Audit Assistant (Summer Student) Review

I have really enjoyed my time at KPMG. The staff are great and will encourage you to take on responsibility quickly, and support you throughout.

The staff at my office were some of the nicest people I have ever met. They took time to explain things to you, and they came back to you with insightful feedback afterwards.

As I am not doing an accountancy based course, I was nervous that I would not be as useful to staff as other interns. However, supervisors take time to make sure you understand what you are doing, and encourage you to ask any questions you need (no matter how trivial they may be). I have been able to accomplish tasks that I would not have had the chance to do, and even built up my confidence enough to voluterily take on more responsibility in some areas.

Summer is the slow time of year for Audit, as most companies have a year end in December. This has meant that there have been some slow days. They key thing has been to actively search for how you can apply yourself. If you are a proactive person, then you will have no trouble keeping occupying yourself, and you may find that some of the more interesting tasks are found this way, as I did.

I was responsible at several stages of projects I was involved in. From doing reseach into potential new clients, to performing my own tests towards audits. But I always had support, should I need to ask about anything.

Although not relevent to my degree, there are a significant amount of 'soft-skills' instilled and develeoped throughout the summer, which will be invaluable to studies and in future careers.

The atmostphere in the office was great! 7 members of my office, incluing myself and 2 other interns, climbed Ben Nevis this summer through one lunchtime conversation and one of the partners took part in the icebucket challenge for charity. There was a definite emphisis on 'work hard, play hard' and everyone is in the spirit of that.

There were times when I wasn't sure who to talk to about certain things (mostly administrational) but asking anyone in the office meant that I soon found the right person. The interns in the office mostly agreed that we were never quite sure who was 'responsible' for us (in terms of setting us up, asking logistiacal questions ect.) but there were not too many occasions where it was necessary to have someone.

There was only half a day of training, after the overall induction for all interns, which did not prove to be very useful, although it gave an interesting insight into other areas of Auditing, and will probably be more useful for graduate roles of a longer duration. There is a lot of software used, and it would have been good to have more of an induction on that, as that was the area I found took up most of my supervisors time explaining to me. Most informal training was from supervisors out at client sites, and was useful because there was a real life example in front of you to have a go on.

Very appealing. Overall a great company that appears to look after its staff well, and provide a wealth of learning opportunites.

3 interns went with other staff members to climb Ben Nevis, as well as being invited to a number of house-warmings, leaving parties and department awy-days. The other interns were lovely, and I really enjoyed spending the summer with them.

Aberdeen is very expensive to find accomodation in, but living costs are pretty average, depending on your social activites.

Aberdeen has a nice district of bars and pubs, but also quite a strong student night scene.

There were sports teams, charity events and weekend trips arranged in the office, and a good number of people wanting to get involved.