Flying Start 1 Review

As a flying start 1 I was performing tests around the basic areas of the file, eg, cash, cost of sales, operating expenses, ect. On a daily basis, I would interact with my team, as well as the client.

During my placement, I become more confident in holding conversations and making inquires with the client. As at the beginning, I would ask a more senior member in the team to come with me, but after a few weeks in I become more aware of how to approach the client with inquires and felt more comfortable in what I was asking.

I extremely enjoyed my placement, as people in my office were very friendly and approachable, which was my main fear. I believe this programme has a good balance between learning and working, and the majority of things we learnt between September and December, especially in Audit and Assurance, mirrored my roles/testing during placement, which made the work I was doing more clear and understandable.

Only on my first job on placement I felt I was more of a burden, than someone that could help out, this was because everything was new to me and I did not understand the systems and any of the tests. What made it worse was the fact the manager on the job kept saying he was surprised about the lack of training we were given around the testing, and kept saying he was worried whether all the testing assigned to me would be completed on time. However, by the third day into the job I was more comfortable with the systems, and the in-charge on the job gave me excellent coaching on the tests assigned to me. The in-charge kept praising my work, which made me feel valued and kept reassuring me that every new starter, even him, went through this and soon I would pick it up. Other than this incident, I felt valued on every job as my team members would praise my work and give me feedback on what I did well and how I could improve. However, the incident mentioned above did knock down my confidence and I started to portray every manager to be like that, which would always come in the way of how confident I was in talking to the manager on my jobs.

This programme was very well organised as there is a good balance between learning and working. The only downside is that the holidays we could take during placement were decided for us, and we had to take them during christmas.

The week of training we received before placement was overall beneficial, however, there was some tasks and activities which I thought was a waste of time. The training should focus more on the tests we could be asked to carry out. The one day of technology training we received at the reading office was extremely beneficial, as it guided us through the majority of programmes I used during placement.

During placement I would have regular meetings/phone calls with my people manager, who was very friendly and approachable. We also would have regular reminders from Kate that if we had any problems we could contact her.

As a student the package we received covered all my costs, as I was still paying for my rent at university and the living allowance helped my parents cover my costs at home.

During placement, there was an opportunities to perform charity work with other PwC employees, as well as attending an open day at the local university.

Yes

PwC has a very high reputation and success, and being given the opportunity to be part of its success is very rewarding.