EY smart futures intern Review

During the smart futures program, our job title was smart futures intern, on a day to day basis the tasks varied from completing case studies to dragons den to a day out in London. The first week was an introduction to Ernst Young, getting us to build up our confidence and presenting skills. The second week was about presenting various case studies and dragons den with lots of presenting. And the final week was the business experience week on a client site helping the EY audit team.

During the 3 weeks, the skill that I have developed the most is presenting, to audiences and judges, as well as that my ability to contribute effectively in a team. The smart futures program is the only one of its kind in the world to be CMI certified, so over the 3 weeks I gained a level 2 qualification in leadership.

I really enjoyed the program, it was a good use of time because it is valuable work experience what makes you stand out from people in my age group. My favorite day was the day out in London, we got to see the EY office in London and we went to the law firm Baker and Mckenzie

EY made it really apparent that we were not just Watching people do work and becoming an inconvenience, we were working as part of a team to accomplish tasks. During the business experience week we were actually given work to be submitted as part of he audit, and the manager had to sign off on it.

The organization of the program was great because it pushed me to the edge of my comfort zone but it did it gradually so, day by day my confidence and presenting skills grew. They didn't chuck you into the deep end, but give you all the help you need. So the days were paced in a way that we were ready for the business experience week.

We were given all the support we needed and more. Questions were really encouraged so if we had any queries they were answered, anything that we were stuck on we were shown how to complete the work. Anything that we didn't understand, they explained and any other questions that we had they helped us with.

We received all the support that we needed. Every thing that we needed to complete we were shown how to do it. We have a personal mentor that we can contact for 10 months on anything that we want if its something to do with school or home or anything that we want to talk about.

We were paid £5.50 an hour for 6 hours a day plus an hour unpaid lunch, for 3 weeks. So overall we will receive £495, this is more than enough to cover the cost of travel to get to the office and we didn't have to worry about lunch because it was provided.

Doing this program it opens many doors into the world of work. just the fact that you can say that you have worked for one of the biggest firms in the world, at the age of 17 is unheard of. doing this program you have a higher chance of getting into the graduate scheme as well.

Yes

This is, in my opinion, the best opportunity you can get for someone of my age. being able to network with senior managers and partners building ties with people in the firm that you want to work for in the future will greatly benefit me and every other smart futures intern that has participated in this scheme all over the country.

I would say to anyone who is applying to just be them selves. you do not need to do a tremendous amount of research about the company or need to know about accounting at all. you just need to be interested in growing your skills and confidence. You need to be confident in talking about your achievements and what you want to accomplish.