Intern Review

I have 2 main roles. The first one is audit support. This includes rolling forward prior year audit files that have been worked on and getting them ready for the current year audit. The next is working with qlikview and the data delivery team in London to prepare dashboards for analysis of the financial statements.

I have learnt many excel skills that I did not even know existed. Basic skills such as formulae, how to set filters and fix skews. How to fix basic things such as the date format. More complicated skills such as concatenating. All of this stuff is what I needed for Qlikview.

I am not really enjoying my programme that much. The work is quite dry, especially the audit planning rolling forward work. It is a repetition of the same stuff. My day to day job does not change that much. Most people who enjoy their work say “no 2 days are the same”, but for me the majority of the days have been the same

I do not really feel valued. As a trainee intern in the Liverpool office, we do not get paid a lot. BDO Liverpool do not pay for any exams. Only recently they came up with a system where people who have exams do not have to use a “holiday day” and can instead get paid leave. However, this system was only brought in recently

My programme is not well structured, there is not a lot of scope for improvement or promotion. The work I do as an intern is the same work a senior assistant does. We have a “goals” and “achieving my potential” system but I do not talk about it often with my supervisors. Only 3 times in the last year have I spoken about it to my supervisors.

Since the work is quite easy I do not actually need a lot of support, nor do I receive it. The Supervisors are too busy doing their own reviewing work. However, I must say that whenever I do have an issue I feel I can always speak to my training provider and ask for support

I feel I can always speak to the same way I can to my manager as my training provider. If I have anything to say I feel open enough to say it. Since the work is easy I do not really need support. BDO do not pay for any exams for me so do not support on that behalf

Not well at all. As an intern in Liverpool, I am not paid a lot and neither do my colleagues. The location of the office is excellent, right in the business heart of Liverpool. In terms of travel costs I do not have to pay a lot. Liverpool is a fairly cheap city and a very nice place to live.

There are a fair few company events and social events, which I go to regularly. The Liverpool office supports a different charity every year and we have “dress down Fridays” where £1 is given to a charity. There are many football opportunities firmwide, a football team from Liverpool is actually going to Marseille to participate in a tournament.

Yes

Get a training contract, work your way up and it is a good place to work. The values BDO hold are great and do align with my own. There’s always winning stories about how clients are won and that is the firm I would like to work for. Enjoy it.

Apply early. Start preparing over summer. Get your answers ready and click submit on the first day that the applications are open. Prepare to do gruelling online tests. No one likes staring at themselves on a computer during a video interview but it has to be done. Look sharp, dress smart for your interview. Don’t be shy, but don’t be overly aggressive either.