Audit Associate Review

I really enjoyed my time with Grant Thornton. What I enjoyed the most was the people who I worked with. Everyone was so lovely and likeminded to myself and it helped to create a really positive and supportive working environment. I also enjoyed the exposure I gained to lots of different businesses and sectors.

I felt valued by the people directly above me but not so much by higher up colleagues such as managers and partners. There were often times where managers wouldn't thank you for working overtime but just assume you wold do it which wasn't great. However, my immediate colleagues on my team were always grateful for my contributions which was good to see.

Grant Thornton have a good training program and environment within the team. There is usually time put in for training and coaching from your peers when you are working on a client which is nice. I will say that you have to be quite confident and make sure to ask questions when you're stuck. There is a lot to learn and no one expect you to understand audit within your first few months.

Work load varied a lot during my placements. Sometimes I would have days where I'd be working a lot of extra hours and had a seemingly endless list of things to do where as other days I'd have nothing to do all day. However, I think this is something GT are trying to improve and the last half of my placement had a much better work balance I would say.

I was given a lot more responsibility early on that I was expecting which was good to see. You're treated exactly the same as the grads which is nice. I will say that later down the line, you have to ask for exposure to more complicated sections of the audit if you want to learn these but the team and managers are always happy to say yes. So overall the level of responsibility was really great.

I wouldn't say it helped much with my degree as I'm studying Maths which doesn't have much to do with audit. However, the soft skills that I've learnt this year are really valuable. I've learnt leadership, teamwork, coaching, communication, agility, determination and time management to name just a few! Thus I'm really pleased with the level of skills I have developed.

The office had a really good atmosphere. We have a sports and social committee made up of associates which you can join where they organised lots of fun activities like end of month drinks, summer and Christmas parties, advent calendars and Easter eggs, board game nights, a trip to watch the darts, really something for everyone! And we are all really encouraged to get involved which is good to see.

It was very organised in general. Grant Thornton have placement students every year so they knew exactly what they were doing. I had quarterly formal check ins with my manager as well as monthly catch ups to check how I was doing. Equally, we were encouraged to set and work towards goals during the year.

To a fair extent. I will say that the graduates and school leavers did receive more training particularly book learning such as accounting basics like double entry. This was mainly because they were sitting professional exams along side their studies which were not an option for placement students which is a shame. However we were still allowed to participate in some of the training which was always really fun as we when to this residential manor house.

Really good so far, I'm hoping to get a graduate job offer! They make this a very available option to everyone so it's good that they offer this. I believe all my peers will also get a job offer also. We are monitored and assessed by a feedback system where your colleagues comment on your performance during the year.

I was one of two placement students and the other girl has grown to become a really good friend. Equally, we started at a similar time to all the graduates and school leavers which was really nice as we had quite a big peer group. I've genuinely made best friends for life through the company!

It was about average. I was lucky enough to live at home and commute in which wasn't too pricey but we would often have socials in and around London which could get expensive. Though these were often expensed or at least partly subsidised by Grant Thornton, so overall I would say average.