I discovered Equity Methods through an information session that one of my college professors referred me to. At the session, I got to talk to some of the people who would become my coworkers. I really liked the picture of the firm that I was getting, so I applied for an externship and my application was accepted.

At Equity Methods, an externship is a two to three-day experience that exposes you to some of the things they do every day, including processes and tools like the coding language the firm uses. The externship also gives you and the firm a chance to learn more about each other. I liked the Equity Methods team and culture a lot, and when they offered me a job I decided to join.

An entry-level associate here gets a lot of responsibility right off the bat. You can take on deadlines, deliverables, complex topics, and client communications pretty quickly. But there’s a strong team of supportive, down-to-earth people to help you grow. When a challenging topic comes up, or I run into a new situation, there’s always someone I can go to for some perspective on how to tackle it.

Mentorship is a predominant theme here. There’s a structured mentoring program, and a lot of mentoring happens informally as well. You can look to more senior people for help with the business as well as developing good work habits.

We also have a lot of dedicated training sessions. Some are for learning about specific accounting guidance or the financial reports we work on. Others zero in on ways to manage client relationships or how to train new associates as they’re coming on board.

And we learn a lot about growing into the consultant and senior consultant roles. For associates, the focus is on process building and automation. Now that I’m a consultant, I’m spending more time on project and people management while also serving clients as their primary contact at the firm.

We put a lot of emphasis on support and flexibility for our clients. Clients often bring a challenge to us because they don’t have the time or resources to figure it out on their own. Or they just don’t know where to start. Either way, we’re a partner to them. We don’t just provide an automated solution, we really try to make clients’ lives easier. If there’s something we can do efficiently that would save them a lot of time, we’ll do it. We always go the extra mile.