Associate Review

I enjoyed all aspects of my internship. I found the day-to-day work interesting and engaging, especially cause I was working on one client for the entire five weeks. I enjoyed getting a deepe understanding and knowledge base of that client and how Ernst and Young assisted them. I particularly enjoyed the social events too. This allowed me to build on my networks and meet new people.

My team were very supportive, and always gave me help when I needed it. I didn't feel intimidated or shy when talking them or asking for help on subjects that would be basic to them. Whilst they always gave me heaps of praise and recognition for the work I did, they also pointed out my areas for improvement, which thus allowed me to improve for my further tasks.

My counselling manager was actually working on then same client as me, so I would regularly see them, and they were great at having an informal chat, asking me how it was going etc. A couple of times they would join in some of my conference calls, to give my support and guidance, just to ensure I didn't get stuck or become out of my depth.

There was a good balance of business throughout the five weeks. Personally, I like to be kept busy and working hard, so I enjoyed getting into work early in the mornings, and staying late at night to finish tasks and meet deadlines. There were extremely few times when I would have "downtime", where my manager had not allocated me any work

My responsibility progressed during my internship.I enjoyed because in the first few weeks I could learn about EY and the client, without having to take on much responsiblity, as I was mainly helping my team members with their tasks. Yet near the end of my internship, I began to take ownership of important tasks. I would regularly go and see the client on my own, and meet with them without any heklp from my team.

The skills and training I received were mainly in finace and accounting, and so they won't help me a great deal in the remainder of my degree, as it is purely economics, no finance. However the accounting skills I have picked up are useful in both everyday life and for when I start EY as a graduate. The most important skills I feel I developed were my people skills, and they will be essential for the rest of my life.

There was a lively and enthusiastic atmosphere within the office. Colleagues were generally laughing and joking when the team was not as busy, but when there were deadlines to meet and tasks to be done, the atmosphere became very serious and hard-working, which was required in that type of environment.

Seamless, definitely. There were plenty of organised social events by the SIP team, and they had put alot of time and effort into our induction, which was good fun to meet new people and start building networks. The only downside was that I didn't have a partner shadowing arranged, but I think that was due to a busy department, not the SIP team.

I felt the company invested time and effort of its current staff to help train me. They would spend alot of time helping and guiding me when they could have been working on other projects.

I received a job offer, about a week after I finished my internship. On the whole, the EY employment prospects do seem very promising, as on the induction we were told that were enough jobs for all the interns and that they hire us if they thought we were good enough. This make it seem less like a competition scenario between fellow interns.

The social events were perfect, and there was at least one per week. These were excellent opportunities to carry on building networks, and meeting new people, from different universities across the country. It was also pleasing to see that a lot of events were organised by fellow interns themselves, showing how proactive our peers were.

For me, I stayed in a relative's flat, so the cost of living was fairly cheap. However for those less fortunate, I imagine the cost of living was high and extortionate, as the office was in inner-city London.

The nightlife was good, with it being London. It is quite expensive though, for drinks and entry etc, but that is the same anywhere in London, and you get what you pay for. As we only worked in the week, there was lots of opportuinites at the weekend to explore the nightlife.

We attended an extra-curriculur fair, where we were informed about all the different sports clubs and societies that were on offfer at EY should we join them as a graduate. This was very informative, and we were told that if there is an activity that isn't already set up, then we can easily set up a society ourselves. On the final day of our internship we had a CSR day at a local environment volunteering centre. EY told us that all staff can have two CSR days a year, so there are lots of chances to get involved in charity work and volunteering.