Audit Associate Review

The role is to work within the audit team (which can be a variety of different clients such as banks, brokerage firms, insurance firms, asset management firms, manufacturing firms and highstreet brands) in order to deliver the successful audits of companies' financial statements. You work in various audit teams in order to do this which helps you to gain an understanding of how the firm works and also build up both audit and technical accounting knowledge.

The main skills I developed on this course were my leadership and technical capabilities. PwC place a great emphasis on coaching so you quickly learn about lots of new areas and get stuck in, but also encourage you to take the lead once you have a bit of experience in a certain area. I experienced both of these in this programme which allowed me to gain confidence in my ability to work my way through the firm.

The programme is really the best of both worlds - I get the university experience as well as the practical work experience and ultimately I can finish of my ACA from the ICAEW in 5 years alongside a degree and work experience from PwC. There are loads of positives and PwC are very keen to demonstrate how successful the Flying Start programme is so they provide a lot of support along the way to guide you.

The programme is very organised and structured. When you get into the programme and start the first year of university, it is all laid out for you to see so you know exactly what is going to happen and what the timings and the timeline looks like. PwC alongside the university provide both training and teaching to help you integrate into the work placements, which are then supported by your PwC career coach and university tutor.

There is a whole support network available for us while on placement at PwC. First of all we have a "Flying Start Champion" who does our introduction on the first day of working at the firm - they are normally the first port of call for any questions relating to the course. Then there is the programme leader at both PwC and University who can help with any questions. You have a career coach to guide you through your placements as well.

Because we study for the qualification mainly at university away from being on placement, it is effectively like studying for a degree, only the modules we study align to the professional ACA exams. This makes it really easy to concentrate on both work (while on placement) and university modules (while not on placement). The support is always there from both sides at all times, so even if you are only concentrating on one aspect you still have both sides available for support.

We study the professional exams in the form of university modules, so the work we do at university is directly linked to the knowledge that we need to work our way through the placements and ultimately work our way through PwC. Some of it isn't relevant to the job, but a lot of the foundation study in first year is crucial to understanding how a business operates which is fundamental to being successful in audit.

This year was a little different (Covid-19) but there were still lots of activities that we could have been involved in. There were virtual socials of things like Escape Rooms or games of Among Us, as well as Christmas socials for the different social groups. There were lots of smaller events on a weekly basis too, things like taking a break and having a coffee with your team to catch up, and the possibility to help out with recruitment events.

Yes

PwC is a really supportive working environment and ultimately is a name that stands out when talking about your job as well as on your CV in the future. Because the nature of the company is that it is a training company, all team members are aligned to working to support the younger and less experienced staff, which helps with team cohesion and morale. It can be tough but that's the reality of working for one of the Big 4.

Be honest and make sure that you be yourself in the application process. PwC has the widest range of people I've ever seen working for them and the culture is so accepting.