Summer Intern Review

Overall great experience, the team around me was really supportive and tried their best to give me engaging work that would allow me to gain a good understanding of how tax works. There's good opportunities to socialise with colleagues, and the office has a great and supportive atmosphere overall, EY has a culture for being people focussed and it was really evident during my time.

I was given a good amount of work by the people I was working with and they really appreciated my work when I did it. I was treated as just another member of the team rather than someone who effectively had a lower hierarchy than anyone else in the office. Some of the more senior members of the team didn't make much of an effort to interact with me, but they are very busy a lot of the time so it is understandable.

I had a buddy which was an informal relationship with a graduate and a more formal and senior counsellor. Both them and the rest of the team were really supportive, consistently asking how I was getting on and if I had enough work to do. My buddy also spent a full 5 hours talking me through how to do a computation (tax return) off his own back when he had a very bust schedule, just so I could get a full learning experience. The rest of the team were also great at providing support whenever I asked for it.

Really varied, there were a couple of weeks in the middle where I was constantly busy with various tasks on-going for different members of the team. This was good as it gave me some real experience with how to manage my time and prioritise work to ensure I could meet any deadlines. Other times I could be quite quiet, but that was just the office as a whole with it being the summer, and people did their best to give me work whenever possible.

I was often given work on genuine projects that were dealing with clients. Obviously this was all reviewed by more senior members of staff, but that is to be expected as the clients would probably be paying a lot of money for the services being provided. However, this review process was really useful anyway as the colleague reviewing it would talk me through why any changes needed to made if they did.

Time management was definitely a skill I improved upon, when I was busy I had to really think about how to prioritise tasks and allocate enough time to everything I was doing. Attendance at client meetings meant that I also got to see how Partner's and Directors handled themselves around clients, and this is something I know I will try to emulate going forward in my career. Also I learnt how to be a lot more meticulous in the work you do, EY have high standards of your work, and the process of reviewing my own work rigorously is also something I will take forward.

The atmosphere in the office on the whole is very good and laid back with people being approachable and friendly. It can be quite quiet at times but that might be because people are busy and working towards deadlines or out the office at client site. My team was quite large and sociable so if you did fancy a chat there would probably be someone willing to join you.

Generally a good system with the support networks in place and a 3 day induction at the start where you get to meet interns from across the country and get a general overview of how the company operates and their expectations. EY have a national team who's job is literally just to run the internship programme so any questions you may have are answered immediately.

EY invest a hell of a lot in their internship programmes, the level of help from the teams that they provide in an opportunity cost way of thinking costs them a heck of a lot. They look to ensure that you are learning as much about your service line as possible, with everyone looking to support you with that. I also spent a day in another service line, with EY being completely okay with the fact that I wanted to see if I was interested in another sector, they're aware of how young you are and that your career path isn't set in stone.

I personally am not sure about whether tax itself is for me, but I have not ruled it out as an option. EY are clearly a fantastic company to work for and the training programme that is given to you in the first 3 years is very well respected and opens a lot of doors.

Drinks happened every Friday with most of the junior members of staff coming along for that, the interns across the service lines also met up a lot to have lunch together and we also went out for drinks too. The only slight downside is that Birmingham is a slightly older office in general which means people aren't as sociable as in offices where there are a lot more people who are first and second year grads who tend to go out most.

Birmingham isn't outrageously expensive, but it is not as cheap as many northern cities. Bus tickets are £4 a day and a pint near the office tended to be £4 or more too, although if you went a bit away from the business areas it would be a bit cheaper. Other interns renting nearby were paying £100-£150 per week.

Birmingham has a fantastic nightlife and in some ways better than London with nearly as much variety and not as expensive.

I went on weekly runs with some of the other guys from my team, could also have played football but decided not to for the 6 weeks.