Assurance Associate Review

I very much enjoyed my placement, the people I worked with were supportive and I learnt a lot and was given a lot of responsibility from day one.

It depended on the teams you worked in but on a whole I felt when I worked very hard it was always recognised and rewarded.

Ernst & Young has an excellent support system with a buddy a couple of years older than you to guide you and an individual counsellor at manager level. My counsellor was excellent and always helped encourage me and helped me to build on my weaker areas and challenge myself.

During January to April I was extremely busy with average 11 hour days however this is to be expected in Audit. The times which were worse were when first starting as starting with lots of other new employees there was very little to do at some periods.

From my first job I was given the responsibility of going straight out and speaking to clients, and new work on different areas, although there was a lot of responsibility there was always someone to help and ask questions to at each step.

In terms of degree studies doing accounting and finance at university the job will definitely help put the theory into context. Many skills such as the ability to communicate well and ask lots of questions, work effectively in a team and analytical skills should continue to assist me in my degree studies and beyond.

Everyone worked hard but everyone in the teams I worked with always got on very well and encouraged each other. There were many work socials and team meals to get to know everyone outside of work as well.

It was very well organised in terms of training and getting to know everyone and what you were doing, the only thing that could of been better is to have some more to do when first starting as many people were unassigned at this time.

There was a week of audit training at the beginning, and then through the year various training sessions such as industry specific training, presentational skills, writing skills and more audit training.

Signed the contract 2 weeks after we finished for a graduate role with them.

There are many placement students at Ernst & Young and so we would all go out together at least every other week, the company also set up many events for all offices placement students to come together. We had a week induction at the start where everyone got to know each other which included bowling, go karting and CSR day as well as going out. We also had paintballing, christmas parties and a year end boat cruise on the thames.

I lived at home in Essex so the cost of living for me was cheap, in terms of socialising this was expensive but you are paid more in a London office.

The nightlife was very good, there was always something to do afterwork, many bars and clubs and a complete mixture of different places to choose from.

There was also many things arranged outside of work such as sports teams and events for charities.