Associate Review

My role is an Associate, my daily tasks can include working on an audit, doing a stock count, helping out with recruitment events or doing admin work in the office. On a daily basis I am interacting with a team at Deloitte made up of people at different grades and senior management. I can also be dealing with people at the client, my responsibilities include helping with work and taking on sections of an audit file to complete. I work on a variety of projects which can mean working on several different clients throughout the year in a variety of different industries.

I am studying for the ACA qualification, so far a year in I have done the first 6 exams and I am now part-qualified. I have attended several internal courses such as excel training, training on computer software and external courses with other teams across the country working on building and improving client/colleague relationships. I have learnt lots of things this year about accounting and in my exams, things such as business finance, law, tax, audit, assurance and management information.

I enjoy working at Deloitte because you will be working with a different team of auditors on a weekly basis. There is also such a variety of work that it never gets boring it's always interesting as you can be doing a different thing every day. There is also a lot of flexibility because you can request to work/do particular things that you are interested in. I think working on this scheme has met my expectations but it has also been so much more, within a year I have learnt so much and have become much more confident and I am really enjoying it.

At Deloitte I feel very valued, at the end of each job the manager will always say to the team thank you for their hard work and help. We also have a scheme for limelights which is an award that people can be nominated for by colleagues for a good piece of work.

The training and college support at work is very structured and organised well in advanced in our schedules. There is a specific exam manager and we have a buddy at work who we can go to with problems or questions.

My training manager is also my appraiser, we meet monthly for meeting to talk through work and how things are going. She is very supportive and she is always e-mailing me with answers to questions. I think that this help is really good and key to the job.

We received a lot of support, we have a buddy, an exam managing, an appraiser and they all offer support whenever we need it.

I live in Leeds in a one bed flat and my salary easily meets my living costs, travel costs and any other costs that I incur during each month.

There are lots of opportunities to take part in events and as you become higher grades there are opportunities to take part in helping with winning work. There are sports teams within each office such as football and netball teams to get involved with.

Yes

This scheme is such a good way to get into the industry and straight into work, it is a fantastic different option to going to university and I think it is much more valuable. The learning and training is over a space of time and you can work and get experience while learning.

I would recommend searching on Wikijobs for help with the application process as a lot of people have put comments on their experience. I would also recommend doing a lot of research before completing any of the application process and practicing presentations and interviews before going through the process. There are also practice tests for the assessments it is definitely worthwhile doing these as they are so helpful. There are also Deloitte insight days within offices across the country, it would be good to attend these before applying to get some experience and help from people who have gone through the process already.