Assistant Senior Review

Being in the second half of my apprenticeship I am now considered an 'assistant senior', this means i am now able to coach the more junior members of the team in the work that they’re doing. I spend a lot of my time out visiting clients, and performing procedures to test the balances included within their financial accounts.

Since joining EY I have become a lot more confident and my people and presenting skills have improved dramatically. This is due to the frequent client facing element of our job. My computer skills have also greatly improved over this time. I feel organisation is also an important part of our work in order to achieve the deadlines and therefore I have also developed this skill.

I enjoy the team culture within my office environment, I joined as an intake of 16 people around my age and level and this makes the office particularly social. The work has been varied in the three years I have been here, due to the constant change in clients and team mixes which keeps it interesting. At times i feel maintaining a work life balance can be a little difficult

From my immediate manager group I am always very much appreciated within the team and am always thanked for my efforts on various jobs. There are a number of less frequent central schemes in place to reward us for our efforts, and my opinions are always taken into account and my preferences considered as much as possible.

On the whole my programme is very well structured. I knew right from the beginning of my five years the path that my career would take and the milestones I would hit along the way. We are kept up to date of our client bookings via an online portal where we can see what we are to be doing for months in advance.

We study with Kaplan financial college, and they have been great with the amount of support they provide us. We are given a full set of study materials prior to each exam, and they give us a contact email and helpline for any times we may want additional help out of college hours.

We are given days off of work in order to let us study, and where possible we are allowed to leave clients promptly at the end of the day so we are able to get home in time to revise. At peak times this isn’t possible which can then be quite stressful to revise and work at the same time

I currently live at home so have no personal costs as such, but I feel for my age range my salary is generous. All of my expenses incurred as a result of travelling to and from client sites are covered by EY as well as sufficient overnight costs should I be required to stay away.

There are multiple opportunities to get involved with additional activities outside of work, I have been involved with our charities committee, our recruitment team, the boxing and netball clubs. We also have many work organised events including end of month drinks, and quarterly larger events. Theres the opportunity to set up any other club if theres the demand for it and get a portion of the allocated budget.

Yes

EY has given me an incredible opportunity to start my career in accountancy and finance. At the end of my five years I will have a top qualification and training experience with a reputable firm. I enjoy the social side of the job where there are so many of us younger trainees

My top tip before applying would be to do your research on the company thoroughly – they like to see why you’re wanting to be a part of the business. Also answer questions in the way you’d want to answer opposed to the way you think you’re ‘supposed’ to answer so your skills can come across.