Trainee associate Review

Day-to-day business for my job role is auditing, as I am in the Wealth and Asset Management department. So I assist the auditing process throughout multiple clients whilst also getting the experience of joining calls with clients and occasionally partners to see how processes are completed. This is aided by continuous support by my peers and seniors throughout as some processes can become rather confusing for a new starter.

I have learnt a lot of skills mainly through Microsoft excel in ways of speeding up my work and processes, as well as learning to be a lot more confident when talking to my peers and seniors as they can be very helpful throughout my day-to-day job. I have also learnt how to train and practice for my exams whilst also working full time which is quite a good way of practicing for when i have multiple clients at once.

I have absolutely loved my programme so far, everyone i have met along the way has been really helpful and supportive as I have struggled a few times with that being either strenuous workload or difficult tasks. I have also enjoyed the full time work and earning my pay coming straight out of sixth form, luckily getting the opportunity during a tough Covid-19 lockdown.

The programme has been structured really well so far, as i started with a beginners course to get me used to the workload and how to do the basics, in which I have completed one of my exams so far, they have spaced the college out well and it does not turn through busy season (January to March/April), which has been a huge help.

So far I have had continuous support throughout, as even whilst working at home I've had my seniors available through Microsoft Teams and email in which they are very quick to respond and reach out with help and advice. Especially during busy season which very much takes a toll due to high workload for new starters.

So far I have had a few weeks worth of training through college I which it has been amazing, as we break out into small classes for the year and go through the exam papers making sure everyone understands how to solve/answer all the questions, on top of that our tutors for those college weeks/days are always available through email to help out.

It has helped quite massively as the training itself explained a lot of the basics of auditing as opposed to just the process, meaning I have been able to understand why we do a lot of things and not just how to do them, making my experience on the job a lot more interesting.

So far due to Covid-19 social events have been hard to organize, but we have still found ways to have fun with it. Just before Christmas my department held a virtual escape room which was a great way to meet new people from my department from loads of different ages/job roles.

Yes

I couldn't praise EY highly enough as my entire process of applying was through lockdown in which it was a matter of weeks that the process was moved to being online, in which other companies had found difficult. The actual work itself is also quite fun as you get to talk to your team quite often whilst going through it and currently creating relations with team members has been really beneficial with virtual catch-ups.

Be yourself, EY is a very diverse place with people from so many backgrounds and just being yourself is far easier then trying to be what you might think they want. I feel being yourself when applying to any job is far better then pretending to be someone else as eventually it would catch up to you and may create unwanted expectations that you may struggle to deliver as opposed to being yourself and showing them what you can do and how you can do it on a regular basis.