EY Smart Futures Review

Smart Futures Intern My daily tasks were to follow the instructions of what we had to do for the first 2 weeks, with the consecutive and last week being on an actual working site where I have contributed with the general tasks, these being holding and analyzing the accounts given, ask for evidence that the correct payments occurred and that all payments were legit. The daily interactions included communicating with the colleagues on my working site, with my superiors, and other interns that worked with me in different groups. Externally, we have interacted with companies with which EY works, personnel from other companies, and generally the individuals from business environments. My responsibilities were to double check data, look for errors and misspellings, look for and show proof of transactions, also noting the date when the payment occurred, as well as the period when the selected product or service was used. The Projects in which I was involved was first of all the SMART FUTURES PROGRAMME, but also external Projects included in my clients' vision of how to improve their accounts and services. The days are hardly-ever similar: in the first 2 weeks we had various activities, with the Learning Log that was the only similarity and which was stretched during these days. For the rest, in the working week I had to come to the office of my client, look at their accounts and meetings, analyzing the transfers and making sure that there was no fraudulent action.

I have considerably improved my communication and presentation skills, gaining the CMI qualification, improving my CV and my network, having more contacts and this way improving my employability. Other ways in which this course has helped me, is by showing how it is like to work in such a big and comprehensive company like EY, understanding how their systems work and by which criteria they work.

Starting with the work, I really enjoyed it as it gave a very applicable view of what the office life is like; the team being very friendly and coping extremely well with each other, we have managed to make the work feel less of an obligation and more of something to enjoy doing. From what I have learnt so far, EY is one of the most inclusive company and with one of the richest variety of cultures and ethnicities, which really surprised me. I did enjoy it overall, and I do consider continuing with them.

I feel like EY values every member of their staff, and I think that they are all focusing on how to improve us. This course has also improved the employability skills which is extremely valuable especially in such a competitive environment like this. The fact that I have taken this course may also be an advantage in case I want to continue with them. Overall I would say Yes, I felt valued.

I believe that the EY organized themselves very well although there is space for improvement: Induction, training, and everything was fantastic, however, I believe that the workplaces should always have more work than what they might need, so that who comes for a short work experience, would always learn. This was not necessarily from my experiences as I always had activities to do, but I have heard that others didn't always have something to do.

Whenever I needed help, I could always count on my colleagues from the workplace, which at that point, were my mentors. In case I had another question that I couldn't ask anyone else, my tutor was always at a click distance, and she could help me with pretty much anything, including things external to the business environment.

For the first 2 weeks, I have been offered, together with all the other colleagues taking part in the Smart Futures, full support from all the staff in the office, this including not only the teachers and tutors, but everyone involved in the company. Every single person including the security guard, was extremely helpful and understandable when it came to even the smallest thing.

The salary is very competitive, and it does cover the costs of travel as well as other secondary expenses. I have even been offered to have the travel paid, although due to the process being so complicated and expensive, I preferred to just pay the travel out of the money gained.

Oh yes, many opportunities are especially given by the fact that being such a firm as EY, it is easy to make connections and positive first-impressions. They have even been giving opportunities of work not only in their firm, but in the law environment or other global companies. Also, the simple fact that I now have EY on my CV, considerably increases my chances of finding a job.

Yes

I believe that this program is extremely useful and it can facilitate one's life by a lot simply by making the right connections and by showing us what everything was about, how businesses operated, and just greatly improving the understanding of how the company correlates with other companies and how together they work towards a better working world.

First of all I would suggest them to try all they can out, to use this period as a testing-time and to experiment in these days as much as they can, asking as many questions and trying to participate in every activity as actively as they can. This is because it is all just a time to show what they can do, learn and cooperate to improve their skills without being judged.