Executive Review

I work in insolvency. My day-to-day role includes following the legal process for liquidating a company, whilst also dealing with various stakeholders such as employees, board members, creditors, the press and members of the public. I also work on some high profile administrations. Whilst I work in accountancy, my job doesn't really include that much maths. It's more about how you deal with people and following the processes. I also spend a lot of time liaising with HMRC and Companies House as part of my role.

My business writing skills have come on a lot since I joined the firm. I am also better at taking notes. I was thrown in at the deep end with clients and am now very comfortable holding meetings with important clients alone. The job has done a lot for my confidence. I have also improved in customer service and how I deal with various stakeholders, particularly when I need to have difficult conversations with them. Time management has been improved by having to manage several cases at once.

I quite enjoyed completing my ACA. Going to college was a welcome break from work, and I enjoyed studying. I didn't feel like we were given a lot of study leave compared to other firms. I enjoy my job and there is always interesting work to get involved in if you put your hand up. I've also enjoyed the network that I've developed. I have a lot of peers that I get on very well with at work.

There is a very good programme in place for school leavers. There is a dedicated team who organise our study, although they are sometimes difficult to get hold of or to get answers out of. The training is very structured though, and they are able to be flexible whenever exams coincide with important life events or if we need to reschedule them for personal reasons. The training I have received from my team has also been excellent, as they are used to school leavers joining every year.

As already discussed, I don't feel that my employer gives us as much study leave as students from other firms get. We also don't get any support from work for our exams. However, our training provider is pretty good and we can always contact our tutors with any queries that we have. It can sometimes be the case that work is really busy around the time that we have exams - in these situations, it can be really difficult to get revision done, even if you flag the problem at work. More support could be provided in this area.

Kaplan is very supportive - the in-class lessons are very good and tutors are always very helpful. Their workbooks are very easy to follow. In addition, they have online modules and tricky topic tutorials if we need more help in certain areas. Every tutor provides the class with an email address and telephone number to contact for any queries. Tutors have always been very good at getting back to me on my queries, in some cases, even when I sent a panicked email ten minutes before an exam!

Personally, as I work in insolvency, I don't feel that the ACA is that applicable to what I do at work. It's useful to have a general awareness of things like tax and accounting, but because my area of work is so specialised, I don't tend to use my ACA much in practice. The exams did teach me how to retain large amounts of information which can be very helpful at work, and I feel that having the ACA means that my future career options are quite open

I sometimes attend women's network events. However, sometimes client commitments make attending these sessions quite difficult. My service line puts on a lot of mental health sessions which are often very well attended, and I enjoy attending these. I always intend to go to weekly badminton sessions through work. However, given that I have a long commute, I tend to just want to go home after work. I occasionally attend social events with work (and there are a lot of these)

Yes

The opportunities to learn and develop are amazing. I feel that I have been given responsibilities way above some of my peers at other firms, and these have really helped me to develop professionally. It's also very beneficial to have such a prestigious name on your CV. Even if you don't want to stay forever, it's a really good place to be trained as it is recognised in the market as an impressive place to work. With an ACA and practical work experience at EY, a university degree is not necessary.

Research the service line you are applying to in detail. Keep up-to-date with news stories that might have an impact on EY's clients - they might ask you about this in your interview. If possible, try to find out what your role will include. When interviewing, consider all of your extra-curricular activities, even ones that you don't think are relevant. Think about what skills they've taught you that will help you at work (e.g. if you are a member of a sports team, you show commitment and that you can work well in a team)