Richard Walsh began his EY journey with a six-month work placement and is now a manager in our financial services consulting team. Read his career story here, or watch his short video at the end of this post.
I moved from Dublin to Cork for a six-month work placement with EY as part of my master’s programme, the MSc in Management Information and Managerial Accounting Systems at University College Cork. That was eight years ago, and I haven’t left yet!
I moved from the work placement to the graduate programme, progressing from an intern to a graduate, then to senior consultant and manager. I’ve been in my current role for three years. I enjoy it because, as a manager, you are actively counselling people and helping them to grow and develop their skills. It’s very rewarding to see people progress and develop – not just professionally but in their personal lives too, as they move through different life stages like buying their own home and starting a family.
In consulting, we spend much of our time on client sites but regularly come back to base for meetings and career counselling sessions. Regular events include the monthly consulting forum and our tribe sessions, which bring together a mix of FS consulting people from different service lines. These sessions have an open agenda and offer a chance for people to ask questions or discuss any challenges they might be facing. EY actively encourages collaboration with different teams, industries, and service lines, and I really enjoy the positive team culture.
We have regular learning and development sessions too, which focus on hot topics in consulting, and on building the soft skills that you need to succeed. A recent session was on building relationships, which is one of the core pillars of consulting. I think to be a good consultant you need to be a good, active listener, and it helps if you’re a people person. You’ll be working with so many different types of people, and it’s important to develop strong relationships – not just with clients, but also with the team around you. EY provides plenty of opportunities to develop, and through training, coaching and development, you will definitely hone your skills in these areas.
There is honestly no such thing as a typical day in consulting, which is something I enjoy about the job. You could come into work with fifteen things to do on your list but with one client request, your list goes out the window. It definitely keeps things interesting, as do the people I work with – there are plenty of different backgrounds and different ways of working, which provides variety. They are also a really nice group of people to work with which is important, because we spend so much of our lives at work.
If you are interested in a career with EY Financial Services Ireland, browse our current vacancies here.
