Audit summer vacation Review

Really enjoyed my placement - such a good experience. Learnt a lot and I recommend this to other students in my position. It is the perfect opportunity to get an insight into the company and get a good grasp of what audit and being an accountant is all about.

I did feel valued, in each team they gave me genuine work that was used in the final audit. I felt like I was contributing and that they did appreciate my being there.

In every team I worked in everybody, from graduate to senior manager, was more than happy to answer questions and help me with my work. They all maintained that they would rather you ask questions than sit there confused and do wrong work.

When out on client sites there was always more than enough work, plenty of opportunities to get involved in the work. However a few days were spent in the office and then there was not much work to be done. As an intern its inevitable the amount of work is limited, due to you having no technical knowledge. However, there is always online training that can be done when there is no work available.

From day 1 I was given work that was going to be used in an audit. I was pleasantly surprised with the amount of responsibility given to me. I moved teams each week, and a few times a member of the team from the previous week got hold of me asking to send work I did from the previous week, or explain something - this confirms to me that the work I was given was of actual use to them.

I learnt so much during my internship and of course these will assist me in the future. A few examples would be professionalism - will help me in any future job. An insight into corporate culture will help me in a future job and help me decide whether I want to work in this industry. Time management will help me in my last year of studies.

The general atmosphere in the office is friendly and relaxed. People work hard, but they always have time to joke around. Also everyone goes for lunch together in the team, this was a really nice touch - this leads to people getting to know each other better. On a client site, we would be in our own audit room, the team would be smaller but it would still be relaxed and fun.

The internship was well organised. I was very impressed with the amount of client interaction, I knew which client/teams I was assigned to from the start of the internship. I would say though that they could let interns know a bit more in advance where they had to be. Sometimes it was left until the weekend before getting a message about where I was meant to go on Monday morning.

Within 30 minutes of arriving on my first day I had a laptop and was fully set up online, I was very impressed with this and I think KPMG do invest a lot in training and development. There was plenty of training online I could do. Also speaking to grads that I worked with they were always talking about training days that they were scheduled to go on.

Really appealing future prospects. There is a clear path set out by KPMG and it is explained to you from the start. You are observed during the whole 4 weeks, and if you perform well then they will offer you a partner interview which in turn could lead to a grad job. After spending 4 weeks here you really buy into the culture and a job with KPMG is very appealing.

In the teams working at clients they try to arrange after work drinks - this happens a lot more at London-based clients. In the office we went for a pub lunch with colleagues. During my time there, my department organised a summer BBQ which was shared between London and Reading offices - this was really good.

Cost of living in Reading is pretty reasonable, it is a lot cheaper than London.

There is strong potential for good nightlife in Reading, but during the summer there are no students and so it was not as busy.

As mentioned above I got invited to the Summer BBQ for my department. In London there seem to be a lot more opportunities than in a regional office, such as sports clubs and after work drinks seem to be a more common occurrence. This is a downside to working in a regional office I think.