What did you study?
I studied a Bachelor of Science, majoring in Biochemistry, graduating in 2016. I’m currently studying for a Master of Business Information Systems, part-time at Monash University.
Where did you grow up?
I was born and raised in Melbourne. Having jumped around to several fields and industries, including law, health science (physiology and embryology), I’ve finally landed in IT.
How did you get to your current job position?
I began my journey at EY as a Summer Vacationer over the summer of 2017/2018 through an eight-week program and returned as a Graduate Consultant in January 2019. I’ve been in my role for just over a year.
How did you choose your specialisation?
Technology was something I was always passionate about during university even when it wasn’t something I was looking to build a career in. Alongside this, almost every field in technology is amongst the fastest growing in the world. I figured the opportunities for growth, professional development and future job prospects were unparalleled when comparing to other industries.
What was your interview process like?
The entire interview process from application to offer lasted less than two weeks. My interview process as an eight-week Summer Vacationer was a one day, two-step process. It involved a group activity of six candidates to discuss a case study and present our business case back to observers. This activity measured how well we worked as a team, our personal brand and communication skills. After the group activity, I had a one-on-one interview with a manager in the Technology Risk Team. A large portion of the interview was an informal chat to figure out what I wanted, who I was and why I wanted to be a part of EY and Tech Risk. I was also asked a few behavioural interview questions to gauge my personality, along with a couple technical questions sprinkled in regarding some of the units I had studied during university.
What does your employer do?
EY is a multinational professional services organisation, considered as one of the Big Four accounting organisations. We operate with over 280,000 professionals worldwide in Assurance, Tax, Transactions, and Advisory services.
What are your areas of responsibility?
I am a Consultant that sits under the Advisory umbrella in the Technology Risk Team. My work largely involves performing IT audits in support of our Assurance Teams, along with wider risk work, including cybersecurity and privacy-related engagements.
Can you describe a typical workday?
My workday varies enormously depending on what client I’m working on, where we’re at in the engagement and my role in the engagement. Currently, I’m working on a project at a large Telecommunications client that involves a lot of client meetings to understand their business processes, IT environment and the testing of IT audit controls.
What are the career prospects with your job?
Working in an organisation like EY has enabled me to have a diverse range of opportunities on different types of projects, which has led me to feel very open about where my future job prospects will lead me. One of my favourite parts of my job is the client facing work and stakeholder management and learning to do this effectively in a high performing environment is transferrable to any future job prospects.
What would your career be if you weren’t doing what you’re doing now?
I’ve always been passionate about science and biotechnology. One day I’d still like to break into that field and combine my knowledge of technology and biochemistry to help generate positive change in the health tech industry.
What do you love the most about your job?
One thing I love most about my job is the client-facing experience. Most of the clients I work with are generally very experienced, senior staff and create an expectation to have the knowledge and industry know-how to have an informed discussion with them. This puts people in a position to quickly gain client negotiation skills with management and other high-level clients. My favourite day-to-day tasks are related to coaching others. I’m a very extroverted person and I’m passionate about coaching my juniors and working with other staff members to support their growth and impart some (limited) knowledge and experience.
What’s the biggest limitation of your job?
The reality of my role and the team I’m in is that we often have a large volume of work to do with limited time, and this sometimes results in high-stress levels for some team members. Whilst I do not work on weekends, my team will often stay back late on weeknights to complete work due to clients or time-sensitive work. Although workload can be high, this gives great opportunities to gain a large amount of experience in the same amount of time that someone else may have at a different organisation.
Which three pieces of advice would you give to a current university student?