Audit Intern Review

The virtual experience was as close to a normal internship experience as EY was possibly able to run. I really enjoyed it and all the student recruitment team who were involved were extremely helpful and the whole event ran smoothly. There were opportunities to get involved on an interactive level and we were able to meet our future colleagues in break out rooms on Microsoft teams which worked really well, and will help us when we work together again in the future.

I felt extremely valued during my time virtually with EY as there was always a task to complete or a session to attend. I was very impressed that there were so many tasks and sessions planned for us instead of being set individual work to read through which is what I had anticipated. Therefore it made it much more interactive and enjoyable as I was able to meet future colleagues and we could bounce our ideas off of one another and develop more interesting points.

Any query any candidate had was resolved very quickly. There were a few issues with the technology, however the dedicated EY team were on hand to help whenever we needed it. When it came to the group task, we were given enough but not too much information so it wasn’t too overwhelming and still encouraged independent and group thinking. We were given e-mail addresses and the facility of a chat box to discuss any queries we had which really helped the overall experience.

I think that the skills I have learnt during this online experience will help me in many aspects of my future life. We practised a wide range of skills such as group work, independent work, creativeness, communication etc. I think that it was evident that EY put in a lot of time and hard work to decide what we were to do on our virtual internship and this was apparent in the skills which we were able to develop.

The virtual experience was very well structured and we were given a timetable for the next day and the end of each day. This is the only aspect of the virtual programme that could have possibly been improved as I believe it would’ve been more useful to receive the timetables more in advance so that we could do any independent research and think of any questions we wanted to ask before joining the session. Other than this, the whole event ran very smoothly.

The atmosphere was very positive and not boring. The range of activities we were able to complete meant that we were not hearing the same information multiple times, but instead we were learning something new with every session we attended. There was opportunity to get involved with the sessions such as a meditation mindfulness activity and a fun quiz to round off the week. There were also sessions where we did have to take on a lot of information and so this was a nice balance between the two.

As the internship was virtual, EY really did invest as much into us as it was possible for them to do. We always had a group of student recruitment employees at hand to help and we had a huge variety of people to talk to and hear from, from new graduate and apprenticeship joiners to partners. It was clear that no expense was spared and EY really did show through this virtual internship that it truly is a people oriented firm.

The virtual placement was very good at giving us an idea of how working for EY would be. We heard from so many different employees who all had different experiences at EY and therefore we were able to gain a very well rounded idea of how it was to work at such a prestigious company. I think that the sessions we took part in were really motivating and have encouraged me to look further into enhancing the skills which I would be practicing daily at EY when I start my graduate scheme.

EY has a very strong culture and this was evident in each session that we took part in. Each member of the company which we spoke to lived and breathed the core values of EY and this was really positive to see as many big firms have a set of core values and don’t actually adhere to them. It was clear that all of the people who we spoke to from EY were very friendly people and it made me less nervous about joining.

All the content which we were provided with gave us the ability to decide whether or not EY was for us, especially because we were able to speak to so many different people, from different roles and different offices. I think this has really helped in deciding what I want from EY in the future as I was able to pick out what I thought I would enjoy and how I could tailor my career to these aspects.

We were given a salary of £17k (if we were working for the whole year) and this was adjusted so that we were paid for just the one week. I thought this was really useful because even though we were working virtually, EY still valued our time from home and wanted to reward this with paying us the same amount that they would have paid us had we been able to attend any EY office.

There were so many opportunities to meet and network with people from EY and also future colleagues. I really enjoyed this and I have been able to connect with a lot of these people on LinkedIn who will be a good point of reference for future questions or work related tasks which I may come across. I think this is a really nice touch from EY as it gives us interns a feeling of optimism and does not make us fearful of interacting with people higher up in the firm.

EY really did such a good job at organising networking and social event opportunities especially due to the impacts of COVID-19. We met a wide range of people and we were able to hear about all of their different experiences which really was invaluable. We were also able to meet our future colleagues which was really useful as we could keep in touch with them before starting the graduate programme which makes it a lot less daunting.

We had a whole session dedicated to learn about activities outside of work that we can get involved in which was really useful to understand that EY is not just dedicated to making sure we enjoy work, but also have a strong work life balance and get involved in any communities which are important to us. I also really liked that EY encourage charity work as this is extremely important to me and I will definitely take part in this in the future.

Definitely.