Student Review

The Leadership Academy has been one of the most useful and insightful experiences I have had in my early professional career as I clarify what kind of young professional I would like to be. I have thoroughly enjoyed learning more about how I lead myself and how others lead; as well as spending time with people I have never met before and getting their feedback on what I am like as a leader.

With such a selective group of individuals chosen for the academy, I felt very valued in the fact that I was one of 29 fellow students. The time spent before the academy on the organisation of out travel, and the easter egg and book sent out made me feel like the company really valued my participation in the program. This was added to in the program with regular feedback and coaching sessions, which made me feel like the company were interested in developing me as a person.

More than I could have expected! The feedback and coaching sessions were a lot more regular than I had anticipated but it has really made me value the results I get from reflecting on my performance and the team as a whole. This was definitely helped by the ratio of students to facilitators in order to be able to give us this time and coaching.

The academy really taught me how to appreciate other personalities and their style of leading and stress so in any environment I go into now, I can analyse other people's strengths and use them to the best capability of the team in the situation, whether that is in group work at university of in the work place.

Very well structured, with very busy days and opportunities to network and socialise in the evenings. Everyone knew what was going on at what time, and the organisation before the event really helped structure the academy and let the activities go smoothly.

Very enthusiastic and encouraging. We were heavily encouraged to experiment with our leadership styles, and I really enjoyed the supportive feedback I received. However from having little down-time outside of the evenings, on some mornings people seemed a bit tired, but enthusiastic activities helped that out.

All four days of this academy were dedicated to our personal development and not pushing us into the company. My facilitator invested a lot of time in my personal development through the detailed feedback and coaching processes. The program was developed in such a way that all the leadership activities and discussions I participated in can be used in my future career.

Meeting all the people from EY was the greatest insight into what it would be like to have a full time role with the company, as who I am working with is a very important aspect of the company I want to work for. All the students selected for the program and the facilitators I met were people I would enjoy working and socialising with. All the EY employees were so approachable and always willing to offer coaching and advice. This gave me the insight that EY employees really believed in helping others develop and EY was a company very focused on people. Talking to EY employees gave me the insight that in a full time role at EY, I would receive a large amount of feedback and mentoring to keep developing myself as a young professional.

EY's culture was very evident in the employees I met. Not only were all the facilitators open, honest and approachable; they were also driven, ambitious and passionate about the services they offer and the projects they have been involved in. This told me how EY wants to employ these kinds of innovative people to push the company forward in working to improve the world we live in. The company's culture seemed to me to be very relationship based internally and with clients.

The most valuable experience I had in deciding my future career path was meeting Jon at the Partner Dinner. As a graduate he had a fresh insight into EY and the different service lines, and after listening to my interests, motivations and skills he gave me a different perspective on how I could best use these in a career with EY and stressed the importance of a professional qualification. He emphasised to me how supportive EY was to all graduates. When talking to Jon, it never felt like he was selling me EY. Instead he was very open with his experiences and his future career plans and took the time to give me solid advice to consider.

I was reimbursed travel expenses.

The main opportunity to meet other EY employees outside of the selected facilitators was at the Partner Dinner. But in both sessions and down time, the facilitators were always available to talk about EY, their experiences or offer advice as they got to know us better individually.

The main networking event (the Partner Dinner) was very well organised as every table had a facilitator, 5-6 students and 2 other EY employees who had travelled to the hotel for the event. This gave everyone the opportunity to speak to another EY employee and get another perspective, as well as giving me the opportunity to ask more specific questions on how I would fit into the company and the aspects of EY I was very interested in. It was great that half way through the dinner, the EY employees rotated tables so everyone got to speak to a range of EY employees in a broad range of service lines. The socialising events I really enjoyed were the percussion session and the BBQ. The percussion session really bought the group together in creating music, even if you were not musical. And the BBQ was a really nice ice-breaker on the first evening, giving everyone the opportunity to mingle in a more relaxed environment and find out more about each other.

This was one of the specific questions I vocalised when we were asked on the first day what we wanted to find out about EY during the program. It was only briefly covered to the whole group when the facilitators introduced themselves and said what they enjoyed to do outside of work. But as it was something I was keen to find out, I asked some of the facilitators what activities they were encouraged to participate in outside of work by EY. So although I learnt more about this, the group as a whole did not.

Absolutely, The program was focused on developing you as a leader and understanding more about leading a team effectively. The activities and discussions I participated in could all be applied to a broad range of business situations, and this will be invaluable in my future career. On top of this, I thoroughly enjoyed meeting such a diverse group of new people and making friends I will stay in contact with. The time and effort put into my personal development by all EY employees just showed how much they cared on helping us become better leaders of the future.