smart futures intern Review

I was a smart futures intern for 3 weeks. we did skill developing activities e.g case study day, dragons den, sessions on improving skills like communication and feedback, projects and presentations. The last week I worked with the Luton council, in the assurance service line. I was checking all the calculations in the statements of accounts, testing and checking the data is correctly matched to the right detail.

I gained a CMI level 2 in leadership qualification. on the first day I did IT training, during the first 2 weeks I developed communication skills, giving effective feedback, presentation skills, being able to networking, team leading skills, business writing, how to coach, entrepreneurship, confidence, public speaking and time management. understood what all the EY service lines are and what employees do in the service line and knowing the EY values.

I enjoyed making new friends and networking with employees from EY and others firms that we visited e.g. Baker and McKenzie and William Lea Tag. The skills I developed the most was presentation skills and public speaking, which I was not comfortable with doing at the start of the program.

I feel very valued during my work experience because during my time with the client, luton borough council, I was given work that was being used in their work. so I felt trusted and was given a level of responsibility, therefore felt like I was an employees of EY. I was given a real feel of what it's like to work there.

It was well structured because I got given a booklet with notes of what we were exactly doing on each day. we also had a time plan which was written out each day, so we knew exactly what we were doing at what time. It was also aliased with the log slide with have to fill out to receive the qualification, so we would do a session on a topic then fill out the logs relating to that topic.

I received a lot of support during my work experience as the employees would explain in detail exactly what to do and gave us examples. They are very friendly and welcoming, which made me feel comfortable answering questions and were so happy to go through everything. I enjoyed my time here and definitely made me given a lot of knowledge of what auditing is like.

I received a lot of support because i was given a lot of talks on how they got to where they are now and what they look for when they hire people, which has has given me knowledge and confidence of getting into the firm when i leave college. they have been very happy talking to everyone on the programme and made me feel like id be valued if i started working there

the salary has supported all my travel cost and they provided us with food during the work experience e.g dominos, sandwiches and food when we were in London. they also paid for other peers travel costs and when for the travel up to London. they paid for us to go bowling on the second week and provided us with laptops to us during the work experience.

there are many opportunities outside of work because they do social activities, for example bowling and alumni events that we are invited to, so then we can network and expand our contacts. ive heard that they have college classes for people that are doing the ACA qualification and give a lot of support of out work. we got to go to a law firm to do a session on negotiating to Baker and McKenzie.

Yes

i would recommend EY to a friend because it has honestly changed me and made me feel so much more confident getting into the working world and made me realise that everyone is so nice and not scary. also people who do apply to this programme doesn't need to have an interest in accounting because its mainly to help you develop transferable skills.

advice i would give to others is to make sure you get out of your comfort zone so you can develop you skills as much as possible. also during the phone interview when applying for the smart futures programme to look at glassdoor website to look at examples of questions and reviews of what other people have said. make sure they you as any questions that you have because everyone is more than happy to answer your questions and chat to you.