Ernst & Young First Interview

Took them 10 days for me

Hey there,

Whereabouts are you guys applying for? London? Birmingham? I've applied for Audit in Birmingham - have my first interview in mid-August! When are your interviews set up for?

London Bridge for me... you starting in 2010 or 2011? 2011 Interviews start in Aug according to the HR rep I spoke with. Double-check that you're on for 2010 (if that's what you've applied for!)

Hello everyone,
I have applied for audit in Edinburgh and just been for my interview last week which wasn't successful.
Just to let everyone know it was definitely strength based interview with 30 questions and the questions were same like posted on forms but has been twisted some other way.
If you need to ask any question feel free to message me.
Thanks

DT

Hi, could anyone who has been to their first interview for the audit internship tell me what kind of questions came up?
Thank you

I see - Best of luck!

MissyBabs I've found you!

Have you heard anything yet?

James (from Tuesday)

Hi everyone!

I have been given a date for my first round interview for Audit UKI - Bristol. Could anyone who has had an interview for a similar position message me and tell me what it was like, example questions and if you were successful etc. I would be extremely grateful.

Thank you very much in advance and good luck to anyone else with interviews!

hi dt sorry to hear about the interview I have also applied for audit and have been called in for the interview next week just looking to confirm what strength based questions they asked you and how they twisted the questions any help would be much appreciated.

Hey guys,

Recently had my first interview with EY and I fully understand now what d_t meant about the questions being similar but twisted.

I don't think I had many questions that were the same as the list I prepared but a lot of them were similar.

I have listed the questions I prepared for and put in brackets what I was asked instead or if I just didn't have that question:

Why have you applied to Assurance/Tax? (Why have you chosen audit?)

Should there be more hours in the day? - didn't get this question

Tell me about your group of friends? (Do you find yourself bridging the gap between different groups of friends?)

Do you talk to different groups of friends differently? - didn't get this question but I think I tried to work an answer to it into another question

Is there a company/brand you admire? What question would you ask them? - didn't get this question

Do you enjoy working in a team? - it was either this or maybe what did I enjoy about working in a team

Have you ever wanted to quit something? (Do you give up easily? & Do you work at something to get to the heart of the matter or just leave it?)

Have you ever put the needs of a team before your own? (Do you consider what impact your actions will have on a team? - I actually think I interpretated this wrong and said something along the lines of knowing putting in a lot of time researching will help the team, maybe there were looking for am I careful not to only think about how my actions will benefit myself...)

Have you ever done something differently second time around? - didn't get this question

Have you ever built a relationship with anyone? (How do you build relationships with people?)

Do you prefer starting or finishing? - didn't get this question

Do you need to be an expert at something in order to lead a team? - didn't get this question

Do you prefer quick action or careful planning? - didn't get this question but got a similar one I've mentioned further down

How do you know your strengths and weaknesses? (What do you think your strengths and weaknesses are? How do you know this?)

How would a lecturer describe you? - didn't get this question

Would a friend say you are organised? - didn't get this question but was asked outright if I was an organised person

What do you call a good day? - didn't get this question

How do you deal with a boring task? - not sure I specifically got this but I got one I have mentioned below about motivation

How do you make others feel confident in your abilities?

How do you make sure you always do your best?

What have you contributed to a team to help their success? - didn't get this question

Have you ever used what you know to improve a situation? - don't think I got this question

How do you stay motivated?

How do you handle working with someone you don’t like? - didn't get this question

Have you ever had to go out of your way to help someone? - didn't get this question

When have you persuaded someone? - didn't get this question

Do you keep your promises? - didn't get this question

Do you enjoy hard work?

Do you ask for more responsibility? (Either this or something really similar about taking on more responsibility)

Do you plan your week? - didn't get this question

What is your biggest achievement?

Are you a good listener? (Think it was - do you like listening to people?)

What do you do when you don’t find a task interesting? (How do you stay motivated?)

How do you solve a problem? (Can't remember if it was exactly this but definitely a question about solving a problem)

How do you make sure you understand a concept/idea? - can't remember if I was asked this, but was asked in several different ways something along the lines of how I make sure my work is good

Do you prefer learning theory or putting it into practice? (Do you think it's better to fully understand an idea or apply it straight away?)

There were more than listed above but the only ones I can remember include:

Something along the lines of - What would you do if you found yourself in a room full of people with different interests?

What do you think makes a good concept/theory?

How do you deal with people who waste your time?/Do you get annoyed by people who waste your time? (can't remember exactly how it was put)

I found a lot of the questions were really similar and actually said to the interviewer that "as I've already said" and then used the same example...she didn't seem to mind.

At the end, she asked the "why audit?" question but also asked what I knew about EY audit and I can't really say I said very much, didn't know about main companies, audit teams or anything. She also asked something along the lines of why I thought I would be good at audit.

She was very helpful in the sense that she told me she would help me along if I wasn't giving enough of an answer (i.e. if I didn't really give a specific example and she wanted one). She also stopped at some points during the interview and asked something maybe she was just interested in and made if feel more like a conversation.

I'm sorry if I've missed anything out, was asked loads and really can't remember some of them because they were so similar.

Finished my interview after about an hour and was phoned two hours later to say I had been successful and have gotten to the assessment centre stage.

Also wanted to say that after I submitted my application, I got an email a day and a half later to do the online tests and the night after I had done them, I received a call the next afternoon inviting me for a first interview (date and time offered on the phone, then followed up with an email) and then received a call straight away to say my interview was successful. I'm sure it's not the same for everyone but I'm really impressed with how quickly things are being done.

Hope this helps people!

just remembered, was also asked how I keep up with business issues and at the end, she asked if there was anything else about myself that I wanted to tell her that wasn't on the application or covered in the interview :-)

@ je2010
thats great mate got my interview for ukI audit this friday been having a look at the questions and trying to mtach strengths from previous jobs to candidate criteria, plus finding some of the questions difficult to answer its almost like strength based are exactly same as competency, how did you go about answering the questions any help would be great

Hi
I had my interview last week and I can say that the questions were pretty much the same as what je2010 has written!

I just answered honestly, explained my answer with an example. I did not try to give a 'model' answer and admitted if I was better at some things than others.

i got through to the next stage so I guess it pays off to be yourself and not who you think they want you to be - as I say be natural and don't worry about giving a 'model' answer.

Hi again,

Totally agree with milka, just be yourself, I didn't fake anything and didn't have set answers, just had examples I knew I could use and adapt.

jav86 - I just emphasised hard work, organisation, meeting new people, getting along with people, was enthusiastic and smiled!

I think you're right about strength based and competency based basically being the same. I felt with strength based though that there was the freedom to have your own example to match a strength rather than being asked when you showed 'x' and not having an example.

Is there a specific question you're struggling with?

Having had my interview on Tuesday I was going to come back here and share my experiences but je2010 has beaten me to it.

All I will add is comfirmation that the experience of je2010 wasn't an exception - my interview was for UKI Audit and the questions were exactly as je2010 said, I also noticed a lot of overlap and said the same "As I previously said" it got to the point with planning based questions that when she asked "Do you like to plan your week?" towards the end of the interview - the lady interviewing me filled the form in before I even spoke!

I talked to my interviewer quite a lot about the travelling I had done and even ended up talking about musicals! It turned out she couldn't get tickets to see SPAMALOT and I mentioned I had been to see it and it was amazing then she said "oh don't tell me that I am already gutted" so I said "actually it was awful, you're not missing out" I think talking to her almost like I would a friend really helped as it shows you can get on with new people you meet in very formal situations.

I know I didn't have much to add but I hope my little tit bit helps to some degree!
Good luck to everyone in the recruitment process!

@je2010
Im stuggling with the weakness question dont want to sound to cocky and dont want to sound like Iv a million weakneses either

I also had my interview on Tuesday and got through to the assessment centre! All the info you need are really in past posts...good luck!

hey jav86, go with something like taking on too much work or that you used to be a bit unorganised but have been working on this recently by using the outlook calender etc

just search for it on the internet, should get plenty of examples

good luck with the interview tomorrow!

@je2010
thanks alot mate for the advice hopefully everything will go well tomorrow, will let you what happens either way

Hi,

I just had an Ernst and Young first Interview this morning and just received a call saying I was successful!

Like everybody else, I cannot stress enough how important it is just to read the forums ad look at the sample interview questions. I received questions similar to ones that have been stated. Here are the ones I can remember that were different:

do you enjoy hard work?

have you ever done anything extraordinary for the team?

have you ever done anything purely for the benefit of someone else and not for yourself?

what do you do with your free time?

do you adapt well to different social situations?

tell me a time where you have used your analytical skills to solve a problem?

if you were teaching someone a theory, would your aim be for them to fully understand it or simply be able to apply the theory?

do you follow the activity/growth of main brands?

I would say answer the questions with authenticity. I had rehearsed answers for all the questions in the forum but when it came to answering the questions my rehearsed answers did not sound natural, and I found myself just being honest (to an extent). The interviewer was wonderful, a man who worked in IT advisory. He kept apologising about the rigidness of the questions and in the end we just ended up chatting about the company and his experiences.

I was not asked any business focus questions or career motiviational questions.

Good luck everyone!

I also had my interview this morning all the post were a great help and all of the questions I was asked came up in previous posts, the questions were tell me about a time when you worked in a team? tell me about a time when you worked in a team and did not get on with one of the team members? cant remember rest but will post when I remember

hi everyone, could any guy tall me the differences between UKI and FS?
These two terms appear in EY position title.

I searched online but can't find answer.

Thanks in advanced.

Hi

I also saw a question above: "do you follow the activity/growth of main brands?"

What actually does this question mean?

Is that mean do I concern for/join a company's activities?

Any suggestions are appreciatived.

Thank you

Yes it's just a way for you to tell them how you keep up to date with current affairs and the current state of the economy/commerce.

raistlin55: FS = Financial Services, UK&I = combination of other sectors. As a large proportion of EY's work is with FS clients they are branched off on their own. UK&I is a lot more varied and gives u exposure to more things. Depends what you're interested in really.

Many thanks to uclgraduate10 and Logik!

This thread saved my life! I had my first interview for audit on Tuesday and almost 90% of the questions were as previously mentioned. I can only remember 1 that hasn't been mentioned yet:

You've been made a project manager. What do you do?

Happily I passed and I'm through to the assessment stage. Just wanted to say thank you for all the help!

Hiya, first of all, thanks for the amazing help on this thread already! I have my first round interview for audit in London next month on the 11th and I'm really struggling with the question 'Do you find yourself bridging the gap between different groups of friends?'

Any help would be much appreciated, I really have no idea how to answer it. Also, how long was the conversation on each question roughly?

Thank you!

@Meem

I would answer this question by saying that you arrange social events (e.g. a night out at the pub) between two different groups of friends ie. bridging the gap.

To people that have had the first interview, would you suggest using the standard CAR (context, action, result) approach to answering questions? I would imagine that the way the EY interview seems to be structured means that the CAR approach would appear too rigid and rehearsed.

Thank you xssb, I appreciate your help, my interviews been moved to the 17th now. Making me more nervous than I already am!

Hi milka!

Thanks for your post. I am applying for a graduate job on Actuarial as well and I have an interview coming up in a couple of days. I wanted to ask if they asked anything on current business issues or any commercial awareness questions? I'm quite worried as this is my 1st face to face interview. Thanks!

Hey all!,

Just wanted to say 'thank you' for all the post giving questions that are likely to be asked at the interview, I have mine tomorrow, wish me good luck!

I passed the 1st interview!, now the AC! :)