Assurance Intern Review

Over the 5 weeks in the Assurance team, I completed lots of different tasks. These included speaking to clients to gain important documents that were needed for the audit, completing minutes and summaries for colleagues and internal CMI training for which we gained certifications for after completion. The role involved working with the team as a whole and certain members to ensure that you had work to complete and were able to get constructive feedback about the quality of your work.

Over the time, I definitely improved most on my technical skills on excel. Excel is used a large amount in the audit sector and being comfortable with this is important although of course people are happy to help if you are stuck. I also improved on my communication skills through working with the clients directly and understanding the correct way of interacting with them to maintain business relations and ensure that we were able to get the documentation and understandings needed.

I was given responsibility during my internship however, as I was not highly skilled or knowledgeable about audit and assurance there of course was limits to how much responsibility that I could be given. Before any work is submitted to the hierarchy, there are reviews that are done and so if I made mistakes, I was able to receive feedback and correct these before submitting. Speaking directly to the client was probably the highest degree of responsibility during the time and is probably the correct level of responsibility too.

During the time, we were allocated buddies that we were able to gain support from and ask any 'silly' questions to during the time. Also, the team members were all really friendly and were more than happy to help me with any problems I had over the time. Furthermore, when you are completing tasks for people, they will often lay out simply what your job is to do and be open to any further questions that you may have had.

The people are what make EY such a good company to work for. There is a friendly and welcoming culture amongst all teams and members of staff, which is made even better by the socials that are held on a regular basis for team bonding and morale boosts. Also, people are always open to help you, no matter your position or role, they will happily make time to ensure that you are comfortable and feel a part of the team.

I did enjoy the internship as a whole. There were some days where I did not have a lot of work to do which may sound positive however this made those days less interesting. As we are not qualified or knowledgeable, it is understandable that a lot of the longer admin kind of tasks were handed to us which can some times be a little monotonous however, they have to be done by someone! The people were great and are the reason that the company is so good.

Yes

Take the opportunities that are offered and ensure that you atleast show your face at any social events so that people can connect with you and vice versa. EY has a great reputation worldwide and so even getting the internship is a really big deal and with the potential of a graduate offer at the end of it, it is crucial to work hard and be proactive in asking for extra work to complete when you have spare time.