Working at KPMG has always been one of my dreams. The reason I wanted to work here was the work culture and extensive support that KPMG offers to its employees which is not done by any other firm. It is not only one of the top firms within the Big Four but a committed and engaged firm that delivers to the best of its abilities to each of its clients. The secret behind the success of KPMG is the devotion to serving the client and always going above and beyond to serve their needs. The experience that I got here will help me grow and take me a long way in my career.

Honestly, before I started the work term, I was a bit nervous about working remotely in such a big firm as I had previously worked remotely, and it was a bit difficult to ask questions and interact. All the nervousness was put to rest when KPMG called all the new hires into the Langley office and tried to make us familiar with how things work here. Meeting all the new hires really helped us all as I knew we were all in the same boat which made it easier to interact. They also let us know that help is always there and that we can reach out at any time. We were also assigned to ‘Performance Managers’ and ‘Peer Mentors’ so that we always have a go-to person to talk to if we had any questions or issues that we are dealing with.

Even though this is a remote work term, all the employees can go into the office on any day and we have regular team gatherings which have become helpful during this time. We also have some great initiatives going on in the firm which include volunteering events, office hours, campus hire events, and social events. These help us be involved in the firm and meet new people throughout the GVA. I had the opportunity to go to take part in a volunteer clean-up of Trout Lake Park. We spent three hours in the park, where we went around the park and its suburbs trying to pick up the garbage and do our part to keep our city clean.

As for the work that new hires are expected to do, I would say it is mostly deadline-driven. There can be a lot of tasks that can have the same deadline, so the key is to be organized and manage your time well. As I just started in October, and my first 10 days were mostly training, I started to get real assignments in my third week. I had to draft a Netrun Executable File (NTR) file from scratch which was interesting as I had never done that before. I get to learn new things almost every day who always keeps me involved in the assignments that I do. Each new file is very different from the previous ones as you are dealing with a completely new business. As this is going to be an 8-month term, I am excited to go into the busy season and learn completely new things and I am grateful for this opportunity.