Associate/Trainee Review

I am an associate at PwC. Throughout my 3 month work placement I will be part of various audit teams for different clients. In audit we check for any material misstatements in our client's financial statements through a sampling basis. This is very important as it guarantees that audited financial statements are mostly free of material misstatements (either due to error or fraud)

Yes. I have developed my business and global acumen skills. I have also developed my leadership skills due to this being my second placement and therefore taking chare of more junior member of the team and using my prior year experience. Additionally I have also developed my team working skills since I've been part of 2 different teams over my second working placement

It is quite stressful but the work experience intertwined with my studies makes it worth it. Unfortunately I haven't gotten as much support as other students got during covid (safety nets etc.). Furthermore due to the program being quite unstructured we had to take the same exams twice which definitely had a negative impact on my mental health.

As I've stated in my previous answer due to my program being quite unstructured in these tough times I received much less support and my whole cohort had to sit the same exams twice due to the administration not being very organized. Furthermore after we are done from placement we only have 1.5 months to study new material revise the old material (that we haven't revised over our 3 month placement due to it being during busy season) and sue to that there are very high fail rates. I think this can be structured much better

I do receive a lot support from my employer since I get a buddy and a career coach. Furthermore every team that I have been on over this working placements is very happy to help if someone in their team is struggling. This is due to PwC promoting a coaching culture between team members especially more senior ones

Pre covid-19 I would rate this as a 7/10 as we do get support through mock exams and personal tutors (for our mental health mostly). However during covid-19 this support has decreased significantly as all the lectures are delivered either pre-recorded or online while we are expected to sit exams in person. Since all of our material is online and being delivered online we should be able to get some extra support in our exams (such as the pass rate not being 55 but 50 to take into account these hard times)

There are some modules that are directly related to what I do so it is quite easy to use the principles learned in my modules in my role (such as ethics). Additionally my audit module really helped me understand not only the purpose of audit but also the thought process that is behind each different type of testing. Of course the most important parts are learned on the job.

Yes there are lots which helps people keeping connected. For example the ones I participated in are socials that each team does on Fridays where the team can let off some steam by playing some team building activities or just a general game like sporcle. It definitely helps the team bond and is a good way to relax and destress for a bit.

Yes

It is a great company for graduates as you learn a lot of things over a short period of time. There is a lot of pressure and the work hours are a lot however it is definitely worth it because it teaches people to work on a lot of different areas from a lot of different companies which definitely translates to valuable life skills.

The usual for any good interview: being confident don't be afraid to sell yourself show that you are comfortable working on a team and that you are flexible (both in working hours and in what working areas will be assigned to you). Additionally it is very important to learn PwC's 5 attributes and try to apply them in your interview and give examples of where you display those attributes in your life.