Business Insight Week Student Review

As Business Insight Week students, we were given an induction to three aspects of work at Pwc: Tax, Assurance & Consultancy, and then assigned to one of the respective areas. For me, this was Assurance. In our regional offices we were each given a buddy who took care of us for the three days and set us up to meet with different people and learn about new opportunities. We were also given some small projects to work on to get a taste of the work done. Towards the end of each of these three days, there was an employability skills WebEx where we were given tips for the assessment days and interviews, and informed what PwC is looking for.

Due to the nature of the days planned by my buddy, I did not personally do much accountancy work, and so have learnt limited amounts in terms of specific skills. However the opportunities to network with employees and learn about their line of work definitely helped with communication skills and building confidence in an office environment.

I found the people at my branch to be lovely and very helpful, even the more senior staff took an interest in our week and allowed us to attend calls with them. There were a lot of people who were able to speak about their experiences so I feel much better informed, and found this week exceeded my expectations.

Everyone took an interest in our presence and spent time talking to us. The Office Senior Partner even took us out for lunch! There were times when we didn't have much work to do, however this was understandable as we were unqualified so could not take on proper work and were replying on others taking time out of their day for us.

There was a very clear structure to the first and last days in London. On the first day we had a general induction followed by activities introducing us to Tax, Assurance and Consulting, and were given talks by people who had gone through various programmes such as the School Leaver or Flying Start scheme. The middle three days depended entirely on your buddy. My buddy was excellent and had arranged lots of meetings for us to speak to people from all teams with different experiences, and we had the opportunity to sit in on internal and client calls as well.

We did not have a training provider, however the student recruitment team and our buddies dealt with any problems we faced.

The student recruitment team were in regular contact with us before we joined and we were able to sort out any queries through them. Once we had joined, our buddy was our first port-of-call. Mine was able to help me out with most things and find out if he didn't know himself.

We were reimbursed up to £150 for any travel to places other than our home office, such as travelling to London on the first and last day. Lunch was provided on these days but not for the days at our regional branch. For the week we were paid at the national living wage for 37.5 hrs which I would say was very generous considering we were gaining experience from PwC and not adding any value to the firm in that week.

We did not get the chance to partake in any activities outside of work, though we were informed about opportunities for employees and others in different branches did get involved in sports games for example. There was very limited time in each of the offices as well so we could not be involved in anything beyond the working day.

Yes

There are lots of great opportunities that PwC offers for employees joining at different stages, and everyone is treated equally regardless of their path to their respective role. There is a lot of support given to new joiners and there is the option to change line of work if you so desire, and even work abroad on a secondment. The career progression at PwC is very structured and everyone is very approachable.

Be sure to research the firm and the role you are applying for. For interviews, be yourself and make sure you keep up to date with the current affairs. There are practice papers available to prepare for the online assessments so complete those. Don't stress about it though as there are lots of other opportunities later on too.