Audit Senior Review

My role at a high level involves auditing financial statements of my clients, where I am responsible on the audit for coaching more junior staff members in the team while auditing more technical areas myself. (For example IFRS 16 leases, intangible assets, going concern etc). I would need to communicate key findings and team status internally upwards to the manager, senior manager and partner where applicable, as well as liaising with management to obtain supporting audit evidence and resolve issues where they arise.

Throughout my training contract, I have been taking exams with the professional body ICAEW and have learnt various skills from basic and more complex accounting, to basic tax scenarios, as well as financial management and business strategy techniques. I have been able to apply these concepts, in conjunction with internal methods and approaches learnt on both training and on the job from other team members to the audit work being performed. Soft skills sessions have enabled me to enhance my coaching ability to try and get the best out of team members and work to their strengths.

For me personally, the work that I have performed and skills learnt have been enjoyable and I am very pleased I took this route instead of the university route. The firm clearly encourages diverse teams, as can be seen in the amount of networks there are within the business. (For example EY Muslim network, EY Women's network etc). This encourages diverse teams that I very much enjoy working within as we all have different experiences and knowledge to bring to the table.

Overall my programme is well structured given the fact there is a clear route explained as to how the programme will work. I am informed of when college will be, for how long and what exams I will be taking. Within work I also have a counsellor who looks after my progress and understands where I am at, which is a good support network to have within the business. I feel within the business I have received coaching and management to a good extent. One improvement however could be that the team dealing with the exam inquiries internally, although are busy, could be slightly more responsive to communications made to them.

As mentioned previously, I have a counsellor who looks after my interests not just from a perspective of my progress on the school leaver programme, but in collating my feedbacks and discussing performance. They are also there to provide support for any other issues which for me was during a period of being off with a broken arm and my counsellor was always checking in on how I was doing even once I returned, including looking to initiate an occupational health referral. On the audit clients, my manager will always look after the interests of myself and the team.

My college provider has been very supportive with my exams to date. Any questions that I may have, even if they are arising after class can easily made as tutors are always contactable by email. The materials provided, which include summary notes, tricky question debriefs and other useful content are always available online and during Covid-19, have been very good at adapting to make what would normally be in-class college time into virtual webinars.

I am still completing my qualification, however I have definitely been able to perform my role to a better standard than I would have without learning this content. For example, during this year while looking to issue audit opinions during Covid-19, we were looking to issue the opinions with emphasis of matter paragraphs and my understanding of these paragraphs including the relevant ISA to consider that I had learnt here meant that my internal consultation memo on this proposed paragraph in our opinion was to a much higher standard as my understanding was much greater on this topic than it otherwise would have been.

The firm has an allocation of a few days per year that can be used towards events during the community. For example, during one of my years at EY, my team volunteered to help a foodbank collection at a supermarket. There are many opportunities to also get involved with other activities too and my teams always hold social events where we would have a meal or some drinks. I would however say that although there are events and things to get involved with, particularly during busy season, there isn't actually much time to actually get involved.

Yes

Overall, EY is a firm that has allowed me to develop and grow as a person. When I joined at 18, I was very shy and not particularly confident in what I was doing. However, as I have been at EY, I have become a lot more confident in the work that I am performing and my ability and have developed a lot of skills that even if I were to leave EY, are completely transferrable. These skills that have mainly been developed through training and on the job learning are skills that I am not sure I would have developed as quickly if I chose a different route, for example university.

From a practical perspective, I would advise taking a look online at the vast amount of material available on psychometric based tests. Although these will almost certainly be in a different style to what you will experience during the EY application process, they are a useful tool to use in order to practice. During interviews and assessment days, it is important to ask yourself why you are applying and know what your strengths and weaknesses are. It is also important to do some research on EY, their values and the department you are applying to work in. (For example if you are applying to audit, understand why audit is important and use real life examples where perhaps an audit didn't go to plan and a company went into liquidation). I would also advise to keep calm, be yourself and make sure when you engage in conversations with others that you strike a balance of listening and putting your ideas across. You should seek to bring quieter members into the conversation. (They could have a really good point but just haven't been brave enough to put their idea forward).