FS Assurance Associate Review

Working within Audit teams to give assurance to stakeholders over client's financial statements. Tasks include: preparing and reviewing workpapers related to specific areas of the annual reports; conducting analytical review of client data; applying new tools to meet specific financial statement assertions; participating and leading client meetings; completing compulsory and non-compulsory Audit training.

Yes - these relate to both hard and soft/interpersonal skills. Hard skills: Audit and Finance curriculum at college (ICAS CA qualification). Interpersonal skills: time management and prioritization, teamwork and communication. EY Badges allow for extra development of technical skills (including coding and AI) - however, this needs to be done outside of daily work commitments.

Between engagements and teams, there is a big variety of tasks and required skillsets. I was lucky to find a very specific area within one of my teams where I can perform very advanced analytics - but on other days I might need to work on "vanilla" assignments where the only required tool is Excel.

The structure is quite impressive in how much you can actually fit into one calendar year. You can expect approximately 3-4 months of college, over a month of leave and the rest is office work. It gives you a good feeling of change although what could be more transparent is the exact days you cannot take as holiday due to college (but this is more of an ICAS/BPP timetabling issue).

There is good guidance from your seniors, everyone is happy to explain the task again/give background to what you are doing. You have relationships with your buddy (1 year older colleague), counsellor (manager who discusses your progress) and apprenticeship coach. In case you get too many assignments or encounter any other difficulties, they are available to help.

BPP provides high-quality tutoring via a hybrid approach - combination of in-center, remote learning and online coursework. Tutors are knowledgeable and often share funny anecdotes - they went thru their qualification 10 years ago or so. There is currently an online platform where all learning materials are available - it's called myCABLE by ICAS.

Training is very helpful especially at the start - new employees come from different backgrounds so you start from learning what actually Audit is. You cover topics which you actually meet later at work, but it's always possible to refer to internal EY resources or knowledge of your colleagues - you don't actually need to remember everything from class.

There is sports teams - I'm sure football and rugby. There's EY Ripples which is the volunteering platform allowing you to help with stuff like mentoring uni students or interviewing candidates from underprivileged backgrounds for EY Foundation programmes. Teams can get involve together in a do-good activity like spending a day painting an animal shelter (I think 2 days per year you can expense this way).

Yes

EY gives you a good start to the professional world and still allows you freedom of choice after you qualify. The combination of work and college is very attractive and the fact that you get the paid study leave + you don't need to pay tuition makes up for the salary which is lower than in big banks.

Engage with EY early on - via Spring Weeks and similar programmes. If you are a successful intern, they will make your grad scheme application very smooth. I guess also practice some of the aptitude tests if you need to sit them - if you do well you are likely to succeed in the later stages (given you know why you applied if asked by the partner and so on).