Audit Associate Review

I enjoyed working with Grant Thornton as it allowed me to gain a lot of experience in accounting and they have great social events which is a great way to meet people all across the firm. Though I personally found that during specific times of my placement (depending on jobs) I was very stressed due to the demands of the job.

From the first day you start working with Grant Thornton you are immersed not only into the specific office but also the teams you will work with during particular jobs. They appreciate you are sometimes doing the more tedious jobs on their behalf and therefore they value you help. Moreover, you are part of a time straight away and your role is important in helping the whole time succeed to meet deadlines.

We received 1/2 of days training during our first week on the onboarding experience, but I personally found that this was training for the more admin sides of the job, for example; timesheets and holiday requests. I found that the job training itself started when you were on clients site. Though this originally felt that i had just been pushed into the deep end without much advice, it was a great way to learn quickly and I found that everyone in GT was more than happy with any questions you had.

The demands of the role changed depending on the specific job you were booked to at the time. Sometimes it was a very 8:30 - 5pm which meant you were able to socialise in the evenings, but it was more 'normal' for it to be more demanding were more hours were required. This meant it was quite hard to have a social life during the week as time demands were irregular as senior members and clients would change deadlines regularly.

When you start at Grant Thornton you have a 1 week onboarding experience and then you are on clients sites or in the office booked to jobs on Monday of week 2. This meant that right from the start you were working with clients and were responsible for completing particular sections of the job and working professionally. It is a very client facing role which means it helps if you are fairly confident as you have the responsibility to speak to the client a lot.

With the 12 months I have spent working with Grant Thornton, I have learned a lot about accounting and audit process because I started with very little understanding. Therefore, I have massively developed accounting skills throughout my placement. Though I do not necessary think these will support during my degree studies as it is not related to my subject. However, if I am offered and decided to come back for a graduate job then this experience will have been very worthwhile.

The atmosphere is the office is very positive. Because placements start in June you get to take part in all of the planned summer events and meet a lot of the members in the office. These events helped a lot because it is not normal to have a lot of your colleagues in the office as most of the time is spent on client site. Therefore it was good to meet everyone in a positive atmosphere before working together on site. Plus there are multiple events throughout the whole year which consists of quizzes, end of month drinks, football tournaments and even paintballing.

At the start of the placement I don't think the training was as supportive as it could have been and I personally felt a bit lost during my first couple of months. But once i started learning how the job worked and was able to complete testing independently this helped me to feel more positive. Thus, the set up of being treated like any other colleague was great as it meant you had the full experience.

Grant Thornton had changed their policy a couple years before I started which meant that as a placement you do not sit any exams towards your qualification. This meant that unlike other firms (the big 4) your work did not necessary help your long term development, as you were not allowed or supported to sit the first year of an ACA qualification. Moreover, the year does not count towards your time qualification and therefore I found it was quite hard to understand the 'purpose' of the placement year at GT.

I personally would like to take a graduate job with Grant Thornton because I really enjoyed the atmosphere and thought the company itself has a very good social side. But unlike other placements which my friends have undertaken (in a range of roles from accounting to supply chain), GT do not provide any 'incentive' to come back to the firm. Due to not sitting the first year of ACA or an monetary incentive there is not a additional purpose of coming back. That being said, I enjoyed my placement because of the atmosphere and would consider coming back despite essentially having to be a first year again.

There was a good social scheme among all of the other colleagues in the office. At my office there were a lot of social events which were organised by the sports and social committee which were very fun to attend. This meant that you started to build good relationships with all of your colleagues.

I was able to live at home with my parents during the placement year which meant I could save a lot of money. The cost of socialising in the area were we worked was fairly cheap and most of the events arranged by Grant Thornton were good value, for example going to watch the darts or end of month drinks.

I cannot really comment on the nightlife because I did not go on a night out. Rather most of the events were in pubs or cocktail places nearby.

There was a good social scheme among all of the other colleagues in the office. At my office there were a lot of social events which were organised by the sports and social committee which were very fun to attend. This meant that you started to build good relationships with all of your colleagues. Therefore there was a lot of opportunities to get involved in outside of work.