Associate Review

I work as an associate in financial due diligence. My role involves the analysis of financial information provided by management, report writing and consistency checking. I interact with managers and senior managers on my profit who generally work in London. I am generally responsible for the management of the dealtools which will be the basis for the analysis done in our reports.

I am vastly improved my excel skills since starting with PwC, learning intricate ways of doing things and complex formulae. I have upskilled from excel to learn how to use PowerQuery and PowerPivot for data analytics. I have also learned valuable communication skills as occasionally I will have to interact with clients and people I have never met before.

The school leaver programme has been very beneficial to me. I have learned so much and enjoyed joining a work atmosphere different to what I was previously used to. The team I work with are fun and engaging. They readily share knowledge and experiences to help more junior members of the team such as myself. I feel included and actively participate in social activities.

The programme is generally structured well. I feel that our intake was larger than most and so this caused an issue at the beginning. We did not begin studying for our CFAB qualification until 6 months after we had joined, when the expectation was to get started within 2-3 months. This was a bit disappointing as I find I am a keen learner with a desire to complete my ACA as quickly as I can.

I receive plenty of support from my employer. I get adequate study leave for my exams and there is always someone I can go to if I need help. I feel sometimes that my people manager/team leader can be a bit awkward if he is asked to deviate from the plan he has in mind. Like moving exams to suit the needs of the business, etc.

Kaplan is my training provider and I feel the level of support is adequate. I can email my tutor with questions whenever I need to and generally get a response quite quickly. However, Kaplan are quite slow at replying when you email their generic support. They say they will reply within 2 working days, however it was almost 2 weeks before I got a response and by then I had resolved the issue I had,

My qualification allows me to better understand the financial information I deal with on a daily basis. It gives me a wider understanding of how companies work and what challenges we, as providers of accounting services, face on a regular basis. I feel that although this role could be done without the qualification, you would not get very far in your career here if you did not have the further learning that comes with it.

Every month there is "first friday" club where you get drinks tokens for a local bar. Our team also has a social budget which is used for team away days, christmas activities and various nights out throughout the year. This year our away day involves zorbing and a tree top adventure which everyone is really excited about.

Yes

PwC provides decent salaries with a great opportunity to gain a qualification alongside working. It is a practical alternative to university with the added benefit of no student debt. The benefits that come with the job are fantastic as well. We each get a laptop, an iphone and thing such as private medical insurance. This is an employer who really does have a role for everyone from consulting, IT, legal and finance.

Just do it! You will never know unless you apply. There are so many different roles you could apply for and you can learn so much just from working here. Plus you get to meet some amazing people. The experience has been life changing and I'm so glad I took the leap.