Assurance associate Review

A day to day role of an assurance associate consists of meetings with clients, documenting evidence, and communicating with your team. It also involves emailing a ton throughout the day, travelling to client site. Furthermore, there are team lunches and dinners and to end of the day, I revise for exams.

I have learnt new skills as well as developing many more new skills. Firstly, communication and socialising has drastically improved as it is a mandatory part of the job. Also, skills such as writing formal emails or using apps such as Excel and Word have also massively improved due to this role.

I enjoy my programme a lot. I always knew university was not for me and was interested in apprenticeships and had my eye set on this specific company and role for years. When it came to the time, i was over the moon to know I had gotten the role.

The programme is very well organised and structured. This is because we have a schedule for the next year on the companys site telling us which client we are on, when our exam is and when we have training days. It is much more organised than I would have imagined.

My employer is very supportive. This is because we have things such as counsellors, buddies and apprenticeships coaches. These are people involved in our day to day lives who act as our manager, coach and person of contact when anything is concerning us and the help is amazing and constant.

As aforementioned, we are provided with an apprenticeship coach when starting at the company. This is our main point of contact for anything regarding the apprenticeship, whether that being queries or concerns, We have meetings often to discuss exams, preparation for exams and our apprenticeship coach will take things further if needed.

I have experienced this first hand. As I am in audit, the first exam we sat was assurance. This helped massively as when it came to documenting and getting evidence and when seniors explained the processes we would be using, it was not new to me as I had done this in my exam.

The company and specifically my departments have many social events quite frequently. This consists of going to a restaurant/bar and socialising with other apprentices as well as seniors, managers and partners. Furthermore, we have peer group meetings where all the new joiners have meetings with other 3rd/4th year apprentices.

Yes

Because the company is very welcoming and inclusive. As a muslim, I did not expect a prayer room but not only was there a prayer room, there was a wudu area too and they have things such as muslim communities. Furthermore, the work life balance is amazing and they really understand the meaning of flexible working as working from home is allowed and suited to our desires.

Being confident. When it comes to interviews, confidence is key. Even when messing up, if you are confident, you can easily recover. Confidence is what makes you stand out. Furthermore, being open and honest and thinking outside the box. When it comes to final interviews, stand out, do things to prepare which other candidates would not do.