EY - From Application Form To Offer

Application Form – Fairly standard application form, although the written answer questions are slightly different to Deloitte, KPMG and a few others. You get 200 words per question. Just the generic advice really – take your time, re-draft and check your answers.

*Worth noting at this point that since I did A-Level Maths I wasn’t required to do the online/paper tests; hence I can’t comment on them!*

First Round Interview – EY got back to me about 2 days after I had submitted my application form to set up a first round interview; as with most other firms it’s competency based. In my personal opinion, the EY first round interview was the most difficult of all the firms I applied too. There were loads of competency questions – I would say at least 8 or 9. There were so many I can’t remember them all, but obviously there were the standard ones – teamwork, time management etc. A couple of different/unusual ones I got were: tell me about a time you changed the way you did something due to another person’s suggestion...and... Give me an example of when you didn’t get your own way. On top of that I was asked the usual – why EY, why Tax and what do you think you’d be doing in your first year. Finally there were a couple of competency questions: (1) What is the greatest challenge currently facing EY? (2) Tell me a little bit about a recent business story/issue. Then there was the standard time at the end for a few questions. All in all the interview lasted for around 55-60 minutes.

National Tax Assessment Centre (NTAC) – EY got back to me 2 days after my first round interview to say I’d been successful. From then it took another 2 weeks or so to set up the National Tax Assessment Centre. Obviously this is only going to be relevant for those applying for tax – the audit assessment day IS different. My partner interview was on a different day, so I’ll talk about the partner interview at the end. It is also worth noting that the NTAC is only held in London – so wherever you have applied you will have to go to London for the NTAC.

For those of you who do have a partner interview on the same day (those that apply to London) the day begins at 9am – the partner interview will be the first thing you do. Those who have a partner interview on a different day, the day begins at 10:15am. I’ll go through the exercises individually, in the order you’ll do them on the day:

Case Study – You’ll get 70 minutes to do three different tasks, all based on the same information. You are a junior member of EY and you have to prepare what is effectively a briefing document for a partner who is due to meet with a client. The client is a magazine publishing company which has operations in the UK and throughout Europe; with a parent firm in the USA. You’ll be given a booklet of information on the firm. The booklet broadly contains: background information; financial information/figures; and expansion plans. The three tasks are:

- Bullet point important issues/areas of concern which you believe the partner should raise when meeting the client.
- From your bullet points, prioritise those which you believe are most important; briefly justify why you have made these priorities.
- Give two or three (specific) tax services which EY could provide the client.

In addition to the three written areas you are required to carry out a few calculations; these are fairly simple and you’ll be given a calculator and the necessary formulae. If you don’t study a business related subject then it’s worth doing some quick research to understand both debt-equity ratios and effective tax rates. These are the two calculations you’ll need to perform and whilst the formulae are given, there is no explanation as to what they mean. You’ll be expected to interpret the results and include them in your bullet points.

The booklet of information is quite long and it’s worth devoting up to around 25 minutes sifting through the information and carrying out the calculations. All the writing is done by hand – pen and paper. You are NOT expected to spend an even amount of time on each section, but you are expected to finish ALL sections. The first section will take you the longest – allow around 20-25 minutes; I’d say you’re looking at needing around 10 bullet points, with a brief explanation as to why. For the second section pick about three of your 10 bullet points to prioritise and JUSTIFY them; as long as you can justify your choice it doesn’t matter too much which ones you choose. Allow around 10-15 minutes. The final section is the shortest – recommend two or three tax-specific services EY could offer the client and why – should only take around 5 minutes; be brief.

There are a few things worth noting and preparing for before the day:

- Know what a ‘debt-equity ratio’ is and how to interpret it.
- Know what ‘effective tax rate’ is and how to interpret it.
- Do some research into the tax-specific services EY offers – e.g. Human Capital, International Tax etc. This is crucial for the final section.

Finally (and by far the most important!!) is be aware that Switzerland is NOT in the EU. This is absolutely CRUCIAL for the exercise and the conclusions you draw. Quite unfairly (I think) the information pack doesn’t tell you that Switzerland isn’t in the EU – you are expected to know it. There is talk of tax rates for EU member states, but obviously Switzerland doesn’t apply. I can’t emphasise how CRUCIAL this is for the whole exercise – you’ll see what I mean when you get the pack of information.

As a final note, time goes very quickly so keep an eye on it. Be absolutely sure to finish all the tasks – you will be penalised heavily for not completing all the tasks.

Following the case study you’ll break for lunch (1 hour) and like at most other places a few trainees will come down to speak to you.

Group Exercise – After lunch you’ll have the group exercise. There were 8 people on the day I went and we were split into two groups of four. You’ll have 35 minutes for this exercise, with no time at the beginning set aside to read the instruction sheet (you’ll only need to devote a couple of minutes to this anyway). The discussion is based on the case study exercise you did in the morning and is effectively discussing what you’ve found individually in the morning. You’ll be given a separate instruction sheet with three areas you are expected to discuss:

- UK group’s expansion
- Tax compliance issues
- Company’s loans

There is no new information given at this stage and you won’t have access to the information pack you had in the morning; all you will be given is a photocopy of your own notes from the case study exercise. The trick is therefore to include enough information in your bullet points to allow you to make a constructive contribution to the group, or alternatively just have a good memory! As with most group exercises just make sure you contribute, are constructive and keep an eye on the time. There is enough time to cover all of the necessary issues.

Partner Role Play – After the group exercise you get about a 15 minute break before being paired off with another member of your group to do the role play – either with a partner or director. The aim is, basically, to brief them on what you consider to be the most important points for them to raise with the client and why. You and your partner will have 10 minutes preparation time to decide what you’re going to say and who will say what – divide it up evenly. The partner will walk in after 10 minutes to begin the exercise. The exercise is again based on the same case study you’ve done in the morning and the ideas talked about in the group exercise – it should therefore be fairly simple to do! The partner, at the start, will throw a new bit of information at you – you’ll be expected to take account of it and it may be necessary to slightly change what you were going to say.

The exercise will last about 10-15 minutes and is meant to be a role play, not a presentation. The partner will stop you at different stages and ask you questions about what you are saying – be prepared to think on your feet!

Partner Interview – As I said earlier, my partner interview was on a different day. The interview itself was pretty informal and was more of a discussion than a strict competency interview. I was only asked two competency questions: (1) A time when I had gone out of my way to help someone and (2) A time I had worked in a team. I was asked why tax, but surprisingly not why EY and no commercial awareness questions at all. It was more of a discussion about my interests and him talking about some of the work he’d been doing than anything else. Above all, he wanted me to ask him lots of questions, so have some prepared! The interview itself lasted about 1 hour. I’m not sure how indicative this would be of a regular partner interview though – I think he’d made the decision to offer me the job after about 2 minutes! ...since after that he was just basically going on about how EY is so great etc and why I should work for them.

I got a call the day after my partner interview to offer me the job!

Of all the firms I applied too I felt the EY process was most rigorous and generally they were the firm which left me with the best impression; hence EY is the offer which I will be accepting.

Good Luck to all those applying!

p.s. If anyone wants to ask any other specific questions then feel free to PM me.