Consulting Analyst Review

I have very much enjoyed my placement with Accenture and would thoroughly recommend it as as company to work for. The work is interesting and diverse and my collegues are great! My only criticism would be the lack of autonomy given to interns at the inception of a project. You often have to push very hard to be given intellectually challenging work which can sometimes means the tasks you are given can get a little dull. That said, if you push hard and prove you are capable responsibility certainly follows.

I felt highly valued by my collegues. They immediately welcommed me to the team and were quick to priase when I produced good work. Likewise, there were regular team socials i.e. drinks and breakfasts which build strong relationships between team members.

I had a fairly unsual experience during my first role as I had three different line managers in three months. This meant at times I felt like I had little or no support from management during the roll-on roll-off process This was undoubtedly the most challenging time of my placement. That said, once my line managers were on the project they were incredibly supportive and always happy to help.

This varied significantly over the duration of my project. For the first couple of months I was very busy, more often that not, working from about 8:15am until 7pm with very little chance to have lunch. However, as the project progressed and the team grew the workload fell meaning hours dropped to around 8:30am until 6:00pm with a lunch break.

Once I had proven myself capable I was given significant responsibility. I was often asked to produce work directly for senior team members/ the client. Likewise, I was given freedom to work independently with little managerial guidance/prompting, again, once I had proven myself capable.

Academincally I dont think the skills I have learnt during my placement will have any real benefit as there is little to no cross over. I think the real benefits will be in my personsal development - I have built in confidence and developed my communication skills which I have no doubt will benefit me going forward.

The atmosphere is brilliant - people are always very friendly and fun. We had a relatively small team but we all got on very well which made the days fly by. That said, the team was also very capable of getting there heads down and producing excellent work when we were up against it. Regular team socials further strengthened the office dynamic - every couple of weeks we went on team drinks/breakfasts. These were always well attended and enjoyed by the everyone. In terms of the wider Accenture office, I was only there at most once a week, but even then, it was clear that the whole company shared a similar dynamic to my immediate team. People are always smiley and chatty which makes the office a very nice place to be.

The internship was excellently run. It began with an induction week which had clearly been planned right through to the finest detail. There were talks from excellent external speakers, onboarding tasks, training as well as an induction week competition. This was a team based task which mirrored the work of a management consultant. This competition was excellently run and felt oddly realistic. The latter parts of the internship were as well run as the first week. I never had any issues, even when moving between roles. As and when I had a query about the internship the HR team with quick to answer.

This I feel is something that Accenture could invest in further. I received very limited training throughout my internship which I was disappointed in. From what I gather, you are meant to undertake additional training whilst on the bench however, as interns we were expected to have no bench time, this in turn meant no time to do any training. If I were to recommend one thing to the organisers of Accenture internships it would be to rethink this system significantly.

I am currently only halfway through my internship but future employment opportunities with them are looking very good. I have received positive feedback from my first project recommending that I should receive a graduate role. On previous years I know that the vast majority of interns received a graduate role following the internship reinforcing my beliefs that a graduate position is achievable.

There was a good social scene but this was independent of the work done by Accenture. I already knew a number of interns when joining Acceture as we are all from the same degree course. We socialised unofficially very regularly. That said, there have been no intern socials events during my time at Accenture so far. If I was returning as a graduate where there were new joiners from a range of backgrounds/universities I would expect a stronger focus on socials.

I live in elephant and castle which is within walking distance of the office. For London, this is fairly affordable (£650 a month excl. bills). Socialising is relatively expensive but that is to be expected in central London. I would advise that the Accenture placement salary is enough to support a basic London lifestyle but there is limited scope to save on top of this.