Accounting Intern Review

I enjoyed the company as a whole but feel the job (accounting) was not suited to my skills and didn't keep my interest for the entire year. Although a good experience, I feel it would have been a better idea if the placement only lasted a few months - maybe with a rotation scheme so you could spend a few months in finance and a few in accounting.

This depended on the collegue. Majority of colleagues treated you like any other employee and it was very rare that somebody would treat you any differently because you were just an intern. My team especially were very welcoming and I would like to keep in touch with some of them even once the internship has ended.

I had 2 different line managers during my time at the company. THey both had very different management styles that were effective in different ways. The first lef tme to get on with the work but was avaiable whenever I had questions and the 2nd line manager regularly planned meetings and catch ups to check that I was coping with the workload.

As this was a job in accounting, it very strongly depended on what time of the month/quarter/year it was. During the middle of a normal month, you could have very quiet days with little wok to do then during times such as quarter end, you would end up staying late most days with too much work to complete.

As the placement went along, I was trusted with more and more responsibility. Although daunting at first, it made the job slightly more interesting. Also, the extra responsibilities were always reviewed by managers and other colleagues so I didn;t; need to worry about making an important mistake that might not be corrected.

I wouldn't say this placement did much to affect my degree studies and beyond as the placement was in accounting and my degree is in mathematics. It did help to make me much more organised and I now have more motivation to study for when I go back to university.

In the building, the atmosphere was friendly and welcoming and there were always things to get involved in. There were about 200 interns in the company and 10 interns on my floor alone so you didn't feel like the odd one out amongst older colleagues. Accounting is a lot quieter that other departments though.

It took a long time for our contracts to be sent out to us and my contract was extended before I was even asked if I wanted that. Also, the previous year intern is responsible for most of your training so it can mean your handover isn't the best. So I wouldn't say organisation was greta overall.

The company gave us the chance to go to mock interviews with an outside company and give presentations in front of the managers on our floor. This helped us to improve our employibility skills. Also, we were able to use different online systems that we may not have used before, such as SAP.

There isn't an organised graduate scheme in this company which means you have to rely on making contacts within your department. This isn't great as noone is guarenteed a grad job even if they get on well with others on their floor and work hard to impress managers and colleagues.

As the placement is in London, living costs and socialising costs were both very high. As the offices are in Hammersmith rather than central, the costs could have been higher but compared to other companies in London, we didn't recieve a large salary or a lot of financial benefits so there wasn;t a lot of spare cash to spend on nights out, etc.