What advice would you give to the summer internship applicants for the later stages of the application process? Thanks

Hi Sparsh, thanks for getting in touch. I did the summer internship in 2019, so I am not sure if the application process has changed slightly since I applied but I assume you will still have the assessment day and the final partner interview towards the end of the application process. For both of these stages, my main advice would be to get across your personality. It's quite easy to fall into playing a character of what you think the ideal candidate would be, focusing on getting across your technical knowledge, having rehearsed answers to questions and behaving in an overly professional manner. I think this really helped me form a good rapport with my peers on the assessment day and with interviewers, who I think can see through you if you are giving really rehearsed answers and acting very formally. That being said, I am not saying don't prepare, or to behave unprofessionally, but just to allow yourself to relax and be yourself. At the end of the day, obviously your technical ability is important, but the people assessing you will undoubtedly be thinking if they would want to work with you or not, so be personable and friendly.

For the assessment centre itself, there is a focus on collaboration, with many of the activities being in groups or teams. For example, one of the activities was to work as a group of four or five people to plan an initiative where we would be going to a school for a day to teach children career skills. My advice here would be to get involved as much as you can but not to dominate discussions, as talking over others or not allowing them to speak is not what they are looking for in a person. Listening to others is actually the most important, and you can show you are doing this by supporting other people's ideas or by adding onto their points. However don't be afraid to take control of the conversation if the discussion is not going in the right direction or if no one is speaking - just don't dominate others basically. Basically the assessment centre is trying to see how you work with other people, so always have that in the front of your mind. For the final interview, and this goes without saying, I can't stress enough how important preparation was for me. Before the EY assessment day, I had another assessment day at a different company where I didn't do much preparation. At the centre, I really struggled (especially in the one-on-one interview) and subsequently I didn't get an offer from that company. To ensure this didn't happen again at my EY assessment I was far more prepared, making me far less stressed and nervous. I spent a lot of time online looking up what type of assessments there would be, researching the role and the company, and doing interview practice. I was able to have a proper conversation with the interviewer because I wasn't stunned by the questions I was asked. Prep wise, focus on why you chose EY (importantly, why EY as opposed to other similar companies), why you chose the role you applied for (again, can be useful to think why that role vs other roles) and what you can bring to the role/company (so both hard job related skills and soft skills). I asked my own questions during the interview too which allows the conversation to flow more naturally and is perfectly fine. If you don't understand a question or want to clarify something, just ask - I was always worried this would make me look incompetent or unprepared but if you think about it, its just a natural part of a conversation.

I realise I've written quite a lot! So to summarise, I'd say:
- Be genuine and allow your personality to come across, don't be over rehearsed and unnatural
- Prepare as much as you can so you don't get thrown off on the day
- Listen to others and show you're a team player
- Take the lead where you can to show your leadership ability, but don't dominate others
- Don't be afraid to ask questions in the interview

This is all my personal advice from my experience - I hope this was helpful, if you have any other questions or want me to go into more detail on anything just reply below and I'll get back to you as soon as I can :)