“But I don’t know how to audit cash!”

Written by Melissa Young
Assurance Intern

Raleigh, NC

Melissa Young

If you’re browsing this site, you probably are either an accounting student trying to figure out what to say during your interview with McGladrey tomorrow morning (or in five minutes if we’re being honest) or have already accepted an internship position.  I’m going to skip over the interview prep and process (sorry procrastinators) and start with right after you sign the offer letter. 

I accepted my offer in October.  Late November I got an invite to the McGladrey holiday party.  I was really excited to go because it was my first “work” event.  I walked in and knew only a few people.  Fortunately, I spotted some other people with a fairly lost expression on their faces.  The other Raleigh interns!  I was glad that I went because there’d be some friendly faces at intern training.

The rest of December, I relaxed, slept, and half-heartedly tried to adjust my sleep schedule to fit working hours.  Finally it was the New Year and time for the internship.   I was pretty nervous the week before training started.  I kept dreaming that on my first day, I walked into a client’s office and was handed a huge file and was told to start auditing.  I woke up in a panic each night mumbling that I didn’t know how to audit cash.  My husband thought this was exceedingly funny and more than a little strange.

The first two days of training were in a hotel in Raleigh.  All of the new hires for North Carolina came to the training.  We went over HR policies and got our computers.  The first night, our lovely recruiter and HR generalists took all of us out bowling.  Now when I say bowling, I’m betting most of you are imagining gross rental shoes and a dark bowling alley.  Please!  Not good enough for the McGladrey interns.  We went to a fancy place in the North Hills section of Raleigh.  McGladrey rented out a private suite for us to bowl.  It was awesome.  I even posted my personal best score (a 93, no bumpers, thank you very much).

The following week was our first day in office.  We settled in to do some online training.  On Wednesday, the other Raleigh interns and I hit the road to Charlotte for another day of training for assurance interns.  We were shown the software programs and an overview of things to know before our first audit.  To wrap up the week, we returned to Raleigh for, wait for it….more training!  The Raleigh office specializes in finance companies.  We attended a two-day training session with most of the Raleigh audit staff to learn about special auditing issues for these companies. 

So the take home message here is: McGladrey invests a lot in training their interns.  Interns are treated just like first year staff.  Don’t stress too much about what you don’t know coming in.  They’ve got it covered.