Summer Internship Programme Review

Very pleasant and social, friendly work atmosphere.

EY hosts a quality social environment - staff are always talking to each other and hanging out after work; teams frequently hold discussions to plan out work; and people dig deeper than work-related topics to build solid relationships with each other. You really can walk up to anybody (as long as they are not busy) and ask to have a chat / coffee with them.

Staff very willing to answer any questions you may have and will take time to explain concepts / discuss commercial topics / talk about their own career paths and interests

Some tasks can take a while to complete and you may end up spending up to 2 days completing a single assignment. But given that its the summer, audit tends to be quite quiet and not stressful at all.

A fair deal in terms of the type of tasks I was assigned to do - my work was directly input into the audit system as I learned more about the process. Given that it was a small team in insurance audit, the responsibilities were greater and broader in scope, such as reviewing and summarizing the board minutes for the client.

Improved my excel skills and attention to detail (double- and triple-checking work is of great use); gained a good understanding of audit and the value it brings to clients; what improved most was my commercial awareness as I spent plenty of time reading about the client, the industry, and wider economic trends affecting them such as regulation and the Eurozone situation. In the end, the most valuable part of my experience was the time I got to spend making connection and talking with senior staff in all kinds of different divisions at EY, learning about their experiences and why they chose that service line. This was very influential in shaping my career plans and yields (as expected) a lot more insight than any career fair or presentation.

Very social and relaxed environment; staff respectful of employees from all different kinds of backgrounds

Very well organised. It was made clear what was expected of us as we went through the internship programme and information about full-time offer processes was made explicit early on. More information about how we were to be assessed on performance reviews would have been helpful.

Lots of time from my counsellor to talk about my work and my career plans; a great deal of time from my colleagues explaining tasks to me and telling me about their own experiences - all these together improved my commercial awareness and my understanding of audit.

Very enjoyable and friendly atmosphere where everyone is willing to talk to you. Will definitely be pursuing a job with them in the future.

Much of my team was older, so there was not much interaction outside work. I would go out with other interns in the office almost everyday for lunch. We also got to work a lot with each other on CSR projects throughout the placement which provided a fair deal of interaction.

Edinburgh is very affordable compared to where I have lived before (New York and London) and the prices for living and socialising were very reasonable. It is an entirely walkable city and the restaurants / museums / cultural scene are all top notch.

Not much for going out at night, but lots of great pubs and decent clubs to go out.

A CSR project was presented to the interns as a challenge to raise more money for a local charity than the other Scottish offices. This provided a fair deal of interaction outside of work-related activities (we baked cookies and brownies together for a bake sale).