Finance Rotational Intern Review

I rotated around different departments within the EMEA finance shared service centre. I spent 6 months in financial reporting, completing tasks such as journal posting, journal validation and one of tasks. I also spend 3 month in both accounts payable and accounts receivable. AR involved looking after a group of customers, and my daily tasks consisted of order releases, chasing payments, printing off copy invoices and answering queries. I also completed the invoice and statement runs. In AP, I processed invoices and audited expense claims. I also got overview of the payment run and new suppliers. I supported internal controls throughout, playing a key role in the deferred revenue process, revenue adjustment and price change samples. I also helped every department in audit requests.

Yes. Excel, and gained knowledge and skills within software such as Oracle, Cognos and Baan. I have developed my teamwork, time management, resilience and presentation skills. I have also learnt professional skills, such as networking and how to write and act professionally.

Overall, I struggled to gain extra responsibilities during my internship. Outside of the 3 main responsibilities of my role, it was difficult to gain anything extra, and when I did it tended to be one off odd jobs, nothing permeant. This meant I was chasing people for work. However, the roles I did have were business critical and very satisfactory once completed. I think this is due to the rotational nature of the role, and depends on the department, as transactional services were alot better at giving me responsibility. Outside of the role there was lots of opportunities to gain responsibilities, including in the intern projects, helping to hire our replacements and the mentoring programme. However, the understanding of how the departments function and link together outweighed this for me.

Everyone within the shared service centre, and CooperVision as a whole were incredibly enthusiastic and supportive when ever I needed help, even with stupid questions. I was also given a mentor from a different department, who supported me with my soft skill development. She (she ran the intern group) was always there to support anything we needed.

The company culture is very friendly and enthusiastic, and the core values are seen throughout the offices and people. The culture in financial reporting is very independent working, with very few opportunities for collaboration. However, everyone you speak to is very friendly and it is a nice atmosphere to work in. Transactional services is quite bubbly and work as a team more but again, everyone is super friendly.

I enjoyed my placement to a large extent. Other than the few points I have mentioned my year has been incredibly enjoyable and I have learnt so much. The intern group really makes it, and the supportiveness of everyone is key. I am really glad I took my placement with CooperVision.

Yes

Be yourself and super friendly. Focus on competency questions. The marketing and logistics internships seem good if you are looking for travel and having access to senior staff, however the finance internships provide the financial knowledge you need for a career in finance.