Summer Intern Review

I thoroughly enjoyed my time during my internship with Smith and Williamson. I was challenged with the work I was given, I worked both on-site and in the office, and met very friendly approachable people who made me feel like part of the team.

Seeing as I was only there for 6 weeks I feel that I was able to forge connections with those I worked for and with. I was able to build a repore with several Senior Managers which allowed me to build my connections within the team and the further firm.

All levels of staff that I interacted with provided support and guidance whenever I asked for it. They were able to explain the task assigned to me at a level that I was able to understand and then provide feedback on the work I had completed. Not only did they provide support for the work that they assigned but if I had a question about a task that was from another colleague, they were willing to sit down and explain any questions or queries I might have had.

There were only a few days when I struggled to find work to do and others when I had enough to keep me going for the day. There were rarely days when I felt overwhelmed by the level of work but I had enough work for me to work late the majority of days I was in the office.

I was given a fair amount of responsibility. I was given tasks that I was able to complete on my own after having it explained once so felt confident regarding their completion and enjoyed the responsibility of being given tasks that challenged me both professionally and personally.

I wasn't given any formal training, however, I do feel that I have developed skills over the 6 weeks that pertain to this and other lines of work in finance that will help me when applying for graduate roles. I feel that the internship has boosted my confidence regarding audit completion, on-site audit testing and the soft skills that I will be able to implement in my degree and personal life.

The atmosphere in the office was of a hard-working friendly group of people. Everyone was interested in what was going on outside of work which made for an approachable working environment.

Knowing that audit is a financial service that goes through busy seasons, I wasn't under the impression that I would be constantly busy with work. However, I found that in terms of finding work for interns to do, particularly in the office, often led to waiting around for several hours. I think that for ABS a project should be given so that when there is no work to be doing, the intern is not at a loss for what to do and can utilize the time in the office effectively learning. The training on Day 1 was excellent and provided a good set up of what to expect from the internship.

Time was spent explaining tasks and building on the minimal knowledge that I had prior to the internship but no training sessions aimed at the interns were run.

Future employment prospects are very appealing within the organization as the students who are currently working for Smith and Williamson are enjoying their jobs. This suggests that the support given to the graduates is really strong and that the work-life balance is really good. I think also the interview process for the internship eludes to the possibility of a job offer post internship. We were also told as interns that unless you demonstrated that you did not want to be there and seriously messed up a piece of work, that the possibility of a job offer was quite high. This gave all the interns something to strive towards, a feat that allowed us to get the most out of our 6 weeks with the firm.

There seems to be a fairly good social scene amongst colleagues at Smith and Williamson. However, it would have been better to have more organized socials for the interns as it was difficult to integrate with some of the teams had you not either worked with them or met them on the induction day. I think more organized socials amongst teams and departments would have created a better social scene.

I was living at home so commuted in every day, but the cost of socializing wasn't too high.

Nothing was offered to the interns to participate in so I am not sure.

There were opportunities to get involved, however, these were often only highlighted the week they were occurring which often meant that either other plans had been made or there weren't any tickets left which meant that we couldn't attend.