me and made me take ownership of these, thus making me responsible for the completion of work in these areas. You are also given responsibility for things outside of work - for example the passing of the ICAS TC exams you sit as part of your placement year is largely down to yourself.

I have learned far more during my time at EY than I will in my three years of university. Being exposed to the real world of accounting and getting hands on experience has increased my understanding and developed my ability more than I could have imagined. The experience gained from the frequent client and colleague interaction that you must engage in when working in audit has also helped develop me as a person and a professional.

The atmosphere in the office was okay - due to the nature of Audit nobody spends too much time in the office therefore it was rare that I was in there with colleagues I knew well. On days where the entire department was in the office the atmosphere was very good however these aren't too frequent. The office is a good environment to work in however and I found myself to be very productive whenever I was working from there.

The placement was well organised. There were a lot of placement students nation-wide all handled centrally by student recruitment in London who did a good job of staying in contact, organising events and conducting inductions. Whilst I didn't find the content provided in inductions to be too useful I would not say that this was student recruitment's fault and the actual day was organised very well allowing a comfortable start to life at EY.

All placement students were enrolled into the ICAS Chartered Accounting qualification and sat two of the test of competence exams at the start of our placement. We were also given two separate training courses related to audit, for a total of 7 working days training which introduced us to basic audit work and progressed into using basic analytics tools as part of our audit work. The firm also invest time in your development through the way of mandatory feedback culminating in year-end reviews of your performance compared to your peer group.

From an audit perspective, the firm seem to be continually progressing and investing in more staff development which indicates solid employment prospects for the future. From a personal view I would have no qualms about returning for future employment, I found my time to be very enjoyable and well supported and as a result of my placement I'm now even more keen to pursue a career in financial services, particularly audit.

Unfortunately there was not a great social scene amongst other placement students in my office, however that was not the same for my wider colleagues. There were a lot of office socials throughout my placement where attendance was high, offering the opportunity to socialise and meet new colleagues in the department. The wider placement student network was also very social - with us completing our TC exams and first training course together.

The cost of living was okay where I was living - the salary I was paid for my placement was more than enough to get by on and the expense policy was efficient enough that I would receive my expenses back in time to pay bills making sure I was never short on money. The social life in the area I lived in was also great, I found the city to be friendly with plenty of choice in terms of things to do and was not bored once.

The nightlife where I worked was great. Whether it was going out with work or with my flatmate there was always something to do. Due to work and other commitments I was not going out an awful lot at night however whenever I did I had a very good evening. Prices were quite high in the area where I lived however the atmosphere was worth it. Could not complain.

There were many activities offered outside of work, ranging from football to 10km runs to mud runs to charity work (also known as CSR days). I was heavily involved in activities outside of work, playing football with work regularly and getting involved in charity days. EY offer each employee a set number of days to take off work to dedicate to performing charitable activities each year and encourage employees to use these to full effect.