Intern Review

I am part of a team auditing a clients financial information. This involves testing the financial statements to ensure they are accurate and in order to identify any misstatements. Day to day I work on documents which are essentially testing the accuracy of a companies financial statements. There are many ways that this is tested and we use an EY Audit Platform to structure our work. This can include (but is not limited to) testing samples, checking information to companies house, liaising with the client and creating forms. Day to day I work closely with my immediate team (other staff and seniors) and occasionally with managers. I have also had interactions bringing questions to clients and liaising with them.

I have developed my excel skills massively, using the platform everyday. There are internal training videos which are elective to help you improve on this area. I have also improved my understanding of a companies financials as a whole and at the beginning of placement sat the first 2 ICAS exams. From this I developed my accounting skills (having never studied it before) significantly. More generally, I have grown in confidence in regard to business acumen and interacting within a professional work environment.

I believe I was given a fair amount of responsibility. Essentially, I took on the same role as a first year graduate would have (I am an IP Placement student). In Audit all work is reviewed in an upward chain. I undertook creating working papers and documents from scratch and then worked with seniors above me to improve the work I was doing. I was also given responsibility to talk to and interact with clients.

I believe I received a fair amount of support. I worked closely with my team and always felt like I could ask for help when needed. Work wise I feel like support is good and you get a buddy and a counsellor when you first arrive. I didn't really speak to my buddy but your counselor is in charge of collecting your feedback and I met with him a fair few times throughout the year.

The general atmosphere in the EY office was good. However for 4 months of my placement (busy season) I was at the client office. Here, the atmosphere was not good, busy season is high pressure and stressful with long hours and I felt that this was reflected in the atmosphere. I feel like the culture overall is good but there could have been more information on how to access certain networks that are advertised when you look at the careers pages online.

For me, I found that the busy season (January to April) very hard. Working long hours everyday with very little time for out of work activities had a negative impact on me during the four months and afterwards. Personally, I don't find the type of work performed fulfilling. However, on the upside - I enjoyed the ICAS exams we sat at the start and completing the studying with the other interns. Overall, I haven't felt satisfied during my placement and haven't really enjoyed many working days.

No

Make sure you research the role and expectations beforehand as well as the upsides and downsides of working for such a big company. EY certainly has great exit opportunities but make sure you have chosen the service line that suits you most so that you can get the most out of your employment. If you know anyone who works at EY or a big 4 maybe speak to them to gauge an idea of the work/life balance, culture, day to day tasks etc.