Work experience student Review

I was on a Business Insight Week at PwC, which involved working alongside employees at PwC who were in the Audit & Assurance department. I was given a range of tasks to complete from reading through financial statements to ensure that they were correct, and transferring the information on balance sheets and financial statements to spreadsheets. I attended a client's office one day, and worked on their financial statements.

I developed my employability skills, working with the PwC team through online web chats which talked about different qualities that employers look for and how to portray them. We also had a talk on CV preparation and interview practice. I developed my Excel skills, as I was working with spreadsheets quite a bit. I also had to work quite intensively as a team on the last day, which helped my communication and cooperation skills.

There were many positives that come from the programme, such as meeting so many different people working not only in Audit & Assurance but also in Consulting and Tax. The work that you do, although very methodical, is very satisfying to complete. At PwC, the team you work with are so helpful and patient, which really made all the difference if ever there was something I could not complete. Overall, the experience was very enjoyable, mostly thanks to the lovely team you work with. On the other hand, as mentioned above, some of the work can be methodical and repetitive, but the effect of this depends on your person and how well you handle repetition.

Being given real work tasks to complete makes you really feel like a valued member of the team. When I was invited to a client's site, the experience was a particularly good opportunity to get involved. The people you're working with are so kind, and always invited us to have lunch with them and chat to them about anything that we were unsure about. However, I would have preferred to be given more work, but it was August and the office was a bit quite, apparently

Communication in the programme in very good, as you are administered with an email address to be contacted on. The induction day was a great chance to outline the week and meet people, although they did leave it quite late to tell us we were going up to Birmingham. Overall, it was well organised though.

You are assigned a "buddy" before the week starts who contacts you and is very approachable. They help with your tasks, and guide you in any unknown territory. They seem happy about working with you and always appear to offer help. They were also very open about being asked about the work they do, which gives a real insight into working at PwC

I didn't really come across any large issues during the week, and didn't need an overwhelming amount of support. However, if ever I did have a question, I just emailed the week coordinator very easily and received a response very quickly. In this respect, the support was clear and easy to access.

The salary is very good but varies depending on the location of your office. Travel costs to Birmingham and London (1st and last day) were paid for. This was very helpful. Nevertheless, travel costs to and from your base office were not reimbursed and this totalled quite a bit.

Because the work experience was only a week long, there were not many out of work opportunities. However, we did see 3 different offices of PwC which was nice, as we could see the different designs and standards.

Yes

I had a wonderful experience learning about working in an office and experiencing day-to-day office life. The people you work with are lovely and change the whole time there. Also, it's a great way to learn about a variety of different careers and opportunities not only within PwC but within life in general.

The application process involves a telephone interview, where it is so important to remain calm and remember that they are not trying to catch you out, but rather learn about you. It is very competitive, so make sure they can see enthusiasm and genuine interest in the opportunity. For example, research PwC, and stay on top of current affairs.