Trainee Associate Review

Trainee Associate 1 I take part in the internal and external audit of a number of entities, mainly focussing on the public sector. As a trainee, I focus on the less complicated areas of external audit such as cash and PP&E. Working in audit means that the role, client and team members I work with varies from week to week. I also have responsibility of passing my exams and completing apprenticeship work on top of this.

The role has lead me to develop a number of new skills. I am currently working towards the CFAB qualification and an apprenticeship in assurance. I have attended a number of internal training courses which have been helpful in my day to day role.

When I do internal audit on local public sector clients, I enjoy the work, other times I find it a bit tedious. The team atmosphere is good, and everyone I have met at PwC has been friendly and willing to help. The company's culture is not particularly one that I feel suits me personally. I did not know what to expect from the programme, but I can say that I do enjoy it at times.

I feel like the team internally appreciate my work and this is evidenced by feedback from the team. On the whole, I don't feel liek the company's culture particularly makes staff feel appreciated.

The induction was really helpful and was a good mixture of leisure and learning. I feel the training and support on the course regarding exams is good. The apprenticeship is less organised, and there is still some confusion around a lot of it, but it is the firm's firt year offering this side so I feel like this will improve with time.

The kaplan tutors are helpful most of the time but occassionally have not been when peers have queried and have explained this again in the same way. I feel like the support from the apprenticeship side of things would have been better if it began earlier, or the assessor was in the same office.

I feel like the team, people manager and buddy programmes offer good support at different levels, which is always helpful, especially for queries about exams. These are easily accessable and everyone has been happy to help whenever I have needed it.

I think the salary is good when looking at it basically, however it is a lot less than the graduate salary, even though we do more or less the same work and also have apprenticeship work on top of this which I find to be a bit unfair.

There is a social committee and plenty of events that are advertised via e-mail and organised outside of work if this is what you want to do. I would say that because of the culture, sometimes you feel like you have to go out when you don't want to.

Yes

It is a fantastic opportunity to qualify as a chartered accountant and get straight into work.

I would tell them to thoroughly research it before they think of applying, and see if they can talk to someone who has done it to get a true view of what it's actually like.