SVS student placement Review

I did a rotation, and really enjoyed one half of the rotation but not the other. But overall it was still a good experience.

In my first rotation (tax) I felt valued and like I was actually contributing, however in audit I felt like I wasn't valued and was slowly the audit process down and I was an inconvenience

Yet again, in the first rotation I felt like I had a lot of support and people had a lot of time to help and make sure I didn't feel overwhelmed. In the second rotation there was a lot of pressure on the whole team and nobody really had the time to give me any support.

Most of the time I felt like I had the right amount of work to do. Sometimes there was a lot and sometimes there wasn't very much but obviously the level of my abilities was low, so I wasn't really expecting to get a lot of work given to me.

I was given quite a lot of responsibility and was very aware of it. I had to speak to and meet clients and was very much treated as a normal Deloitte employee.

The skills I developed were time management, team working and learning to communicate with clients. These skills will be very useful in my career, however for the time being, they probably won't have the biggest influence on the way I complete my degree.

In tax, the atmosphere in the office was lovely. People were friendly and helpful and a lot of cake was brought in (although I'm sure that's not the same in every office). The set up was good so that juniors would sit alongside more senior colleagues and I think that removes a lot of awkwardness and barriers of approaching more senior people for help. In audit however, most people are out at client sites a lot of the time. This means the office is mostly empty and the juniors are separated from the managers. At times, I was the only person in the junior audit area, which didn't make for the greatest of office atmospheres.

Very well, it was clear that it had been well organised and structured. The only difficulty I had with it was some external security checks that are performed before you start, where the people were unhelpful at best. But the induction was amazing, the offices were very prepared for us to be there and champions and buddies were really helpful and easy to contact and talk to.

Deloitte's regional induction consisted of the first week solely being about personal training. We spent the first 4 days in Birmingham which was really nice and challenging and it was very clear that they had decided we were good enough and that they definitely wanted us to be there. We then had 2 days in our offices training and getting to know people. It was obvious that Deloitte were willing to invest in us for the 7 weeks, even if we didn't want to join after the placement.

There is a clear structure, it is well paid and it is very clear that Deloitte are really willing to invest a lot into its employees. They also pay for you to do your ACA which is amazing. It does push people quite hard, but if you want that kind of challenge then it would be enjoyable for you.

We were on different rotations so there wasn't too many times we were all in the office together, but when were all together it was really good and we all went out for lunch together and to the pub etc. There does seem to be a nice atmosphere between the junior members that attend college together. I wasn't able to experience much of this as I was there over summer and quite a lot of people were on holiday. There are also sports teams you can get invovled in.

Living in Cambridge doesn't seem too expensive by comparison to other places. I commuted into Cambridge so unsure of that though. And again socialising, I'm not sure. It doesn't seem too expensive if you go to the right places.

I've heard it's pretty good, but I didn't get a chance to go unfortunately.

I know there is definitely more to get involved in if you join properly. Since we were only there for a short amount of time there wasn't many available. Although someone else joined the 5-a-side football team for a couple of matches while he was on placement, so there is definitely opportunity there.