Shannon Allen
Senior Accountant, Audit Department
The College at Brockport, State University of New York
Transcript
“Hi my name is Shannon, I graduated from SUNY Brockport in 2017, and I’ve worked in the audit department at Insero for three and a half years now.
For me, when I started my summer audit internship, I was immediately impressed by how helpful and friendly everyone was. Questions were always encouraged because the people here, they really want you to learn and understand not only what you’re doing, but why you’re doing it, and this hasn’t changed as I’ve developed my career through Insero. Everyone’s always been willing to help out.
There’s different opportunities to work in our different departments here to figure out kind of what clicks for you and there’s opportunities to work with a variety of clients to figure out what industry you might be most interested in. For example, I’ve worked on commercial audits, benefit plan audits, real estate audits.
I’ve worked in the audit department since I started full time at Insero, but I also have completed a rotation in tax for two years which has expanded my knowledge. I’ve also had the opportunity to work on some outsource jobs, which again has done nothing but expand my knowledge here and they’re more than willing to provide additional experience through different departments in the firm so that you can learn more and figure out what you love to do.
Especially in the audit department, we always work in teams to complete our audits so that gives you a really great opportunity to get to know people in the department and work with people in the department but you also develop personal connections as you work through these audits because it’s not all work 24/7. And so you’re working with a variety of people in the audit department and getting to know each and every one of them. Both how to work with them as far as auditing goes but on a personal level as well and because of that I’ve made some of my best friends here at the firm.
I would want to let Brockport students know to take advantage of all of the opportunities that Brockport gives you. Go to Rnet. Pay attention to your professional skills classes and just take advantage of those opportunities to get practice in interviewing and doing research on different firms to figure out what you’re interested in and learn the most about the firms that you might be interested in. I think that that is super important.
My best advice for the interview process would be to calm your nerves and don’t be so nervous when going in to these interviews and to view it as you and whoever is interviewing you as a normal conversation. What’s most important is to be yourself and to ask questions. Don’t be afraid to interview back because this is your career and it’s important to know what you’re getting in to.”