One Year Business Placement Student - Audit Review

The Placement was highly enjoyable. I experience a range of banking clients and this allowed me to gain excellent exposure. On top of this the social activities were fantastic and as part of the KPMG Rugby team, we even went on heavily subsidised tours to Paris and Dublin. At times the work can be dull (but thats work I guess), but efforts were made to ensure that you were working on projects you wanted to be on.

The support network at KPMG is superb. The managers and partners are always grateful for the work you complete and at the end of most audits, the partner would take the whole team out for a meal!!

A mentor scheme is run whereby you report to a manager in your department on your progress! You are also given a "buddy" who has just completed their first year at KPMG and they are really helpful for any ad-hoc queries you may have.

At times there was very little work, and then suddenly it would all come in at once. I guess this is the problem when you are at the beckon call of clients!

Had meetings with senior members of the client, in a range of divisions; finance, risk etc. Had the opportunity to take on whole sections of the balance sheet and income statement and this was really satisfying on completion of an audit.

Fantastic!! Lots of training both specialised and generic (such as MS Excel). I also completed 5 ACA examinations, which included paid time at college!!

Office was always changing and so at times there were quieter offices, but in the larger teams on the bigger clients there was usually a fair amount of banter!!

As there were only 3 placements in the whole of London, we completed the same first year as all graduates - which is great, except when it came to leaving details etc. it was all very murky and nobody was quite clear how the process worked - hopefully this will improve in future years!!

So much training, time and effort went into us. As i said earlier they treated us like graduates and so we were treated like we would be at the firms for years!! Also KPMG give you £4 a day when you are at a client to buy lunch which is a great tax-benefit on top of the salary!!

They have offered me a job!!

Lots of graduates to socialise with and this was great. When at college studying for the ACA its like being back at university and there are plenty of pub trips!!

Lived at home - otherwise London is very expensive

Is there anywhere better in the world than London?

Volunteering, sports, there were many options open to you at KPMG. With london on your doorstep you can always find something you want to do.