Summer Intern Review

As a summer intern in assurance, I got the privilege of working with a wide range of clients from the government and public sector. My roles and responsibilities as an intern were to gather and produce meeting board minutes, calculate future pension earnings, bank reconciliation drafts, overall analytical reviews comprising of balance sheets and comprehensive income and expenditure schedules. EY has a fantastic people culture; I got the opportunity to meet and engage with likeminded individuals including senior management and partners of the firm. I gained valuable insights into the professional working world whilst developing on my personal and interpersonal skills. This was a fantastic opportunity to learn and develop new skills that will aid me in my future career in finance.

EY really prides itself as a people’s firm, by having the opportunity to work from the office I got to meet new people every day, learning from their experience and expertise. I certainly developed on my personal communication skills at the office by engaging with different service line members and communicating effectively with clients to ensure that the best quality service was provided always. I have learnt new skills such as analytical skills, for example, producing year-end financial statements, ensuring they were true and fair.

Yes, every morning I had meetings with my team to discuss the previous days work and to allocate the days tasks and reasonability’s. I was constantly pushed into doing new things and using new software systems that EY uses for its audits. In my first week I got the opportunity to take lead on a client call, where usually it would be third year graduates who have this responsibility. Throughout my internship, I worked with 5 different clients simultaneously, I’m grateful of having that exposure and experience interacting with so many people.

Before my internship started I was assigned a buddy, who was a first year graduate, they reached out to me so I could ask any questions about the role or EY before I even started. On my first day I was assigned a counsellor who was a more senior member of the team, we scheduled weekly catch up meetings, if I had any issues or things I wanted to bring up I could bring that up in a safe open environment.

The company culture is really great, as a new starter and intern I did not know anything, whether that was from the software use to accounting. People in my team and my office were really happy and pleased to offer a help in hand, they really want to share their experience and expertise with everyone. The culture is really built on a safe and open minded environment. The work life balance is perfect, whether if you want to work from home you have that option, but also if you want to be in the office 5 days a week, you also have that opportunity.

I absolutely loved my internship, I got to meet new likeminded professional people, learn new skills and really build a foundation of my brand and future career. I was welcomed into the team, everybody was really friendly and helpful. I got given tasks that pushed my abilities, put me out of my comfort zone and that stimulated my intellectual curiosity. There were many social engagements inside and outside of work, which was really fun to interact with new people and enjoy social time together.

Yes

Do it, apply for it now! If you're unsure about applying, just send off the initial application and see how far you get through the testing phase out of curiosity. If you get to assessment day great, just enjoy it, and if not then use it as a learning experience for the next application you do go through. Research a bit about the company before any interview, it shows you have commercial and business awareness and you stay up to date with current trends.