Student Review

My time at EY was interesting and insightful; I was fortunate enough to gain a range of experiences whilst there, including both internally and on client projects. Everyone's experience is different, and I would recommend to anyone who takes an internship here to make the most of every opportunity and take a proactive approach. I found that there was a high initial learning curve, but once you have settled in it becomes a lot easier to get involved. Overall, I would highly recommend an internship at EY, the office environment has a really inclusive and diverse atmosphere, everyone is very helpful and friendly!

From my very first day I found people at EY very easy to approach and talk to. Whilst taking on different work assignments my colleagues would check up on my progress and were always happy to answer any questions I might have. EY also highly encourage feedback gathering, and I found this particularly helpful when thinking about my personal development, and it was a good opportunity for my team to express the value that my work had towards achieving team goals.

Each intern has a network of contacts to help them settle in to life at EY. I had an excellent buddy, counsellor and intern manager who I had regular catch ups with and I felt comfortable being able to reach out to them if I needed any additional guidance or support.

There were some weeks where my workload would be quite low, this is usually determined by business demand. During this time I could work towards completing web-based learning and try and reach out to people from the wider advisory service line for some additional projects. However, some weeks can be much more work intense, and I think this reflects how the workload could be over a longer term

I was given responsibility for a few tasks whilst at EY. I enjoyed being able to have this creative input and taking ownership of the outcome. On some other tasks you may be given less responsibility, there is a balance between this and the guidance you are given. I think it's good at internship level to have a mix of higher and lower responsibility tasks.

I have developed many of my technical skills whilst at EY. There is certainly scope within the internship to develop skills in whatever area you choose, and interns are very much encouraged to find out what works best for them. I have also learnt a lot about communication and gained confidence through client interaction and presenting my ideas to a panel

The office atmosphere is relaxed and friendly; I worked on a floor where I had the freedom to move around daily and sit next to different people, through this I gained further insight and met some really interesting people! There are also facilities for when you want to work independently or collaborate in groups

Overall, the internship was run well and the internship team sent regular updates to keep us informed of what events were happening and how we could get involved in additional activities. There were also a few times where it was unclear what was expected of us, or there were some delays in communication, but these were usually rectified quite promptly

EY provide lots of information about their graduate programme, and they genuinely want people to succeed whilst they are on the internship. They provide access to a range of different learning opportunities and they give you responsibility and ownership for many of the tasks you complete. They are very encouraging and supportive of any of your interests and how they could be developed

EY is a very varied company, there are many different areas of focus within different service lines and industries which require different skills sets. Throughout the internship you are told about the graduate programme often and they want people to stay on and build a career there. Given the inclusive culture at EY I would say it is a very pleasant place to work and develop

There were regular intern social events and individual teams have different social schedules (therefore it can depend on what team you are aligned with). The events were well organised and there was always a good group of people to engage with (also most events would include food which was nice!)

London is definitely not a cheap place to go out and socialise! The costs can be quite high, depending upon which places you visit. Travelling into London is also quite expensive (student railcards can help), but it's what you would expect for the city. And for me it was worth it for the atmosphere.

There are numerous bars in Canary wharf and in the city in general. I didn't experience very much of the nightlife though so I can't provide very much detail on these!

There are a number of different networks which run different out of hours activities; for example I attended an SQL coding bootcamp run by the women's network which was a great chance to speak to other people and learn a new skill at the same time! There are also sports clubs and charitable work too!