Intern Review

We were assigned a buddy, either an associate or a senior associate within either Assurance, Tax or Consultancy. Throughout the week, I was given real life client work that my buddy would have been doing otherwise. He also gave me a lot of opportunities to meet other people within the firm, of all different seniority levels and in all different services. I also attended client meetings, as well as running my own client meetings to go through discrepancies I'd found earlier in the week.

Networking was one skill I developed greatly, having spoken to and kept in contact with so many people from the week, through the use of emails and LinkedIn. Also, some of the work we were doing was using Excel, and my buddy taught me a few tricks that made it all much easier and quicker!

The atmosphere within the programme was great, and I was certainly made to feel very welcome by my buddy and the different teams that we worked with. The whole feeling of the firm was that it was somewhere where there were so many opportunities that were open to you should you decide to work there, including working abroad or even just moving about in the UK. These all contributed to me thoroughly enjoying the week as a whole.

Whenever I completed a piece of work that had been given to me, my buddy would make sure that I knew what his opinion was on it, and thankfully they were all positive! Occasionally I'd show it to someone more senior as well, with them again giving me great feedback and praise.

The week included an induction day on the first day, in which all of the students on the programme came together in a central location. This day was used to get to know each other, as well as set up our laptops and find out more about what we were going to be doing in the week. The buddies seemed to have been given a good idea as to what sort of work they should be doing with us, and there was always someone we would be able to talk to should we have had a problem.

My buddy always made sure that I was never sitting in the office doing nothing, and certainly went out of his way to fine me work to do! He also made sure I was comfortable with, and knew what I was doing with the work that he gave me. For the majority of the time, he'd be sitting next to me so it was simple to ask him any questions, of which there were many!

We received daily emails from the Student Recruitment team, as well as having daily Webex's teaching us skills such as presentation and interview techniques. We were treated like real employees, being given laptops and having email addresses, internal accounts and expenses records set up for us.

The salary was extremely generous, and certainly exceeded what I was expecting! All travel costs were reimbursed, with the only thing we had to pay for being lunch every day!

I went out with my buddy and some of his colleagues on a couple of occasions after work which was a great chance to get to know them in a different environment! We learned about many schemes the PwC run if you're employed by them, such as mandatory volunteering every year, as well as the sports teams that they run!

Yes

The whole experience was one that I enjoyed a great deal, and the fact that PwC run it with such great organisation and pro-activeness showed me that they care about the people that they're looking to employ in the future.

The application process is very very competitive, so make sure you stand out in some way! Do your research in terms of the firm itself, and what's going on in the wider world and the global economies. Also be ready to use examples to back up what your saying, such as when you've been a team leader or had a position of responsibility! Try and build a rapport with the interviewer, and make sure you listen to what they're saying so you can ask questions at the end of the interview.