UKI Assurance Intern Review

I have been lucky enough to be in a client's office with my team for the majority of my internship. I would come in and book/send out invites for our daily team meetings and I would then help with a range of tasks. This varied from using EY's audit platform called Canvas to edit and create important documents, contact clients, manage tests of controls and allocate to colleagues from around the world, and many other tasks.

I have enhanced my skills on excel massively. I've gone from being a total beginner to now being confident using excel. As I study accounting at university I went into this role with a very basic and academic based knowledge but now putting it into practice and spending everyday looking at, listening to and dealing with accounting terms and methods, I have definitely gained some practical knowledge/skills which I will use going into my final year.

Yes definitely! On many occasions I have had to arrange calls (and lots of emails) with colleagues in the Manila and India offices to walkthrough different tasks we needed them to do. I have also requested multiple documents and pieces of evidence from our client in order for us as a team to continue with our half-year review (which had a tight deadline). In my penultimate week I was assigned as a preparer for several financial statement tie-outs which needed to be done quickly to be used for the half-year sign off.

When I started my internship I was assigned a buddy who settled me into the office on the first few days whilst I met and go to know my team and other colleagues. I was also given a counsellor who I had 3 meetings with across the 5 weeks of the internship and they were my first point of contact if I had any issues or worries. All members of my team have been extremely supportive as well and took time to not only show me what they wanted me to do but also explain why it was important and answered any queries I had. Everyone is nothing but supportive!

Going into a big-four internship I expected a very intense and intimidating experience. However, from the beginning I have felt continuously supported and welcome by my team and every colleague I've interacted with. Everyone wants to support you and help you learn/develop, it isn't a case of them having to. Having two whole team meetings a day and by being part of a large team I was able to constantly interact with everyone, forming lots of different relationships and this allowed me to relax and have fun in the office with them.

I have loved the internship and really hope to return as a grad in the future. I was surprised at the supportive and relaxed culture within EY due to being a big-four company but at the same time everyone worked very hard which meant I learnt so much. I would recommend to anyone looking to work in audit or any professional service line to try and secure an internship with EY. It's an incredible learning experience where you learn so much about yourself as well as the industry/company and you have fun forming new relationships along the way.

Yes

Make sure you're interested in the service line you're applying for and be prepared that you will have to meet and interact with lots of new people. Prepare for the interviews by looking at current affairs at EY as well as the industry and show that you're interested in them. Make sure to work out your strengths and use these to your advantage and show them off because it's not a long time to be able to get everything about yourself across.