Auditor Review

The internship exceeded my already high expectations. If you thrive off challenges, change and enjoy working at different client’s sites, you will love KPMG’s audit internship.

Everyone in the Plymouth office was very friendly and treated you as a new graduate. If you think that you will be making coffee all the time in your internship, then apply to Starbucks. With KPMG you are placed in a position of responsibility straight away and treated as one of the team the moment that you walk through the door.

My mentor, despite having a busy workload as an associate manager, always had time to sit down and help me with any issues. He was fantastic.

On client’s sites, there was always lots of work to do and one of the skills that I develop was to manage my time effectively by undertaking several pieces of work at the same time.

One of the highlights of the internship was undertaking a stock take at a client’s site on my own and being responsible for the write-up and testing. You will be treated as a new graduate and given responsibility straight away.

The ability to undertake several pieces of work at the same time will definitely improve my time management skills in my last year. However, the most significant benefit was being able to work on numerous different client sites in different industries. I worked on several middle-market firms and got to understand how their businesses operated. If you are undertaking a business or economics-related degree, then I can assure you that after your internship at KPMG you will find it far easier to apply and analyse theoretical perspectives.

Before starting my internship, I thought that I would commute to work from my house in Exeter and then once the internship finished, apply for a graduate job in the London office. However, the office atmosphere makes work enjoyable. Everyone is extremely friendly, polite and always has time to talk to you regardless of their hierarchical role. By the end of the internship, I loved the Plymouth office so much that my heart was set on getting a job there.

The starter pack could have been more informative but I raised this issue and then I got told that I could work on improving it for new graduates arriving this September, which was fun and interesting. It highlights KPMG’s culture of continual improvement and being able to choose what you want to work on.

Colleagues always had time to help you with any problems or questions that arose. When you’re a graduate they heavily invest in your training and subsequently have extremely high pass rates for the professional qualification exams.

On my final day I had a presentation and interview. Within 2 hours I received a job offer, which I gratefully accepted.

The social side to the office was great. We went for casual drinks after work some Fridays and even after the internship finished, I was invited to the socials and I’m still in contact with the office. I would argue that the social side is definitely a major advantage of working in one of the smaller, regional offices

Plymouth is a low-cost area to live and socialise, in comparison to other cities across the country.

Plymouth is safe area to socialise on a night out-from what I’ve heard. As I commuted from Exeter, I tended not to go out clubbing/partying in Plymouth, which makes this question difficult to answer.

Absolutely, I’ve been invited to a Halloween ball in October and a social on the 30th of September. A surfing trip with a few colleagues is also in the pipeline. At KPMG, you also make opportunities, so if you want to arrange a social, go for it.