Corporate Tax Intern Review
by Grant Thornton
This review was submitted over 4 years ago, so some of the information it contains may no longer be relevant.
Rating
-
The Role
3.9
-
The Company
3.7
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The Culture
3.1
- 1. To what extent did you enjoy your work placement or internship?
- 2. To what extent did you feel valued by your colleagues?
- 3. To what extent were you given support and guidance by management/your supervisor(s)?
- 4. How busy were you on a daily basis?
- 5. How much responsibility were you given during your placement?
- 6. To what extent did/will the skills you developed, and training you received, assist you in your degree studies and beyond?
- 7. What was the general atmosphere in your office?
- 8. How well organised was the overall work placement or internship set up?
- 9. In terms of personal training and development, to what extent did the company or firm invest in you?
- 10. What were the perks on your work placement?
- 11. How appealing are future employment prospects within the organisation?
- 12. Was there a good social scene amongst any fellow placement students/colleagues?
- 13. What was the cost of living and socialising in the area you worked in?
- 14. What was the Nightlife like in the area you worked?
- 15. Were there many opportunities to get involved in activities outside of work?
The Role
It was an intersting insight into a totally new field for me. The learning curve was steep, as I had no background in accountancy whatsoever, but you pick it up. The work was different to what I expected and frustrating: the software for tax requires knowledge that you can only gain from being led through it by an associate, this meant you could either do the work set fairly easily or you'd hit a total brick wall that was unscalable without help. It is also not a creative line of work, tax compliance can be interesting but in the words of my colelague 'there is no room for flair'. Doing the job effectively requires perfect replication of, and conformity to, a previously designed process and you don't get into the more interesting advisory work until at least 3+ years in Corporate Tax. That being said the work is satisfying when completed, and you do get to work on a number of varied clients in totally different fields. The hours, when compared with banking etc. , are also excellent (8.30-5 with an hour for lunch) and the accountancy qualification (ACA) you hopefully gain after three years of training is very desirable.
You were doing real work which after review was sent to clients from your first day. There was no sense that they were trying to fill our hours with pointless research etc. Everything we did was the same as the new grads, and we were treated with similar respect and expected to contribute.
If you want to be an accountant do it at Grant Thornton. The office is incredibly friendly, and I was led through any problems I had with the work by execs and AMs who gave up an enormous amount of their time to help and make me feel at home. One of the 'values' of our office was to ask 'great questions': I can certainly say that they expected and encouraged us to ask anyone when we were unsure and that made a difficult learning experience so much easier. There were no unrealistic expectations of us, and they really wanted us to enjoy our time and convince us to join the firm post uni (a very high number of interns get a grad job). Their grad training for the ACA is also famously good, with excellent corporate training facilities at their manor house Bradenham in High Wycombe.
It really depended on how much work the associates and execs had to give me, I had a couple of very slow days and a couple of frantic ones. I never felt stressed and know that there was much less work pressure than those working for the big four.
I was given the same responsibilities as a grad, and if was given a task was expected to do the work to the same standard.
It has definitely made me appreciate the value of a good office environment. More importantly, it has made me think about what kind of career I want and what the characteristics and personality I have mean I need from a career. I am not sure this line of work is for me, but that is not down to the firm (who were nothing but excellent), and the experience of working for a big corporate has been very valuable.
The Company
Excellent, they could not have tried to make me more at home and the seating plan which sits managers in betwen interns and associates creates a really inclusive vibe.
About as well as it could have been done. We were given an introductory day on the firm and then a tutorial on how to use the software the next day. I firmly believe that no amount of training is a substitute for actually doing the work, especially as tax is so fantastically complicated, and this is what GT thought to. You get on with it and there is loads of help available as you go on.
Lots. They are obviously losing money on you in the short term, and the whole internshipis very much set up so that you join as a grad and recoup some of that value back. They gave us a two day presentation skills workshop, with excellent food too :P
Sports and Social Club
Company Parties/Events
As I've said previously, if you want to be an accountant I don't think there is any better place to train
The Culture
One small complaint would be that there were a small number of interns and as the only one not working in audit I was the lone intern in the office basically. After you get to know the team better in a couple of weeks that's not really a problem though.
Pretty expensive but not as bad as london where most of the interns worked.
Was pretty knackered from Uni so didn't really experience much, but there are lots of club/bars/pubs etc.
They had a football tournament and a trip to the races, after work drinks etc.
Details
Internship (1 Month+)
South East
August 2015
