Discover EY Review

The 2 days at EY were very enjoyable. The office was beautiful and the people who worked at the company and everyone else taking part in the placement were very friendly and made the insight enjoyable. However, the first day was very full on with a lot of presentations, so by the end of the day I felt very drained and that was the only part of the 2 days that was not enjoyable.

On numerous occasions the staff at EY told us how grateful they were that we all took time out to apply for the placement and how lucky we were to get onto it considering how many people applied. They also mentioned upcoming positions and future internships that they would like us all to apply for which made us feel like they wanted us to be retained in the company, which made us feel incredible valued

On Day 1 we received lots of guidance and support. There was always someone around that was talking to us and we were always able to ask any questions that we had, which meant we were constantly guided and supported through our first day of learning about Tax and Assurance. On Day 2 we carried out a project in smaller groups and due to the learning that we took part in on the first day, this meant that we were able to know what we had to do as we just had to apply the knowledge we had learned. Each group was also allocated an EY employee who stayed with us all day and meant that we could ask questions if we were unsure of what to do and also gave us support and direction which provided us with confidence in the work we were carrying out.

Some of the skills that I learnt and improved on during my few days at EY included time management, communication skills and also networking skills. Time management is an essential task that will benefit me in my studies for my degree because it will mean that I can manage the time I spend on my different modules more evenly and also help to ensure I spread all my revision out effectively. The communication skills that I learnt will help my professional career when I am older as we had to talk to clients and this meant that we had to be professional at all times. This skill cannot be easily transferred to my degree as there isn't much communication involved in my degree. Networking is not something that I have ever done before and therefore being able to do this for the first time was incredibly helpful and insightful as it will allow me to stay in touch with EY employees so in the future I will be able to keep up to date with what is going on in the business and have links. Many of the skills we leant would help us with our future careers after our degrees however not many of them are easily transferable to my degree and maybe this is something that can be looked at further so that the programme could be a bit more relevant to our degrees.

The insight was incredibly structured. We all received a plan of our couple of days so that we were aware of what we would be getting up to and the timings of each task we would be doing. The only downside would be how busy the 2 days were. This was good because it meant that we could get the most of the placement and our 2 days at EY however they were very full on and tiring so a couple of extra breaks could have been helpful, or on the first day a change of scenery would have split the day up a bit more because we were sat in the same room for the majority of the day.

The atmosphere during the insight was very positive because everyone was thrilled to be on the programme so were happy and to be there and this showed in their attitudes. The staff were also enthusiastic about the programme and clearly believed in it and this created a lovely and welcoming environment where we felt appreciated.

We got taught a lot about the company and the roles that are carried out in some of the departments and this trained us to know what the company was like and what people did there, however we didn't learn how to do anything in great detail and therefore we would not be able to carry out any of the roles an EY employee would by ourselves, however, considering we were only there for 2 days, we did learn a great deal. On the second day we received a great deal of peer feedback on how we did in the project, and this provided us all with something's that we did very strongly and also other areas where we could develop our skills a bit more, and this meant that we went home with skills to work on and develop ourselves even further, so this was very helpful.

The insight didn't help me to understand this very well as we didn't work alongside any of the employees or take part in a usual day of work. Instead, we mainly had presentations of what each different department does, so we didn't get a clear idea of a usual day as we didn't take part in one. Despite this, when we took part in the project, this gave us a very basic idea of the role someone who worked in either Tax or Assurance would have, but it still didn't provide us with the knowledge of what a normal day is like.

The insight helped me to understand that the company culture is incredibly friendly and helpful and would be a very pleasant environment to work in in the future. We learnt this through the amount of different EY employees we got the chance to speak to and how positively they all spoke of the culture of the organisation.

The insight provided us with what roles are carried out in Tax and Assurance and also in the different sub sections that come under these departments. This meant that the programme allowed us to work out which of these sections, if any, we could see ourselves working in in the future or enjoyed the most so provided us with a clear direction of where we want our future career path to go. This was made possible because of the numerous different tasks we undertook in all of these departments which made us knowledgeable of what it would be like to work in these departments.

We were not paid, however we were reimbursed any travel expenses up to £100 which was plenty as we were made aware of our space on the programme a couple of months in advance so we could book our travel cheaply. Also if your travel time was nearing 2 hours then they put you up in a hotel for 2 nights which meant that you didn't have to travel home or pay for your own hotel.

There were constant opportunities to network during the placement which was very useful and helpful. During every break we had there were always numerous employees from different departments standing amongst everyone that we were able to talk to and were easily approachable and friendly. On the first day we also went out for dinner and many of the EY staff joined us, There were 25 people taking part in the programme and almost 20 employees were sat amongst us which meant there were plenty of people to network with and talk to from all different levels of the business.

The networking and social events that were available to us were very enjoyable and not at all awkward or uncomfortable. This was very beneficial as it meant we could talk to the employees on a one to one basis and can continue to network and stay in touch with them beyond the programme.

We got told about all the social events in which the employees take part in and also found out about all the extra curricular clubs that are available to employees such as numerous sports teams which would allow you to meet even more people across the company and develop further relationships with them.

I would recommend this placement to all my friends on my course at university because everything that we learnt will be relevant to our future careers and the programme will also help them to decide if EY is a company they wish to work for in the future. I would not recommend the insight to all of my friends however as I feel the programme was very specialised to finance and therefore would not be beneficial to everyone, however some of the skills learned and developed would be useful to everyone.