Assurance Summer Intern Review

I thoroughly enjoyed my internship and found it to be an exciting part of my summer. During the six weeks I was able to travel to a variety of clients and work with different team members who were all extremely welcoming. I gained a significant amount of technical accounting knowledge and my decision to pursue a career in accounting post-graduation was confirmed.

I felt valued by all colleagues from Associates to Partners, and found all to be extremely welcoming and willing to share their experiences, this felt very special. I also felt that my work was appreciated by all of the team members I worked with and that the work I was carrying out on different audits was genuinely important to the business.

The first week of the internship was spent training at a residential induction followed by an induction at the local office. There were some questions and learning material to read prior to the start. During this period basic knowledge was accumulated that would be needed during the first client visit at the start of the second week. Subsequently, all the training was ‘on the job’ and involved coaching from colleagues when at client sites, this training was effective. I found everyone to be very helpful in this respect, it was easy to learn quickly (coming from a non-accounting background) and I never felt concerned about asking questions.

I was booked to clients every day of my internship, and spent the vast majority of my time away from the base office. There was never any shortage of work whenever I was at a client. Days passed quickly and I learnt a tremendous amount in a relatively short time.

I was positively surprised by the amount of responsibility given to me during my internship. From the start of the second week I travelled to clients and met with other team members at client’s sites. As I became increasingly confident in working with clients alone I was able to do so.

As I am not studying for an Accounting degree the internship is unlikely to specifically assist my degree (Economics). However, the skills I have learnt such as building strong relationships and communicating effectively have been extremely useful in furthering my more general business knowledge and are sure to help me in my future career.

The Swansea office is small, and the general atmosphere was extremely friendly and had a very positive attitude. The size of the office made it possible to get to know the majority of people based there. However, I spent the majority of my internship working at client sites in much smaller audit teams, the members of these teams were also extremely welcoming and ready to share knowledge and advice.

The internship was well planned and I was consistently busy throughout the duration. It began with a week of induction training, half of this residential and the rest of the week spent at the base office. For the rest of the internship I was booked to many different clients, this filled the majority of the time. I then spent the final day gathering my feedback and reviewing my internship as a whole. Throughout the internship a competition took place between all interns with the finalists competing in London in the final week.

A high level of importance is placed on the training and development of interns. Prior to the start of the six weeks all the interns were given ‘Pre-course work’ to complete before the residential induction. The first week was purely spent training, partially at a residential induction and then at the Swansea office. After this, training was mainly ‘on the job’, this involved gaining extra knowledge as I was assigned new tasks. Various online courses were also available.

The internship allowed me to gain a great insight into what Assurance would be like as a graduate Associate. I gained this through the work I completed and through talking to the current graduates. Future prospects are attractive and clearly structured. I hope to receive an offer post internship for the graduate scheme. The graduate scheme would give me the opportunity to study for the ACA qualification.

Initially all of the interns met at the residential induction event, this was a great way to network with others from across the country and discuss our expectations from the internship. Although I was the only intern in the Swansea office I kept in touch with others from across the region and we organised a night in Cardiff and often met for lunch or drinks after work.

I found the cost of living in Swansea to be relatively low. However, accommodation in certain areas such as the seafront was relatively expensive.

Being a university city, the Swansea nightlife was good and the town centre was always busy at the weekend. The larger city of Cardiff is easy to get to, and it has an excellent range of sporting, entertainment and nightlife venues.

There were a number of opportunities available outside of work. This included meeting with the other interns from across the region as well as attending month end drinks. Social events are regularly held for all members of the office.