Business Academy Review

Attending EY office, completing normal working days in Audit for EY in the financial services division. Going to client sites and joining an external audit team. Completing a series of Business Academy challenges and assessments such as 'Efficiency Optimiser' planning task and My Point of View presentation and interview discussing a disruptive technology and how it could be relevant to the company.

Learned how to conduct myself in an office environment, business clothes and professional etiquette (especially when on client site as we were representing EY), learned how to structure workload and manage calendar including arranging meetings, how to use technology such as skype for business and EY Canvas audit file manager and reference base

Enjoyed the work experience a lot, group of four students joined various different service lines in central office and on client sites, came together for fun and well funded social lunches and all Business Academy tasks (My Point of View, self reflection, Efficiency Optimiser), very welcoming colleagues and enjoyable tasks - all real projects not hypothetical made-up especially for work experience.

Very well organised week with well coordinated structure and support line (business apprentice buddy, graduate counsellor, manager coordinator, associate partner), met every morning at office and taken to wherever we needed to be, given accurate timetable of week plan, used outlook calendar to plan events. Application process very long winded and opaque.

Learned a lot about company culture, general office environment and EY specific. Welcomed kindly and issued laptops, pass lanyards, email addresses, wifi logins, headphones etc plus a goodie bag of water bottle, pen, journal. Spent a lot of time on client site during half year audit deadline week so intense and focussed. Included in socials and cake days etc.

Already interested in EY as a business due to reputation, learnt that I don't particularly want to work in Audit but would be interested in consulting and strategy. Business academy feeds business apprenticeship which is a good option but I will go to uni instead, however introduced the possibility of internships/grad schemes.

Yes. Paid £6.15 per hour (lunch not included) for 5 days 9.30-4.30. travel expenses probably offered to be reimbursed but not applicable to me as I live close to the office. social team lunches paid for with £15 per head budget - booked nice local restaurants. train tickets bought for one student needing to travel to client

Lots of networking available and strongly encouraged. immediately built network with buddy (business apprentice), counsellor (graduate employee), coordinator (manager) and meeting a partner on several occasions including presentation. page in journal with table for name, email and a 'connected on linkedin? column'. met and became close with peers on programme

Yes

Very good company culture, benefits of collaborative work ethic strongly emphasised. well paid for a work experience programme. big business with huge amounts of opportunity, in many service lines, all over the world. worth it when you're accepted but very annoying application process with lots of repetition or system error.

Actual application tests quite challenging working with big data and financial records, followed by situational judgement tests (quite fun) and video interview questions. Just try your best and persist because there are so many stages to the application that you can afford to struggle with one section and excel with others. worth sticking with due to great opportunities and connections - fast track onto business internship from this programme