BDO school leaver programme 2017.

I applied for the London Office what about you?

Is this the only scheme you have applied for or have you applied for multiple?

Birmingham. I've got an offer from BDO so not applying anymore. I did apply for a few others back in october. You?

Well done! got sent through my assessment day information today. I've applied for JP Morgan, Deloitte and HSBC and I have assessment days coming up for JP Morgan and Deloitte, but BDO is my favoured choice. Have u accepted the offer?

Thank you
When is your assessment centre?
Good luck for all of them
I did accept my offer, I just need to send my contract off. Exciting, but nervous at the same time.

Its May 3rd so I still have time. Well done on accepting! Yeah I imagine. Have any of you other friends applied for these types of schemes or are you on your own?

Yeah plenty of time to prepare! If you need any help just ask me, and i'll try my best
Nope, im the only one. How about you?

That would be great. One of my friends just got into the Deloitte program but apart from that no, my school is very pro-uni.

Sure just send me a PM and i'll help you
Aw thats really good! The BDO one is good because you have the group assessment, presentation and interview on the same day so its a quicker process too.
What service line did you apply for?
Did you apply to uni also?

Which service Line have you applied for?

Tax. You?

Ah I've applied to audit

Good luck with it
Let me know how it goes.

Will do, I've got a telephone interview with EY next week aswell haha

Aw you've got loads on then! Have you applied to other firms? Other than EY and BDO?

Birmingham. I've got an offer from BDO so not applying anymore. I did apply for a few others back in october. You?

Hey congrats on your offer!! I was wondering if you knew if after you send off your contract, will BDO send any more documents?

Have you all actually ever tried working in tax/audit/financial consulting before? Applying for a job blind is dangerous, and it can be difficult to get out of a training contract without a huge financial penalty unless you fail an exam.

I really really would urge everyone either applying or thinking of applying to email these firms and ask to come in and work shadow for a week. Many of them will offer it if you ask, go in, see what the day job is you're actually applying for, and then decide whether to withdraw or continue your application.

There is a huge drop-out rate from all the big 4/10 firms in the first year from people who had no idea what they were signing up for and who wished they'd shadowed first to realize before they even started that this job is not what they thought it was / what they enjoy.

Encouraging this as a friendly stranger, and current employee of such a company!

Hey what service line are you working for?
What qualifications are you studying for?
What do you find most challenging about the job and why do most people drop out?

I'd firstly like to caveat that many people do enjoy their jobs and are very glad they chose their career.

Many however aren't.
I work in Tax, and am studying for the ACA.
There is nothing challenging about the job at all, that is the problem. For your first 3-4 years all you essentially are is support staff, inputing data, creating spreadsheets, writing up notes and reports that someone tells you exactly what to do.
If your idea of a fun job is sitting inputting numbers into an excel spreadsheet for 10 hours a day, then going home and self-studying for accountancy exams in all of your free time, and being very underpaid for doing so (£22,000 for 60 hours a week works out at barely above minimum wage) then by all means, go into Tax/Audit.

Around 3/4 of people who drop out are fired, for failing exams, including people who have done Accountancy Masters' degrees which I find hilarious, they just burn out from having to study for 12 hours per day every weekend with no teacher or support.

The ones who leave leave because they find being in a boring office for 10 hours a day where no one really speaks or has any character to be soul-crushing, they leave and either go work in Banking which is a much more interesting part of finance, or go back to Uni to do Masters degrees, retrain as teachers, join other Grad Schemes etc, and I'm yet to meet a single person who regrets leaving.

Like I said, shadow for a week. You should realise fairly quickly whether or not you really want to work in tax/audit or not.