Financial Services Advisory Trainee Review

In the beginning I attended a lot of client meetings and took minutes. Would need to prepare work plans for projects or report templates. Now that I have more experience this involves managing my time spent conducting the above but also fieldwork for projects I've been booked on. We have regular team meetings to discuss upcoming projects and capacity. The team could do a better job at resourcing. In comparison to those who do external audit whilst doing the ACA, working in advisory is a lot more relaxed with a better work-life balance. However, I must acknowledge that in comparison to those in external audit they must have gained more technical knowledge and expertise through their projects in their subject area.

Time management skills have certainly developed as well as general commercial awareness and an understanding of legislative structure in the UK.

The culture is great which makes working there enjoyable. On the job learning could be improved and balancing work which is unrelated to ACA with the ACA can be very challenging. Furthermore, the appraisals and pay review structure could be better. Something that I was not aware upon joining is that the date that is considered your joining date and appraisals/promotions are based on is the one on your training contract regardless if you joined earlier. There is a rotation scheme where every 6 months you enter a new team within the department. This could also be revised to enable trainees to get the most out of every rotation. Due to exams I feel like I have not gotten enough experience in some teams compared to others.

Overall there are good structures in place such as a professional qualifications team, people manager and mentor who you can go to for help. However, PQ team has not always illustrated the level of structure we would anticipate. At times they have contributed in creating difficult situations. I do acknowledge that this is a widely aware issue that the company is working towards remedying.

I receive very good support from my people manager; we have bi-weekly meetings and if anything ad hoc arises she is available.

There is an effort from the training provider to support. However, the live tutors and the online material provided for self-study is sometimes inconsistent and not to the level I would wish. Some modules are better designed and completed than others. It's also not always clear what the college/revision/recap programme is like.

My qualification is not directly related to my field of work. Thus, other than the transferrable skills it does not provide me with as much expertise and knowledge as it would if I worked in external audit.

Extra-curricular activities is something BDO is very good at. There are always fun team building events going on!

Yes

The culture. In comparison to other big companies, BDO does a very good job at retaining a 'SME mentality'. There is a flat hierarchical structure making everyone relatively approachable. If you are looking to do the ACA without the pressure of working in external audit the advisory division is a good alternative to achieve this.

They should be themselves. The application process was the best out of the ones I've experienced. The people at BDO want to make sure you are a good culture fit and therefore want to know the real you.