How a tax internship led me to a graduate role at EY

During my 3 years of study at the University of Birmingham, I frequently got involved with careers services to look for spring insight weeks, internships and graduate roles. Applications for these roles were stressful, and I know I personally struggled in my 1st and 2nd year balancing my studies, part-time work and job applications. Finding opportunities was also a challenge for me as tax wasn’t an area where I had a lot of work experience. I ended up attending some of the careers events where I was able to talk with employers who I wasn’t even aware existed, including BDO. I applied with the support of the BBS careers team to BDO, one of few companies offering a tax internship in Birmingham and was ecstatic to receive an offer from them in my 2nd year!

My role as an intern involved rotating around the different tax streams an accounting firm has, starting in VAT, then corporate tax and finally private client services. I was able to get a better idea of the type of work I would be involved in when graduating, as well as I began understanding the importance of technical computer skills, the role of AI within tax accounting and the different tax software each department utilised. The use of AI within my career stood out the most to me as a learning curve. My degree in accounting has frequently been trying to incorporate how AI is being expanded within the industry, but I was never fond of its usage and often disregarded these teachings. My internship showed me just how incorporated this aspect was in my future career path and how important it was to begin understanding ethical AI usage. From this, I actually brought back knowledge from my experience into my degree, and my grades and ethics understandings have improved drastically! It also paved the way for me to secure a graduate role at EY within their tax department, using my knowledge and experience of AI to provide better answers within the interview that represented the changing industry trends and standards.

EY has largely tech clients and so AI development is at the forefront of their work. Had I not taken part in the BDO internship, I would never have sought to better my understanding of AI usage and the ethics behind this to apply within my EY interview. Therefore, my advice to future students is to understand that gaining experiences during your degree is just as important as the degree itself. The experiences don’t need to be related to your career path either – every job and role provides new skills and new knowledge that can be transferred to other jobs. By getting involved with these experiences, you can open yourself up to new perspectives and understanding that better showcase your capabilities and drive within your chosen career path.