Summer Intern - Assurance Review

Day to day, working as an audit intern involves performing standard audit procedures for work on real clients. You work on multiple clients over the 5 weeks and are required to get in contact with your senior for each job for work every day. Usually these are tasks that the graduates perform, and sometimes there is a graduate in the team who will give you work and any help you need. You are given responsibility for the tasks you complete, however nothing you do goes to the client straight away - it is always reviewed by usually two other people so you can feel comfortable with the work but also trusted by the team with the responsibility.

Prior to starting my internship, I knew nothing about accounting or audit as I don't come from an accounting background, so everything I have learned throughout the 5 weeks in terms of audit has been new. I have also developed my knowledge of the business world and processes, in particular I have learned how to effectively use Microsoft Excel and Teams in a business setting. The company also enrolled us in a management training programme which was very beneficial.

During the placement, interns were given the responsibility to complete tasks alone, but were given full training on how to complete the task before starting and knew that we could get in touch with our senior at any point if we had any questions and they would talk us through how to complete the task. I was given the same responsibility as a graduate, having to sign off work to be reviewed by managers and also be exposed to real client calls.

We were talked through every new task before starting it, with access to last year's documents to give us an idea of how the work was performed previously if necessary. We were also encouraged to ask questions and knew we were always able to go to our senior if there was ever something we didn't understand. We were assigned a buddy who was there to support us especially at the beginning to help acquaint us with the office and the technology. We were also assigned a counsellor who we could contact about our personal development, and knew we could get in touch with any of these people at any point.

The company has a very collaborative culture and I was pleasantly surprised with how friendly everyone is. We were able to network with people at all levels, from school-leavers to partners, and everybody was equally as friendly and willing to chat about the company and the work that they do. We also had 3 formal socials throughout the internship, and one social that was organised for all level 1 employees, and there are sports clubs and networks that you can join. As well as this, throughout the internship we were encouraged to organise a charity event to raise money for the company charity, which was a great way to get to know the other interns better.

I have hugely enjoyed the internship, as everyone I came into contact with was incredibly friendly and I have earned so much about audit and the corporate world in general. My team, buddy and counsellor were very supportive and the company's culture of collaboration and helping each other out is very successful. The company exceeds my expectations massively, as I was expecting the corporate world to be quite formal and everyone is so much more open than I expected. I definitely hope to return to this company in the future.

Yes

The interview process is based more on whether they feel you would be a good fit with the company than your education, so don't be discouraged from applying. The assessment centres put you into real-life scenarios that you may come into contact with during the internship, and the only mathematical knowledge I needed to have for the assessment centre is an understanding of percentage increase and decrease. For day one, they don't say you need anything but a basic knowledge of excel is definitely helpful.