Assurance Senior Review

On a day-to-day basis the job varies vastly based on the time of year. During the preparation for an audit we will be setting up planning documentation. Having meetings with the client to understand the processes in place within their business, working with people in our team to plan the audit and how we will perform future testing. During busier periods it will involve very very long hours, working to complete the work, whether testing the existence of loans, value of impairments, the impact of the economy etc etc

I have developed a lot in terms of my skills for writing an email and how to have a phone call with clients. I'm also now an expert at excel. Although I don't work in tax, my exams have helped me to develop an understanding of that as well as how to produce a set of financial statements

I really enjoy the social side of the job. Working with a lot of people my age or there abouts who all work in the city is fun. However the work depends, some of the training is very difficult and we don't necessarily get the support with exams that I had expected to. Some of the work is also incredibly boring.

In terms of my work I do feel appreciated, the staff members around me allow me to have a lot of responsibility and work and I deal daily with people right at the top of the company. However I don't believe that the exams team treat us how they should, forcing us to home study and not giving us as much time off as I perhaps had expected to be given

We know from the beginning that we'll be doing our exams over about a 4 year period and that we'll be working and progressing in the company with training on how to do that throughout our team. The training provider is also effective at providing us what we need for our qualification and so it does feel well structured in that aspect.

Our training provider is very strong. They provide us with very detailed materials to help with exams (although there do tend to be some errors in the materials provided from time to time). The staff are also all very good at understanding the topics they are teaching us and there is a support team that we can contact at any time we need to.

The Professional Examinations team provide us with far less support than I would have expected for the exams. Although we have dedicated apprentice support coaches, they do not really have any sway and I'm yet to see any resolution to any of the issues that we have raised with them.

Compared to apprentices in a similar field (finance), we are paid far less for the amount of hours that we work. I think there is also a misconception over the amount of hours we'll end up working. Although we do get a lot of nights out paid for, dinners if we stay late and stuff like that, so overall the package is relatively fair albeit slightly lower than wanted.

There are lots of social opportunities and we get a lot of training on things that we can bring to other careers in the future (including a session on building up our CVs and our LinkedIn). There's also lots of extracurricular (is that the word?) activities that can be done within the company - sports teams, newsletter teams, social committee etc

Yes

EY is a great place to work and strong for your CV. As long as you understand that you will be working hard (as with anyone in this industry) and have a lot of responsibility for getting work done, you will enjoy the people you work with a lot, and you will enjoy the chance to work in the City like this, seeing the way lots of different businesses operate.

You'll be thrown in at the deep end, and you'll work hard. But it's the same as anywhere else if you want to work in this industry and it's really good for building a career off of - especially with the qualification you'll get from working through the apprenticeship