N/a Review

The BDO insight programme mainly involved listening to speakers from the firm, however there were some independent tasks, most notably the CSR group presentations involving between 4 and 5 other students on the programme. The week began with an introduction into accounting as a whole, and personal branding training as well as the company culture, then followed into what each specific stream did and finished with the CSR presentation and a final follow up with a member of BDO.

During the week, I learnt how to brand myself and how to present myself professionally, which is a skill that would help me in all professions. In addition, I learnt more about the four sectors of accounting that bdo has: Tax, Audit, BS&O, and Advisory. I also learnt how to converse professionally with employees from the firm.

Although a few of the sectors and sessions became more difficult to understand due to the dual combination of two different groups attending the same sessions, I found a lot of the networking sessions, personal branding training, and direct sessions with staff of BDO extremely insightful and enjoyable. However in a few sessions I found the lack of directive more difficult to deal with, especially at the beginning of the week.

The virtual experience only had minor disturbances, most notably one of the Microsoft teams sessions failing. The only consistent issue was Internet issues with some of the staff or other technical difficulties. The days were well planned, and we were informed of the plan each morning and evening. We were given all relevant links and we were always told where we were supposed to be.

I believe I learnt a lot about the company culture, the values of BDO for example were backed up through things such as BDO's 5+5 days, ESG, the Be Yourself team as well as the many religious/ethnic minority support programs within the firm. All the employees described how supportive everybody is to each other and many people described how it differed from the big four in that way.

I believe that as the programme was specific to accountancy, and it was only a week long, I only learnt about BDO as a company and the sectors they provide. It helped me to decide what I was more interested in within accountancy but not the future. This is mainly due to my uncertainty of what I'd like to do in the future.

No, this experience wasn't paid as it was an insight week, I was not paid at any point. The programme i was on was aimed towards year 10 to 12 students.

There were quite a few networking sessions, probably taking up 7 hours worth of time across the week. However included in this were peer to peer networking sessions. The total time spent networking with employees was likely around 2-3 hours. The experience I had of this was different each time as I found it more difficult to find what to talk about with some employees.

Yes

BDO offer a program which is aimed towards students who classify under a certain social mobility, this means that if a friend were to classify for it, it would be a great experience to be able to understand the professional world from the comfort of their own home. It is worth doing just for that, even if they weren't interested in accounting.

If I were to apply to BDO, I would suggest finding examples where you have been bold, honest, passionate and built rapport well with other individuals. This is because BDO looks for people that align with their values. In addition I would do research into a specific stream and explain why I believe I am best suited to that role.