EY Leadership Academy Review

The EY Leadership Academy was one of the most enjoyable experiences of my life thus far! It was full of insightful discussions and activities oriented around developing my skills as a leader and person.

The group size of 24 meant the atmosphere was personal enough to speak with each other and EY's employees. Despite the relatively short but intense nature of the programme (3 days), we all came together as a team and left very much as close friends.

The nature of the programme is designed to focus around you and your skills as a leader, so ,naturally, the programme does well in supporting your development and guiding you through a period of self-study. Feedback was very important throughout the course and we were always encouraged to both give and receive it amicably - there was even a session on the last day where, as a team, you had the chance to openly share your thoughts on the programme and recognise each individual's efforts whilst giving them tips/feedback for improvement.

The skills I developed on this programme have already been extremely useful to me in my everyday life and I'm convinced they will continue to do so for a little while yet! I honed my skills as a 'leader', was able to identify some of my strengths including those latent strengths and overdone, and perhaps most importantly, learned of the value of teamwork and sharing ideas - one of EY's modus operandi!

The programme was very well structured and organised, there was focus on your skills: as a leader, team player and within an organisation like EY. We completed a range of challenging activities and still had time to spare for the fun in the evenings!

The insight struck a wonderful balance between the more formal work (challenging activities, group presentations and team discussions) and informal, fun evenings!

The EY Leadership Academy aims to attract the best future leaders and so it was clear they valued us and were prepared to invest in our development.

The programme is designed more to develop your personal skills as a leader and team player than an insight into a specific service line and role within the firm. Nonetheless, there were countless opportunities to ask questions about the different roles and positions on offer at EY.

The programme was able to bring to the fore certain traits and ways of working associated with the EY culture. For example: teamwork, an open mind, feedback, structured discussions and a focus on strengths were just some of the elements emphasised in this programme, all of which are synonymous with EY.

This Leadership Academy helped convince me that EY was the place I wanted to go after graduating! The people are what makes the firm, and I believe no other employer exemplifies this core value better than EY.

I was reimbursed expenses including travel, accommodation and food.

There were facilitators as part of the programme who were always more than happy to share their views and experiences with EY - one even stayed-up late every night speaking with students until 2am and was first down in the morning... talk about dedication! One of the dinners involved networking with Managers and Partners from across the firm.

Fantastic! I don't want to spoil the surprise, but be warned, the evening activities are a lot of fun!

The programme didn't touch on this very much, but I was still able to ask the facilitators and HR representative about opportunities available outside of work.

Absolutely! There are few other programmes available to 1st and penultimate year university students around the world that are as rewarding - both personally and professionally - as the EY Leadership Academy.