Associate in Assurance Review

The role changes with every placement/for each grade. As a starter, you are initially allocated administrative tasks- such as documenting board minutes and start performing testing in various audit areas. You gather skills and knowledge. You have direct interactions with the clients and learn to work in a team and absorb knowledge. By your second/third year, you start to take a leadership role where you now understand how most of the work is performed and coach juniors on their tasks, start having a more project management role slowly and deal with more technical areas.

Communication- through client and team interactions, Leadership-coaching juniors, Networking and building relationships, Adapting to different people's working styles, Application of text book knowledge in real life scenarios through critical thinking and professional scepticism.

The work culture is very inclusive and structured to ensure that you can get what you want from work, be challenged and learn new skills to ensure you're constantly developing. At university, I expected more classes and support but additional help is always provided when asked for by the lecturers. The buddy system means you always have someone to contact for questions at work. Perhaps, having more team based coursework would mean the students interact with each other more and build stronger relationships.

Most of the time I feel very valued by PwC through direct appreciation from seniors and positive feedback. The recent scheme rewarding overtime is great. The constant drive to improve the organisation for its employees is great. There is a growing culture to get more input from juniors which means we feel valued for knowledge, skills and ability.

The programme is very well structured between university and placement. The only drawback is that because you are not at university the whole time, you miss out on some aspects of the relaxed/socialising university experience and participating in extra-curricular activities but the hardwork pays off in the step-up you get in your career ( you are 1-2 years ahead of other graduates when you join PwC full time at the end of the degree).

At university, I expected more classes and support but additional help is always provided when asked for by the lecturers. There are a lot of training programmes available at PwC and online by ICAEW but you have to look them up/ sign up on your own. It would be great if they were publicised more and we were given more guidance on good, upcoming training sessions for us.

Good support. We have group leaders, mentors , managers on each team and people managers - who are great at managing your development and helping you with any issues you might have.

The salary is average or slightly above average.

There are language classes and various PwC sports teams as well as volunteering opportunities. They just need to be publicised more.

Yes

1) They care about your development and they offer opportunities for travel through secondments, easy transferability to different departments. 2) You meet some amazing people and build great contacts. 3) They offer a lot of flexibility in terms of when and where you work from, especially as you become more senior.

Practice the assessment centre tests available online and know the company for the interview. Demonstrate your interest and knowledge in the organisation. They want to know your potential and personality - not necessarily what you did but how it helped build the skills that will help you at work eg: teamwork, communication etc