Audit Senior Review

Vast array of daily tasks including preparation of working papers, coaching and review of associates' working papers. Daily interactions occur with other engagement team members as part of team meetings and then frequent one on one calls to run through items in more detail. There is frequent interaction with our clients via email or calls (previously in person pre Covid-19).

The key qualification which I am working towards is that of my ACA qualification. There is however a lot of internal training too. This is of course more job specific but covers a wide range of both soft skills and technical knowledge. The skills I have learnt are far ranging from improved communication styles to technical audit knowledge.

I enjoy both the work itself and there are a lot of people within the office I enjoy working with. Audit is however incredibly busy and far busier than I ever expected when applying for the job. That's okay sometimes but it would be nice if the work life balance was a little better and didn't have to be fought for so hard.

My program feels adequately organised. I have progressed through my exams with the relevant HR teams organising the study dates and classes etc. Internal training is slightly less smooth but still reasonably straight forward. While we get study leave in which we attend classes all revision for exams is on evenings and weekends as we don't then get time of purely to revise independently.

There is a reasonable network of support. Everyone is assigned a counsellor who helps with progress/ progression as well as any other issues affecting you both work or personally. Your experiences would vary depending on how good your counsellor is but I have been fortunate to have a supportive counsellor who has also been my manager on a number of engagements.

Kaplan is a very good training provider and clearly the tutors are hugely experienced in getting student after student through there exams. I have had a number of different tutors across the different topics and all are quite good (some are excellent) but they are all very happy to help in class, after class, over email etc.

I feel ACA is one of the most appropriate qualifications I could be working towards giving my role is in audit. The work and the qualifications seems to cross over, sometimes you learn something at work that you then see in the exam syllabus and sometimes the other way around. It is also worth pointing out you have to complete a qualification to be a chartered accountant so not completing one would most likely be career limiting.

There are a number of extra-curricular activities. These ranging from CSR (Corporate social responsibility) days in which we go out and help our community somehow whether that be volunteering or fundraising for a charity. On the other side of extra-curricular activities you have work socials which are include summer and winter parties as well as events to welcome new joiners or other events added more spontaneously throughout the year.

Yes

I would recommend EY to a friend because it is an excellent place to learn a huge amount about audit and accounting. It also rapidly develops a large amount of soft skills which will be useful in any workplace. It would however ensure they knew about the amount of work they were signing up to.

While I am sure the process has changed slightly since I applied the advice I give to people applying is to take the application seriously, don't rush and try your best. There were a number of online tests, a telephone interview, an assessment day and a partner interview when I applied and I found that it was clearly achievable if you focused on the application but if you rush or try to apply for too many jobs at the same time this is where you may start running into more difficulties.