Tax intern Review

The virtual experience was an extremely valuable one to me. It was full of guest speakers from different areas of EY (recruitment, health, indirect tax, partners) and gave me a good insight into the values and culture of the firm. I felt like the team had tried extremely hard to make it interesting and interactive despite the circumstances (COVID-19) and I massively appreciate them running the internship despite this. All the speakers and organisers were well spoken and engaging people, who I very more enjoyed learning from.

Due to it only being one week, I did not feel like I was able to add much value to the firm or do any work that was valuable to them, due to my lack of experience in tax. However at a personal level I learnt a lot from them about tax and EY, and I felt welcomed and supported by the team. I could tell it meant a lot to them that we were engaged and participating.

There was a lot of guidance and support. The team were always on call or an email a way if we required any help. They gave clear agendas for the day and instructions on what we should be doing. A genuinely extremely helpful and supportive recruitment team, and my tax mentor too offered constant support, even following the work experience.

I feel more confident interacting and engaging with new people now. I've also developed my teamwork skills further whilst working on a tax case study alongside 5 other interns. I also improved my presentation skills when I presented my findings virtually to the group.

Very well structured. Clear timetable every single day. Breaks incorporated throughout the day so we didn't feel burnt out. Sometimes there wasn't enough to fill each time slot but that was understandable considering they had to come up with virtual content.

All the interns seemed very positive and keen to develop and improve, which made it a pleasant environment to learn. Cannot fault the organisers of the experience; they had a constant enthusiastic presence. Extremely grateful for their effort.

I felt like they made a conscious effort to teach us all more about EY and further our knowledge of the firm so if I do work there the following year I will be able to hit the ground running. They gave presentations on health, mindfulness, presentation skills, and team management, from a variety of guest speakers. All these tips will aid my personal growth and development and I'll be able to apply them to my professional life.

I don't think the virtual experience reflected what it'd be like to work day to day at EY, purely because we weren't given proper work relating to tax since it was only a week long. Also at EY we would be spending a considerable amount of time studying initially when joining. But the positive environment we learnt in I think would be reflected if we worked at EY full time, as would the support from the network of professionals.

A lot of the guest speakers talked about the company culture and how positive and supportive it was. The fact so many mentioned this was their favourite thing about EY really promoted EY to me. I think culture and being surrounded by like-minded and friendly work colleagues greatly improves work life so I feel positively about joining this culture. They also seem to put a great significance on mental health which again I'm very pleased about.

We were able to meet many guest speakers. Some from recruitment, some from indirect tax, ITTS tax, People advisory services and so forth. We were also able to meet people from EY networks such as the women's network and the unity network. They all encouraged us to add them on Linked In. I also added many of my fellow interns on Linked In so I definitely feel like I was able to expand my network.

We were able to network and meet other interns however the social events were limited due to Covid 19 and the social distancing measures in place. During the case study work, I was able to work alongside 5 other interns on microsoft teams to produce a piece of work so this enabled us to get to know each other well. I would've loved to have been able to meet the other interns face to face and it's unfortunate this wasn't possible.

There seemed to be a lot of opportunities at EY to connect with fellow employees. There are networks (women's network, Unity, Health, Embrace) which run seminars and social events. There are also sports clubs you can join at EY. They also have a charity EY foundation which you can get involved in: this encourages young disadvantaged people to apply for EY and runs events to help them improve their soft and technical skills. A great thing to get involved with.

I would definitely recommend it. It's a difficult experience to get on to with many rounds of application, however I think it was extremely rewarding to get onto it and to be able to work with such a global firm. EY seem very invested in their interns and put a lot of effort into creating a valuable engaging experience for them. It's a great opportunity to network and meet employees at EY. I feel very positively about the experience.