Audit Associate Review

There were elements of the placement year that I enjoyed, however, the bad outweighed the good. I enjoyed the range of clients that I worked on, and the rapport I developed with the other placement students. The negatives were definitely the working hours and the lack of support at times.

In Audit, it really did depend on the teams you were working on. Some teams really valued me and made me feel like a member of the team. Some however, made me feel like I was younger than I actually was and that my work was insignificant. This of course brought the mood down.

On a placement level, the placement co-ordiniator left halfway through our placement and we were left without major support for a few months. The general feeling was that we did not have as much support as we would have liked. At a team level, it really did depend on the team you were on and how much free time they had to explain things to you. At times it felt like we were just "cheap" labour rather than a developing talent of the future.

I was either completely rushed off my feet or sat there doing nothing. During the busy period (Jan-March, but usually longer), I was working 50+ hour weeks. Overtime at EY is UNPAID, but you are still expected to work these hours as you sign a working time waiver. The work is repetitive, so working these sorts of hours really brings you down and you do start to feel slightly unhealthy. In Audit, you're expected to seek out work when you're unassigned, which is hard to do when you don't know many people in your department.

A positive of the placement is the responsibility. You do get to do a lot of work and meet a lot of contacts at client sites which you wouldn't usually be able to meet. You can see the result of your work, which at times, is pretty intense and complex. The more you put into your work, the happier your manager was.

The only skills I would take from the placement was time management and people skills. Audit, as previously mentioned, is repetitive and the skills are quite specific to this. So as such, I won't be taking much from the placement year in terms of skills and training. However, if you're looking to continue Audit after graduation, I can imagine the skills would be beneficial.

I was based in London Bridge which is quite a large building. However, most of the role is spent at client sites. When I was in the office, due to the continuous turnover of staff, my department had new faces every time I visited. This was quite unsettling as it meant that you couldn't make connections with people as they were leaving. If it was your birthday, no one would know as no one speaks in the office. If anyone sneezes, no one says anything. It's an extremely cold and awkward vibe within the floor, which I have never experienced before. This may just occur in the Audit section of the office, but I spoke to other placement students and they felt the same way. There is no real sense of connection.

At the beginning, we had an induction and training, which was fantastic. However, it went downhill from there as our placement contact left and we had no real support or check ups. You were assigned jobs by your resource co-ordinator, which could be anywhere and involve anything, for any duration of time. You had no real say of what jobs you wished to be assigned to. You were also expected to do unpaid stocktakes on your weekends, and if you declined these, it was suggested it would be career limiting. It felt like you were a temporary employee instead of a member of the team. Overall, it wasn't well organised considering the size of the company.

Apart from the audit training, there was no real personal development for us. We were assigned a counsellor, but these were managers from the firm and were there just to check and see if we were stressed/had any issues. There was no extra curricular talks/projects/events we would attend. It was quite disappointing to see that we were not offered any development as this would have made the job a lot more enjoyable.

Honestly - not so much. The high turnover of staff results in an awkward working environment, and the reward for your work does not align with the type of work that you do. There are other jobs that pay better and consist of more enjoyable work. You're guaranteed good progression within EY, but you have to give a lot to rise up the ladder.

The only social scene was the scene that WE created for ourselves. There was no events organised for us as student recruitment were not there "to organise social events for us." It would have brought us all closer together if we were allowed to meet up once a month, and show that EY valued us. Regardless of this, we regularly met up ourselves and I believe we became closer through the lack of support that EY offered. I've made some friends for life through this placement.

Standard London prices really. London Bridge has a good selection of lunch options and bars/pubs after work. There are budget supermarkets nearby and drinks deals, if you drink. Overall, it's an office in London so it is to be expected that prices will be higher than regional areas.

We regularly went out around the London Bridge area to bars, especially in Borough. We also crossed the bridge to the Bank area and found some good bars that had Happy Hours as well. Because of our large group sizes, we managed to get drinks deals, so if you're going out around these areas, definitely recommend going as a larger group and booking tables.

There only seemed to be opportunities for sports, and those were pretty limited to football and tennis. We were allowed two or three CSR (corporate social responsibility) days to use, however I was not allowed to take these at certain times due to "business demand" As a result, I never got to use my days, which was disappointing. The culture is mostly work work work.