Audit Apprentice Review

My day to day role always starts with a big team meeting where we go round and discuss the work that everyone is doing. This is the opportunity to find out what I can help out on and to be assigned work. There are many meetings however where you might be available to help and they have no work for you to complete. Then after the meeting, you complete the tasks which vary on a day to day basis but as a junior member on the team, are usually fairly easy.

As someone who had no accountancy/audit experience prior to joining the firm, I have defiantly learnt a lot in the time I have been here however this Is more through just completing the work and learning as you go then being trained by a colleague. My qualifications have taught me a lot but as there is so much information I tend to forget everything I have learnt after the exam has been completed and passed.

I enjoy that each day in my role is slightly different however it can be very overwhelming and stressful at times and you do not always have a lot of support during that time as everyone is so busy. I also did not anticipate having to work such long hours at such a junior level.

The programme is well structured in terms of receiving set days for learning and study and all exams being booked for you which takes away the stress of having to do it yourself, however I feel like the programme is quite rushed and not enough time is given for revision and trying to juggle busy season where you are working long days and coming home and revising is not very practical.

My employer does provide some support however I think they could provide more. This also depends on your team manager. I have been lucky to have a manager that approves days off with short notice so I can have the extra time to revise, however I know people who do not get that. The company could offer more study days rather then just one for each exam and could have a policy on apprentices working over a certain time during exam periods.

BPP provide the initial training session however after this you are left to study alone for your exams. They take long time to mark the practice questions online and no further communication takes place with them before the exam.

My qualification has helped me gain a better background understanding of my role however I i work within audit and my qualification is mostly accountancy based so a lot of things are not relevant. It has however made me more confident in some aspects as I have a better understanding of the terminology.

KPMG has lots of different activities to get involved with. These include regular socials, such as mini golf and shuffleboard and well as lots of different committees such as the social committee and the newsletter team. As well as various sports teams such as netball and football and sponsored walks to raise money for charity.

No

I would not recommend KPMG to a friend as the workload is too severe for someone at a junior level and the support we receive as a result is a very small amount and leaves you feeling very stressed and overwhelmed trying to balance everything as well as studying for exams.

Make sure you research the company first and look into the type of work you are doing to make sure that you know what you are going to be doing. Try and speak to other people who work at the company and get a good understanding of their day to day tasks.