From first day nerves to now working with global clients, Adithya at EY in Reading shares what it's like to be on the Technology Risk Graduate programme.
I first heard about EY at university through careers fairs and events and EY was one of the companies that stood out. I applied and joined as a Consultant in one of the regional offices.
My role
The role is mostly to understand the client’s IT environment and infrastructure and assess the risks associated. Then, by talking with the client, we understand what controls and procedures they have to cover those risks. We then test those controls to see if they are effective at addressing the risks and provide recommendations to improve their controls. The overall purpose is to ensure the client has the IT environment and infrastructure that supports the production of high quality financial statements.
I love that I get to learn new things every day about technology! There are still many things for me to learn. Without every new task, I learn something new and I find that really exciting.
I work with wide variety from clients. I have some that are operate globally and are part of FTSE100 and I have some that operate nationally. The industries vary as well, but off the top of my head, I’ve worked with clients in the oil and gas, telecommunication, consumer products and many other industries.
My first day
We had some training, induction and college for about a month before the real work so it wasn’t so nerve-wracking by then. But it was still so new to me. On first real work day, on my first client engagement, my senior gave me a task which I had absolutely no idea how to do. But she was so patient in coaching me step-by-step until I started to get the understanding. It took me just a couple of days to feel like part of the team, because even though I was new, the team members always encouraged me to get involved in the engagement through wide variety of tasks. And they were all keen on helping out by coaching. From my view, it a fast but easy integration into EY.
I was pleasantly surprised that there is no real division between the ranks in the team. The interactions between the senior partners and the junior consultants is as if they’ve been friends a long time.
My career development
I’m much more in charge of my own tasks. I’m now more proactive and I have the responsibility to ensure delivery of the engagement timely and with high quality. Additionally, with the new graduates joining the team, I have the additional responsibility to coach them.
At the moment, I simply want to move further up in the ladder and take more responsibilities in the firm. Perhaps at some point I would like to explore other areas within EY to learn new skillsets and knowledge. Or I could perhaps try and join the innovation to team to explore how we can use technology better to do jobs more efficiently.
With EY sponsoring by ACA qualification, I think this is a great way to diversify my career options. I believe knowledge of technology combined with finance definitely will help me in the future if I want to try out a new career path.
From my view, working with clients from wide ranging industries and sizes makes my knowledge valuable to companies in the industry as my knowledge has made me aware of many risks to IT infrastructure and the solutions to the risks.
My advice
I would say the most important thing is to have passion and interest in what you want to do. Maybe you feel you are not qualified to do something, but if you want to do the job and you really have passion for it, that is the most important thing and try and show that passion in the application.