Financial Services Direct Tax Review

Very much - I've never worked in an environment like this before, and I view it as an invaluable experience for my professional and personal development.

I worked with an excellent group of colleagues. Once I'd done a few smaller pieces of work for them, they were happier to engage me in more challenging and significant projects, and the feedback they gave me for this work was always positive with constructive criticism. Even though there weren't a lot of team engagements available in my department, I still felt very much as if I was working within a team environment, and that I was an important component of that team environment.

The support I received when being given a piece of work to do was outstanding. The work would almost always be preceded by a briefing on the background to the work, and also by a detailed walk-through of how I should carry out the engagement. My only criticism here is that I feel that the interns on the program - myself included - could justifiably have been given more complex and high-level work to do. We are, after all, penultimate-year university students, and still very open to learning and being taught new things. The goal to engage more with important work is definitely one which could have used more support.

This varied quite a lot day to day. It is emphasized at the start of the internship that "the work is there if you can get it" and "this internship will be what you make of it," but that unfortunately isn't quite true. I came in right at the end of my department's busy period, and so I spent a lot of my first couple of weeks engaged in online learning. A large chunk of the work I was doing had little to do with my specific service line; I went seeking out opportunities concerning the more back-office aspects of the business, and it was these engagements that took up most of my time. This could easily have been improved by running, say, daily learning sessions where we'd learn something technical from our service line, followed up by a project to put it to use. This project needn't be real work - I'm sure the other interns and I would have felt a positive effect from having mock work to do over no work at all, because at least we'd be learning and practicing technical skills!

This changed depending on who I was working for and at what stage in my placement I was, though my overall verdict is a positive one. Sometimes I'd only be responsible for renaming documents; at other times, I would be trusted me to plan, carry out and feed back on a project based off a very small brief. If I had to give someone advice here, I'd say to be sure to get to know the management stuff as quickly and as well as possible - they are the ones who can get you onto the most interesting work with clients, and who tend to be a lot more faithful in your abilities. With all of that said though, even on some of the projects which didn't carry a lot of weight in themselves, I was still trusted to do it without people breathing over my shoulder!

The first few years of my degree haven't been in a subject directly relevant to my internship, but a lot of my study time is spent interacting with academics and supervisors, and that's due to only increase in my final year. I've spent a lot of time chatting with people who are 'high up' in the firm, and having done this on a daily basis will definitely be of use to me when I return to university. Plus, the internship has readjusted me to what it's like to work for solid hours on a routine during the day, as opposed to my sporadic approach to university education. I hope that I'll take this work ethic away with me! And I think that regardless of whether or not I take up a career in this service line, or even in professional services at all; the fact that I was working and communicating with great people at a great firm in a highly professional environment, and was learning how to do this pretty well, will almost certainly be of benefit to me in any career area.

The office was a genuinely great place to work. Everyone got their work done, and was happy to make time alongside to help out, give advice, or just chat by the coffee machines. It was quiet enough to be able to concentrate, but not so much so that you felt like you couldn't speak. Plus, some of the permanent staff members had genuinely good banter, so that mix of personalities made it a pleasure to come to work in the morning.

Unfortunately, this is where the placement fell down. As I've mentioned, I started at the end of a busy period, so was at the start of a very quiet period. This meant that no one really had much work to give me in my first few weeks, but there weren't really any alternative options lined up for us except to do independent study on the internet. I think that the program could definitely have benefitted from having classes/mock work for us to do in this time, because it wasn't the best first impression when I had such high expectations. When events were run, they were of excellent quality - a summer intern breakfast with some partners of the business, for example, was one of the highlights of my placement, provoking stimulating discussion amongst us at the prompting of some very witty professionals. More events like this could have definitely been a small way to have a massive impact on my view of the placement set up. This is more of a centralized issue than one relating to any of the individuals I worked with directly.

I had a one-day induction which really just tested and reiterated my knowledge of EY, and received a counsellor with whom I met three times across the six-week placement in order to discuss my progress. With regards to career development, the internship was truly faultless. My counsellor went above and beyond to put me in touch with people who might be able to discuss the many and varied opportunities I'm considering, and I've had career conversations with various others across the duration of my internship. There was also a wide range of online learning resources at my disposal, and a weekly 'lunch and learn' session which would tell us different things about life at EY. I feel as if this reflects more on the people I worked with than the firm, however; most of my personal development came from getting to know so many interesting and friendly people.

Whilst the firm-organized training opportunities during the placement were sub-par (in terms of intern learning sessions), I must admit that the company pours a lot of time and money into training their graduate starters. The support there appears - to me at least - to be truly industry-leading, and the firm's culture makes it an incredibly appealing place to work. The firm also offers a lot of flexibility in terms of moving around service lines (more so once professionally qualified), working abroad (on placement or permanently), and working from home in order to maintain one's personal commitments. People also generally seem to advance through the ranks of the firm at a fair pace. I'll examine other options because I understand that this isn't the place for everyone and it would be foolish not to touch all bases, but I could feasibly see myself launching a successful career here.

There were three firm-organized social events in my time at EY; a summer party at a fancy local venue, drinks in the client suites, and a trip to a comedy show which the interns were trusted to plan. All of these were great - the drinks were paid for, the people were fun, and the evenings all felt as if they were over too soon! There were also a number of events the interns organized between ourselves, but due to personal circumstances I had to miss most of them. Overall; I'd say that there are a lot of opportunities to have fun here, so long as you seek them out and don't keep yourself to yourself too much!

I was staying with family and commuting into the city, so unfortunately can't comment on the cost of living near the office - my board was cheap and the local pubs were reasonable. However, a lot of the bars in the city are very expensive - especially if you go close to the office as we tended to. Cheaper places can be found if you know where to look, but pound-a-pint nights like back home were starting to feel like a half-forgotten dream by the time I'd paid £7.50 for a G&T! I have heard a lot of people objecting to the high cost of living in the city, but one overriding opinion does keep emerging: it's still better than London.