Vacation Programme Technology Review

I have really enjoyed my 4 weeks at KPMG and it has given me a great insight into the Solutions & Digital Department within the firm. It has also been interesting to see both the Manchester and London offices (through a trip to London) and meeting new people has been very enjoyable.

I felt valued in the sense that I was respected by all KPMG employees that I met and a real effort was made to make us feel welcome, especially by the graduates in our department. However, I would question how valuable I was to the firm, as the vacation programme seemed to be more geared towards me getting something from KPMG rather than the other way round. This isn't necessarily a bad thing but may be something to consider if you are deciding whether to do it or not.

There seemed to be a lot of guidance towards the start of the programme (we attended a Values Day in Canary Wharf where they explained how the 4 weeks would go and what to expect), but this was not kept up throughout the programme. If we needed help, it was always available, but the guidance from programme leads was not constant throughout, which sometimes made things difficult when actual KPMG employees weren't sure what we should be doing.

The skills developed during the vacation scheme will be very useful in any future career. I was able to train in Outlook, Excel and OneNote as well as gaining an understanding of the specific tools used by my department. I also think the networking opportunities given by the programme will be very useful in the future.

We were given a passport of objectives for the programme which we were instructed to use to structure our time at KPMG. Although this was a good idea, it was difficult to try and direct exactly how the 4 weeks would be structured, as this seemed to largely depend on business needs. This was probably a good insight into how the firm actually functions but maybe the programme could have been structured differently e.g some kind of rotation between departments to give a more varied view of Technology more broadly

Very friendly staff. Everyone was open to you asking questions and senior members of staff were more than happy to meet and give advice to us over a coffee, which was surprising. There was very little pressure put on us, which gave time to pursue areas you were interested in and colleagues definitely recognised that we were only students at the end of the day, and didn't expect any in depth knowledge on arriving for the scheme.

The firm gave us the opportunity to access the training portal open to full employees meaning that we could use time to complete training that we wanted to do. Whenever I was having issues with a task I was set, a colleague was more than happy to talk me through it, when I had time. It was great that even though someone could have completed the task in half the time it took them to talk me through it, they still decided to teach me how to do it, which seemed like a very generous investment of time.

After speaking with the graduate trainees, it seems that the vacation programme has been very reflective of the reality of working for the firm. Maybe the lack of real responsibility may differentiate it somewhat, but even just getting used to being in an office gave some insight to a full time role.

Especially talking to a wide range of employees at different levels, I think I got a good grasp of the company culture. Having visited both the London and Manchester offices, it seems that the cultures are a bit different in each office, but still employees were open and friendly to talk to.

As it was only 4 weeks it's difficult to say how much it has helped me to decide on a future career path but it has definitely given me some ideas to reflect on and colleagues were great at giving advice on starting a career in this line of work

The pay seems very generous considering the work I completed during the internship.

I was invited to a number of events which were opportunities to network with other members of the firm as well as with other members of the firm from other offices. We were encouraged to send an email to any member of staff we wanted to meet and they were always happy to meet up.

Great networking opportunities every Friday and social events organised by graduates. They were not compulsory but were a great opportunity to meet other interns and members of KPMG from different departments other than the one I ended up in. The recruitment team also organised a final social event to finish it.

There seems to be a number of social activities that employees can get involved in outside of work. I didn't actually meet anyone who had enrolled in any of these activities, but the opportunities seem to be there if you are keen to get involved, especially for charity fundraising events

If you aren't sure what kind of career path you want to take and aren't interested in a typical investment banking internship, this is a relaxed but valuable opportunity to get an insight into a professional services firm which seems to value its employees and welcomes interns to ask questions.