Summer Internship Programme - FS Assurance Review

On a day-to-day basis, I would work with my engagement team to prepare for the half year review for the client we were working on. As part of this role, the senior members of the team would introduce me to a task that needed to be done and walk me through how to do it and if I had any questions, before I would work towards completing the task. As well as this, there was a weekly session where we participated in certificate learning for leadership skills and during each week, we had to organise our schedule so that we completed 4 hours towards the certificate learning ourselves, around our time working on our engagement with the client.

One of the main skills I developed was leadership through the certificate learning sessions and work that was set through that. Although I didn't have much of an opportunity to implement my leadership skills, the theory that we learned will be extremely useful for us when we start working full time. I also developed communication skills, as through hybrid working, some of my time was spent working from home and so I had to learn to communicate better online rather than face to face.

A lot of the work that I did was briefly introduced to me before I had to go away and complete it on my own. Even though this did feel like a lot of responsibility, there was always members of the team I could ask questions too if I got stuck and all work completed does get reviewed by senior members before getting signed off officially which made handling the responsibility a lot easier. With the work, I was also given deadlines and was expected to manage my own time to fit everything in which was a different type of responsibility itself.

I received a lot of support. There were always members of the team that I could go to if I was stuck with the work that I was doing or needed something explaining or clarified. As well as this, we were provided with a buddy and a counsellor who were available for us to help us with more general issues, and if we had any issues with the internship or wanted to get something out of it that we hadn't already then we could go the them for help.

The company culture was really welcoming and friendly. A lot of people who I wasn't directly working with made the effort to welcome me and introduce themselves. As well as this, there were a few social events that gave me the chance to network and get to meet people in various other teams. This allowed me to get a much better understanding of how people find working at the company, as well as how they find their role.

I enjoyed the internship to a large extent. I felt that I fitted well in the company culture and that the team I mainly worked with was extremely helpful and one that I enjoyed working with. The work itself was quite interesting, although sometimes it felt like that there wasn't that much to do regarding work for the engagement team. I came in with the expectation that the majority of people who work there would be a lot more experienced but there were a lot of people who were only a couple of years older than me. I feel like this helped me settle in quicker as they could help me better as they were in my position not too long ago. I would definitely go back if given the opportunity.

Yes

My advice for the interview and assessment centre would be to relax and be yourself. As for preparing for day one, again, be relaxed as if there are any issues or things that you are unsure about, there are lots of people that you can ask and they would rather you ask questions, regardless of how silly the question seems, than be stuck on your own. Before my first day, I would have liked to know that dress for your day means you can wear jeans and a t-shirt with trainers, you don't have to wear smart clothes.