Even though many of our graduates will have progressed in their careers since completing a case study, they are still of interest to students who wish to gain an understanding of the world of work.

Working as part of an audit team to examine a companies accounts and check that what the accounts show are a fair and true representation of the companies finances. I am also training towards my ACA qualification on a 3 year graduate scheme.

Typically, I will be out on client site and be assigned parts of the overall audit to complete over a set time period. I am often in different locations each week or so and teams can vary from 2 people to nearly 15.

I enjoy learning about how large businesses run and seeing the ins and outs of their accounts. Also it is interesting meeting CFOs of large multinational businesses.

Sometimes hours can be very long and work can sometimes be repetitive. Also sometimes I will be given jobs which require me to stay away from home in a hotel for a week or so.

I was unsure what I wanted to do after university. This graduate scheme for a reputable company gives me the opportunity to gain a professional qualification and also great career progression opportunities. So it seemed like a good next step to start and progress my career.

Organisational skills are very important. Also being able to take full responsibility for work assigned to you. I think from my science degree I use statistical methods and report writing skills.

I applied in my final year quite late on. However I didn’t get my offer until 6 months later and started 4 weeks after I received my offer. So over summer there was a lot of uncertainty as to what I was going to do. In that time I worked in a bar part time.

Hopefully I will be a qualified chartered accountant in 2 and a bit years. Then I’m unsure if I will stay with this company or move elsewhere.

I think it’s important to know that hours can be very long and it can be hard to maintain a social life at times. It is also very different studying for exams whilst simultaneously working.

If you are applying- keep applying to as many firms as you can. I honestly think a large part of receiving a job offer is luck so don’t take it personally if you receive rejections.

Don’t be put off large graduate schemes because they are competitive. There is no harm in applying if you are interested in that job. If you don’t buy a ticket - you’re not in the lottery.