Intern Review

The people at KPMG are so lovely! They go out of their way to make you feel welcomed and are very easy to get along with. However, the department was unprepared for our arrival and seemed to blur the lines between work experience and internships, which could be frustrating at times. Once the initial kinks had been worked out, it was a great place to work.

As much as my colleagues were very appreciative of any work I did do for them, as I interned in a very technical department it was very difficult for them to give me useful work to do that I would understand. Therefore it was quite difficult for me to add value as an intern.

Due to the lack of awareness of the intern arrival, management did not really know what to do with us at first. However, we set up meetings at the beginning of the internship in order to discuss personal objectives, which was really helpful and showed us that they cared about us getting what we wanted out of the experience.

Once we had learned the technology basics, it was much easier for them to assign us work (as expected). This meant that the work started to pick up around week 2, as well as assigning us more interesting tasks to do, but I never felt as if I was being overworked or stretched too thin.

Within the last two weeks of the internship, I had the chance to work on a project for a client, which will be going live in a few weeks. This was rewarding as I could see my work being deployed successfully and know that it will actually be useful to my team.

The skills I developed will be invaluable because they result from working in a large firm. Having some idea of how a firm this size functions is really helpful because it can be quite confusing, and I have picked up some technical skills and problem solving abilities which will be good for the future.

The office atmosphere was really good! It was really laid back, and had a very flat structure where I didn't feel as if managers were any different to us, and thus didn't feel scared to approach them for help or give them honest feed back when they requested it. I was also permitted to dress casually which was nice.

The organisation around the internship was rather haphazard. Team members were not told of our arrival, which meant that we didn't have work prepared for us when we arrived, although this was also because it was a holiday season so some of the people who knew we were coming were away.

The company has various training avenues, including Linux Academy. This is good for introductory courses into our internship area, especially as it was quite technical at first and therefore it was often difficult to understand what people were talking about. The original introductory day by the firm, where we were not in office, seemed like a bit of a waste of time.

Initially, due to the lack of organisation around our arrival, I could not see myself working there in the future. However, once the work picked up and I had more of an idea of the teams, I could see a place for myself there in the future. The flat structure in particular is a huge plus.

My actual team and department had a great social scene, and people did their best to welcome interns to their events, but I feel like Graduate Recruitment in particular could have done a lot more to make us feel welcomed. As all the interns are in different departments, we did not see each other and it would be nice to have intern only socials organised by the firm to go to.

As I was located in London, living and socialising costs are incredibly high. The area the office is in is also particularly expensive, however the company provides a lunch subsidy which can be spent in their canteens. This is really good, especially as they have so much choice available across all of their canteens.

I did not utilise the Nightlife much as I did not go out, however I know the area well and know it's good, but as it's London it is really expensive. The early start obviously meant that none of us were really keen to stay out too late, especially as we enjoyed the work.

My team were particularly active- they went for runs during their lunch break and were involved in CSR. I had the chance to work on some diversity scheme and technology communication events, and this was good. However, as the internship is only 4 weeks, sometimes I couldn't attend the events which I had helped plan.