Public Sector Audit Intern Review

I enjoyed weeks where I had the opportunity to work at clients, and enjoyed getting to know colleagues and clients, and felt that by a couple of weeks into the internship I was doing 'proper' work and gaining a very good idea of what the job entails and understanding the businesses I was auditing. However I felt that there were a couple of weeks where I was given very repetitive tasks to do, and there were some days where there was simply very little to do.

Although it is difficult to get to know everyone in 8 weeks, everyone was very friendly and I was always invited to lunch and to socials. I had a welcome lunch with the department and people were generally accommodating, and willing to explain things to me.

I think this was lacking a bit - although I was allocated a manager to look over me I had very little contact with her, and because no-one was directly responsible for me this was a bit of an issue. The graduate recruitment team were relatively helpful when contacted but I think they could have done with instigating things more - e.g. they initially said they would be in touch with us after a couple of weeks to ask about how things were going, if we wanted to have a day in another department etc. but this didn't happen and took a while when I did get into contact. I didn't get any feedback from managers on my performance either.

For about half the internship I was busy - the work/hours were never excessive, but sometimes I was given very boring tasks and/or no real work at all. In general I think I was fairly suitably busy - there were very few days where I had nothing to do, it was just that some of the tasks were very menial (e.g. spending 2 days checking numbers on a single spreadsheet against numbers provided in annual reports.)

I felt that I was given a manageable amount of responsibility - I got to go to meetings with clients and go to talk to them myself, as well as being given tasks that permanent graduate employees of the company would be given, but I never felt stressed in the course of the placement.

If I continue in auditing then they will be very useful indeed; and even in another career in business I have learned a lot about how businesses operate and also my general IT, especially Excel, skills have improved a lot.

There were a couple of socials over the course of my internship, and everyone goes for lunch together which is good fun. I think the atmosphere was good in general. Part of auditing is that you are at clients a lot so some of the clients have nicer atmospheres than others, and when there are very few people on a job then it can get a bit more dull, but knowing you are part of a wider team through socials and being at different clients with different people helps to counteract this.

Well organised in general although I had very little communication between my internship offer and the beginning of the internship apart from a hurried phone call about 3 days before it started to check I had actually received their emails. Mostly good though - had people to ask questions to, the department was clearly used to having interns and knew what to do with them, and the structure of having a final job interview at the end is particularly good (although thought there was too much pressure to stay in the department / office I had done the placement in - people were very unwilling to discuss changes to this and it took a lot of pushing to get an interview in a different office - for anyone who wants to move from regional offices to the London office, it is possible but less easy than you might think as London is far more popular.)

Colleagues invested in me I felt, and this was helped by the fact that staying on in your department after you graduate is a real possibility at KPMG. Didn't really get any training - maybe something they could think about would be a couple of days intensive intro to accounting (we had a 3 hour session on the first day but for those who have never done it before it is still very unfamiliar after this).

I think the company treats its employees well although some were quite negative about the job itself which does tend to put you off a bit. The company definitely appeals, although audit itself was slightly less appealing and most people in audit seem to think the other departments are more interesting / exciting.

We went out for drinks, and also did a community service day together, but unfortunately I hardly ever saw them in general as we were all put in different departments. We did have a dinner halfway through the placement though, which was really nice and a good opportunity to catch up with people.

The city I was placed in is not too expensive and I was living at home, meaning that it worked out as very cost effective. Most people either lived at home or in their uni accommodation so I don't think it was very expensive for anyone.

The pubs are very good - I enjoyed drinks with colleague and the other interns - and there are a lot of clubs that aren't expensive.

There was a department fun day on one afternoon, and other opportunities like going out for drinks were nice. Nothing much apart from that, but I think most people would see family and friends at the weekend so there was no need for more.