Senior Associate Review

Recently promoted to Senior Associate. Daily tasks consist of meeting with clients, asking questions about their financial statements and performing substantive testing on balances they want us as auditors to review or account lines in their financial statements. Responsibilities are changing in that I am now taking a more senior role in many of the audit with more reliance being put on me by managers and clients. I also have to assist in the mentoring of new joiners to the department.

I am studying for the ACA qualification with the ICAEW and have sat 8 of the 15 exams. There are mandatory training courses run within the firm which must be completed as regulatory requirements and there are firm training courses to ensure staff are all up to date on responsibilities. There are also optional courses that can be enrolled on to for further training. From starting at Deloitte, I have developed client interaction skills and grown in confidence in talking to new people or confrontational client staff. Time management is also important to develop whilst working and managing peoples expectation of the work you are doing. Something new is learnt all the time from computer skills to personal skills which are useful in any role.

The company has a good environment with highly qualified staff who have good people skills. On joining I was made to feel welcome and able to ask questions of my seniors. Work teams are typically depend on which clients you are working on as some teams are much bigger than others; however you rarely work with the same people all the time as you change on to different projects. The work is engaging and can be very interesting and challenging. There is however a lot of tasks which are repetitive and time consuming which is something I hope will be changing soon.

This depends on who you are working as different team members. Internal recognition depends really on how well you stand out which can be tough as there are usually 20 people joining at once so differentiating yourself can be tough. I have on occasion been complimented on my work by the client who informed a partner in my office as well which was very nice and something I hope to achieve as often as possible. Due to the way the performance review process works it can feel as though you are undervalued as a member of staff.

The structure of the Brightstart course was very poor when I joined and it took me just over a year to find out what the actual progression plan was for the brightstarts. This is partially because I joined in the first year of the course however I feel that it was still not very clear. Support structures at the firm are good and training support is good as well.

We gain access to a good college, each department has a manager in charge of exams who you can contact and there is an overall exams manager. Upon joining you are also assigned a "buddy" who you can contact in your first months at work. There is also your appraiser who you can approach with questions.

Please see the above.

There are many social activities to get involved in within the department and the firm as a whole.

Yes

It is a good place to start your career

There is a lot of useful information on line about the application process and interview techniques. For interviews I would say it is best to do mock interviews and practice answering random questions about various subjects and your own competencies, it also helps you to present yourself better.