Business and Integration Analyst Review

The Placement Year with Accenture was extremely rewarding and enjoyable. Accenture take the time to introduce you to key members of staff and around the office to ensure that you settle into your role as comfortably as possible. I completed two projects with Accenture during my Placement Year and both were working in a closely-knitted team that provided a great atmosphere to work in. Accenture give you access to learn a lot of technical and fundamental skills that you can carry on through later life.

Accenture has a great office culture. You regularly feel valued by your colleagues, from those both on and off your project. Accenture does a great job in organising regular socials and sports activities so that you can branch out your network and keep yourself busy outside of working hours. I definitely felt that Accenture invests heavily into staff, as a consulting firm should, so that they can provide the highest level of service to clients.

My two supervisors on the two projects were extremely supportive and always willing to lend a helping hand if I was experiencing any issue. Additionally, as mentioned before, Accenture heavily invest in staff. From the outset you are encouraged to apply to have a few mentors who work within the company. One of the great things about the mentor scheme is that you can apply for staff who are in certain sectors / divisions so that you can find someone who works in an area you're interested in and find out more from them.

I was fairly busy on a daily basis, but not to the point where it would affect my personal life. Accenture are very focused on encouraging you to keep to the 9-5 life so that you have enough free-time on your hands to unwind after a working week. I believe that because Accenture were so socially-orientated with members of staff, you are kept busy by doing things outside of the project work itself. For example, socials or virtual coffees.

Gradually, as time went on on my project, I was given more and more responsibility where my supervisors saw fit. By the end of both of my projects I had high responsibilities, but because they gradually increased as time went on, I felt capable enough to take them on in my stride. Whenever I may have felt that the responsibility was too much, my team mates were at hand to help / give their opinion on the matter.

The main skill that I had developed was time management. Accenture helps you to manage your time very well due to their insistence on not working outside of normal working hours. This has been extremely helpful in my final year at University where meeting deadlines are crucial. Another development I made during my Placement Year was confidence. This allowed me to be more vocal in seminars and classes if I wanted to ask certain questions.

The office atmosphere is brilliant, in the sense that there is a very hard working ethic but a chilled out feel in the office. People at Accenture are hard working, but reward themselves by taking regular coffee breaks where they chat to other employees. For some projects you may be working off site and on client office locations, from my experience working for an Oil and Gas client, they are very accommodating to Accenture employees an other consultants.

The Work Placement was very well organised and set up; with a Placement Coordinator Team that gave great structure to the Placement. We were organised in a group of approximately 17 other interns and we were kept in close contact with regular socials and meetings to ensure we were staying in touch. The Placement Coordinators introduced us well into the firm, with Induction sessions spanning across two days. This session allowed us to talk to employees at Accenture and find out more about what working for the firm is like.

As mentioned before, Accenture really care about their workforce and invest in their employees to ensure they deliver a great service to customers. Accenture provide many different socials and societies for you to engage in as outside of work activities. For example, they have a Speakers' Society which runs once every 2 weeks and is all about building up your confidence in public speaking. Also, as mentioned before, Accenture encourage you to 'switch off' at 5:30-6 so that you maintain the work-life balance.

The future employment prospects at Accenture are extremely appealing. Because they have such a large presence across the UK, there are always positions to be filled that you can apply for. The Appraisals occur semi-annually, and this is where your Career Counselor will present the work you've done to the head of your alignment group, and they will decide whether you are worthy of a promotion. In addition, you can also apply to work on projects which are above your level, and in doing this you prove that you are capable at working above your previous bandwith.

Yes, the Placement Coordinator Team regularly arranged socials for fellow placement students / colleagues on a monthly basis so that we stayed in touch and could support each other along the Placement Year. This included activities such as Table Tennis, Go Karting, usually followed by food and drinks. Accenture are very supportive of placement students as they're going through their Placement Year to ensure you are enjoying yourself but also are benefiting from the experience

I worked in the Fenchurch Street office in Central London, which for obvious reasons is quite an expensive area. However I lived in South East London and commuted to the office on a daily basis. The cost of living and socialising is fairly high however it depends on where you are based - you may be based at a client site in the outskirts of London, or further North for example, where the cost of living is lower.

The Nightlife in Fenchurch Street area was great. There were a large amount of pubs, restaurants and clubs around the area that were open all days of the week. I often found that it was great to have a few drinks after work with colleagues during the week. The area is also great if you live a far distance away from the office, as there are a number of different Tube lines you can get from stations nearby, e.g. Bank, Fenchurch Street, Tower Hill, Aldgate etc

Accenture ran a yearly sports weekend which consisted of many different competitive sports that employees could take part in. There were also a plethora of different clubs and societies such as Football, Badminton, Golf, Hockey, Running etc. There were also opportunities for Volunteering, such as helping alotments/gardens in planting trees, or even getting into teaching for kids. Accenture strongly allowed you to develop your personal brand through the range of different activities you could take part in.