It’s gonna be a lame summer for EY interns as the firm has trimmed internships down to six weeks and is withholding both Disney AND intern gifts. When it happened in winter, interns were apparently told it was “because of budgeting due to the potential split.” Now that the Project Everest split is a no-go it’s “supply chain issues” and someone isn’t happy.
Text:
(Burner account) I wanted to ask if anyone else is interning with EY this summer and is just absolutely disappointed? First, the program length gets cut down to be 6 weeks with one unpaid, so really 5. Then, they cancel our intern gifts and tell us that there are ‘supply chain issues’ instead. Now, they have told us that the annual Disney trip is cancelled. I’ve also been hearing that some service lines won’t even work the full 5 weeks, but only 2 days of one week, making the full experience a little over a month.
All of this info has come wayyyyyy after our offer letters have been signed, and for a lot it was too late to find another internship. A complete lack of transparency is the thing that sealed the deal for me and my disappointment. I don’t understand why they think this will work, or will make interns want to really sign a full time offer if they can do any better (which I honestly think they can).
I just want to highlight this heavily upvoted comment:
Christ. You need a reality check.
Your internship is about buffing out your CV, making connections and getting a bit of exposure to the world of work. Your internship doesn’t benefit the business, no matter how important or great you think you are. It benefits your resume.
And here you are complaining about your Disney land trip being cancelled and not receiving gifts… are you an actual child? Grow up and stop feeling so hard done by. There’s lots of people who get fuck all for internships and apprenticeships and, worse yet, there’s lots of people who don’t have the social mobility / links to get internships. Stop complaining.
Kids these days. They all think the world owes them something.
Yeah, a North Face jacket.
Or a loudmouth neighbor depending on your political preference. Either way you look at it, 5 Times Square won’t be the same. 
I can understand they may feel disappointed, but I think it’s important for interns to remember that an internship is a stepping stone towards their career goals. Getting EY (well… any Big4) in their CV is huge help to open doors. Also an opportunity to gain some practical experience, develop new skills, and expand their professional network. Simply just feel comfortable in office environment.
By making the most of the available opportunities, interns should turn this potentially “disappointing” summer into a valuable learning experience. Seems it’s a new generation btw…
That system is changing very quickly. The better accountants these days, more and more, are the ones who started right in industry. I wish I had, but the professors sold us on the “big 4” path. The golden ticket they called it. Hiring folks today, it seems more like a Disney World ticket. So you can tie our PO’s & Invoices? Well this guy has already been booking GL clean up entries for the past 2 years,… but you did work all those late nights on the Walmart Team confirming cash…
Ok Boomer
Well, whatever person wrote that response was a little harsh. I don’t know what an “intern gift” is, but I enjoyed the internship many years ago. EY makes alot of dinero, I think the partners can spare the cash for the simple fact that, for many of us, that was a very exciting memory. We went on rides one night, the rest was all networking activities.
By doing this, and assuming I can imagine many partners writing that “Kids These Days” comment, EY is hurting itself. Getting paid $20 bucks an hour for 9 weeks was a blessing, and I did actually do staff level work for it.
The more I think about it, the person who wrote that upvoted comment is probably a stressed out partner who is retiring this year. Reading that just makes me cringe at some of those late nights we had while the partner just sat there so noone had the self dignity to leave at 2 am. Ah, but they pre-paid us for that, via the internship. I guess they’re switching from kool-aid to flavor-aid as well?
This old system overall has run it’s course, and as less and less people get accounting degrees, this system is going to have to change anyhow. No-one should give up starting a family and having a decent job during the start of their career and put it off until their 30’s. There was a Twilight Zone episode that comes to mind where the old rich man paid the younger man for years of his life. That episode is very realistic and scarier every decade.
People don’t understand. But the Disney internship is part of the process in EY getting better to know you. The full time offers are already decided; so they’ve put supervisors or leads to weed out people who don’t represent the resume and offer presented; while it’s still an offer it can be revoked. I know of at least 30 people who attended the Disney Conference (and 1 supervisor) who were sent home and more than likely had their offers revoked.
An internship achieves two purposes – 1) it checks a box for your resume and 2) it gives you a glimpse into what your future career would look like, albeit through rose colored glasses where you do fun activities and happy hours on a weekly basis instead of slaving over your laptop for 60+ hours. I get that it’s disappointing to not have a free trip to Disney but i don’t think it was worthy of denouncing the firm on Reddit.
As an intern-turned-FT many years ago, I’m actually inclined to agree with the intern on this one. I used that money to proactively pay down my student loans, so I can’t imagine a last minute change on the length of the internship and how much of it is actually paid. Most of the time not spent on my project was spent on networking events, including Disney, and I’m sure a lot of other internal events will have their budget slashed because that’s happening across the board. The actual work you do isn’t particularly useful, the networking is. Plus, the trip and all the other events are a benefit to EY too, since it’s all sizzle reel material for our external presence on campuses and LinkedIn.
Ultimately the trip to Disney and all those other complaints are a symptom of a larger problem: EY doesn’t know how to effectively communicate or perform change management to save its life, and we’re incredibly short sighted. Everest was short sighted, all the 2020 compensation changes were short sighted, and now we’re bait-and-switching interns. Even those swag gifts are a cheap marketing tactic too – I know when I got back to campus, I was rocking my EY swag and became an unofficial ambassador with my FT job offer in hand. Recruiting really can’t get some cheap water bottles and pens? Really?
Are we talking college kids here or 12 year olds?
“Wah! I can’t get my gift and see Micky Mouse”.
Another issue that wasn’t mentioned is that they’re only being paid for 5 of the 6 weeks because of July 4th holidays. The thread mentioned that at least PwC and Deloitte are paying their interns for the July 4th week. The shortened time frame plus not getting paid for that week means a whole lot less money for EY interns.
So there is a lot to unpack here, but I will start off by saying that I completely agree with the intern on this one. All of the Big4 go to campuses and put on this show for recruiting. They make promises about how “fun” their internship programs are and my guess is that they mentioned how they all took a trip to Disney and received nice gifts the previous years. So, as an intern, you are going to feel lied to when they tell you they are going to do one thing and then not do it. There is no need to call them babies or little kids. Most likely they had the opportunity to choose another Big 4 firm, but they chose EY.
Second, people need to realize there is a shortage of accounting majors. This is causing salaries to increase and is giving the ones with accounting degrees more leverage. This also means recruiting fees are just going up. In the long term, these firms can save money with simple gifts, as these can encourage people to stay with a firm instead of doing the Big4 jump.
Last, and probably most important, is that it is not fair to cut someone’s expected pay. I don’t care if they are an intern or the CEO. If they had an agreement to work a set amount of time for a set amount of pay, the company should honor it. The intern pay is not going to break their bank.