I am a Persoanl Assistant to a Partner, 2 Directors 3 Senior Managers, HR Manager and assist HR and Tax Team
I really enjoy my role at PwC as it is varied due to the fact I look after Partners/directors from different lines of service this incorporates me being involved in many aspects of the business, from designing client proposals to assisting with the HR processes such as Pay review,staff moderation and onboarding procedures of new staff. I am a coach to the other secretaries bringing then up to speed with word, formatting and branding documents and I feel a very valued member of staff. I enjoy working as a team to get things completed accurately and on a timely basis.
My day to day role varies considerable I am at present the P.A. to the People Partner, The Assurance Director, The Tax Director and three additional senior managers and the HR Manager including administrative and secretarial duties for the HR team and the Tax team.
This includes providing proactive diary management, with complete control of the Partner/Directors and the three managers diaries on a day to day basis, organising travel and hotels both domestic and international, including detailed itineraries when appropriate. I arrange meetings and conference calls including inviting attendees, booking rooms and catering as necessary. I enter their timesheets and expenses on a weekly basis, producing WIP reports for the Tax team on request, I assist with producing client bills and cover letters to send out to the client, and I produce the Tax Letter of Engagements. I also assist with with client powerpoin
ProsThe people I work with is a plus as they are a great team and its always a joy to come to work.
ConsThe benefit package is not great only Managers and above get bonuses and no health cover
It seems that whoever is in charge of procuring clients for PwC's market research division is unable to do so effectively. For this reason, you can be sent home with no notice at any time despite doing a good job. A recent project finished in December and workers were told to be available for a new one in Mid-January, this new project has now been pushed back with no new start date and January is looking very unlikely. Communication is terrible. Often workers will have to email or call several times and still not receive a straight answer regarding their shifts or status with PwC. Workers are breadcrumbed by management, told that something will be starting 'soon' so that they will stay with PwC. Workers are not valued because we are temps and it's perceived that there will always be temp workers available, so loyalty is not rewarded. Similarly, productivity is not rewarded. When workers do a good job on a project, delivering it within budget and ahead of time, their reward is to be sent home. Meaning that by working effectively, you are essentially putting yourself out of work! Some workplaces offer their staff bonuses for good performance, or perhaps some free pizza or just a well done, but not PwC. Unlike other departments at PwC, this role is minimum wage and when there is no project on workers are not paid. It's not clear why this department of PwC is managed so differently from others. Management does not take constructive feedback well, often taking it personally and ov
Easily the worst collections department I have ever worked in
I worked at the Southampton Office in the collections team, taken on a ‘Temp-Perm’ contract. Friends in the sector had warned me about the collections department at PWC and said how ruthless it is - but I thought it couldn’t be that bad. The week I started I was given ‘training’ by a permanent member of staff who did very little other than look on Facebook all day. Temporary or temp - perm members of staff was treated terribly. I had to take my laptop home to work on the collections I hadent managed to get through in the day but despite being with an agency - PwC expected you to do the extra time for free! I raised a concern about invoices not being received by alot of clients but was shot down by one of the team leaders and the collections manager and told it was my fault for not asking the client why the invoice hadent be received! There was a ‘Cull’ of temp staff monthly where out of the blue on a Friday afternoon they were taken out of the office one by one and told not to come back on Monday.. They deceived temp - perm staff into thinking there was a job vacancy after you finished your temp contract when in fact they get rid of you before you have any rights as an employee. At one point a gentleman took a day off holiday and was called and told not to come back - they wouldnt give him a reason why so he came to the office and sat in reception and said he wouldnt move until someone explained to him what their reasons for getting rid of him were - but the collectio
ProsBlue chip company on your CV
ConsBad management, bad ethics, bullying and bad pay
PwC offers a huge variety of work which means you learn a lot and get to work with interesting clients. The high pressure environment means you get take on more responsibility than in other environments e.g. presenting proposals to boards and attending audit committees. There are good social events and the offices are nice.
Unfortunately, these positive aspects are let down by the culture at PwC. Management only cares about winning new work or sending people on secondment so that they will get the large fees. Management are not interested in listening to staff requests for personal development.
As soon as anything goes wrong, management look to blame those below them. The blame culture rewards managers who manage to shift blame rather than those who honestly reflect on what everyone could have done better. This culture makes everything your responsibility so if there is a problem, it is up to you to show PwC that you can sort it out without any help. If you are given extra tasks to do, it is your responsibility to work to midnight to get them done. If you ask for help, management will just say it is up to you to sort it.
PwC dangles the hope of promotions in front of people to get them to work harder and say yes to all requests (travelling at short notice). They say they are open and that the best people will get promoted but at the end of the day it all comes to business cases/ wishes of the partners and not the best candidates.
Pwc is below the market in term
ProsNice offices, interesting young staff who are motivated, variety of clients, opportunities
ConsAny care for people is trumped by PwC's bottom line, negative culture which rewards managers who blame more junior staff, long hours, travelling at short notice, low pay for industry
Although still a young business, PwC Augment is growing extremely quickly. However, this does not necessarily translate into the fantastic opportunities the recruitment process will lead you to believe. Entry level staff is made up of recent graduates from courses that are traditionally difficult to find work (E.g. Geography, Psychology). Staff retention rates are extremely poor. Within 12 months of starting, many of the "experienced" staff had left for better paid jobs elsewhere. Opportunity for career and personal development is teased but it is almost impossible to get time away from a project to fulfill any of these.
Staff are frequently reminded that, although similar jobs are better paid elsewhere, nowhere can offer the "brand recognition" of PwC. This is to say that future employers will recognise the value of having spent time working with such a large firm. This is ironic, as Augment is frequently made to feel separate from the rest of the firm. Many of the firm's benefits are open to all staff, except Augment, and when attempting to move to another department in the firm, Augment staff are treated as external hires.
Perhaps the biggest flaw I found in my particular project was constant change. Policy and process changes on a near daily basis to the point that taking one or two days off on leave can result in you spending the rest of the week catching up.
Workloads are not balanced whatsoever, and the best performing teams often end up picking up slack. Th
ProsGood entry level position in Financial Services
ConsLack of recognition, Relatively poor pay scale, Lack of upward mobility leads to constantly changing staff
As a fresh graduate the company (firm) is supportive in giving and maintaining a healthy and safe work environment, and providing plenty of support when working towards a professional qualification, as in my case the ACA.
The hours, however, are long, (especially at the Senior Associate / Management level) - after 4-5 years of experience, and for the same (or fewer) hours you can work elsewhere for a lot more, and with less travel.
My department was one of the larger ones within the firm, and (is often the case with very large departments) guilty of bureaucracy and often, unsympathetic, and (worse still) in-fighting, politics, and generally what you perceive as bad management particularly at the senior management / director level. This is typical of rigidly hierarchical departments.
I think the quality of their internal training was sometimes haughty, and patronizing.
I think there were also quite a few, particularly those who hadn't worked with other organizations before, who behaved arrogantly and were over confident - (but they do work hard)!
Its not the same across the firm - the development of individuals will tend to be faster in smaller departments, where you will get more individualized attention, provided the culture is right and you're working with senior (and so more experienced people)
Their size however means, you do get access and to work for high profile clients
ProsGreat when a graduate. Decent benefits. High profile clients
ConsPoor internal training (you're better off looking externally), long hours, and bureaucratic (if you end up in a large department)
Take it from me a guy who's worked at multiple companies with experience in many key areas this is the worst and I mean the worst place to work.
With all honesty they do not care about the employees health mentally and physically, they expect you to work stressfully for 46 hours MINIMUM during busy period without an overtime rate. I have personally had some major health issues since I started and the stress is unreal, not like anything you've ever felt or seen before. If you are wanting to have health issues and lose your hair to stress then this is the job for you.
Okey so now I've briefly spoke about how it impacts your health lets mention the lifestyle. You literally have no work-life balance. I wake up at 6:30am just to get to work on time, finish at 6:30pm, get home for 7:30pm, eat, shower and then I'm too tired to do anything so I just rest then sleep. Repeating this daily. No time for myself, family, friends or anything to be honest.
Lastly the pay; demotivating. That is all I should say but allow me to explain, we get paid peanuts for this job and it is not worth it for the amount of work we do. Maybe if they tripled the pay it will be enough but honestly I got paid more working in a warehouse which is not as draining and the hours are less. No matter what you do or how many hours you do the rate with not change.
Please take my advise and not apply here, you will regret it.
Such a big company but they don't give a care about their staff.
ProsLiterally Nothing
ConsEverything, Long Hours, No work Life balance, Stress, Salary isn't enough for what you do, Unhealthy Lifestyle, Health issues, Basically everything
I worked with PwC Global Information team during a Change Transformation and Transition Project.
Global Information Leadership team is full of great leaders and managers who encourage, support everyone to succeed in their role.
It was a steep learning curve encompassing daily tasks as per the job description and way beyond with the ongoing team changes, multiple resignations, recruitment, interviews to taking/providing hand overs to securely managing global client data during business operating systems changes, an office move, multiple projects requiring fast and accurate decisions during multiple conflicting priorities and deadlines.
Challenging yet fast paced leaning environment requiring successfully fire fighting with global virtual and on site team members to deliver the required results.
I loved every minute of working with PwC.
It was my grand father's dream for me to join one of the Big4, and after working with PwC In-House teams, I have a new founded respect for all of their past, present and future team member's hard work in supporting clients successfully regardless of internal or external obstacles.
Great Team members, Fantastic work ethics, 100% job satisfaction, supportive management and certainly an Employer of Choice.
I would not think twice to re-join PwC if or when an opportunity comes along.
ProsFree fruits and hot, cold drinks
ConsLong hours during projects/period end reporting etc.
I went through the rigorous (and highly stressful) interview process starting in November 2018, got the job eventually in February 2019. Had to wait until September 2019 for the job to start. I was told the week before that I needed to be in London for my first week. Told the Wednesday of my first week that my second week would be in London as well. Told the Friday of my second week that my third week would be in Leeds, then I was needed in Belfast... I applied to work in Birmingham.
No where in the job ad did they highlight this as a requirement. The contract says "you may be required to work at other PwC offices from time to time", and that's all it mentions about travel.
I flagged up my issue with this, as I don't wish to travel, and for anxiety reasons, can't. It took them two weeks to get back to me, where they told me I either had to suck it up and do all the worldwide travel they expected of me or resign. I resigned.
Overall, an awful experience with an awful firm who pretends to be inclusive and caring. The truth of it is, if you're not willing to devote your life 24/7 to the company, then it's not the job for you. They also give you a laptop and a phone in your first week, just to make sure you can always work and be contactable, no matter where you are or what time it is.
ProsGood pay
ConsLong hours, living out of a suitcase, no overtime pay (until you work more than 20 extra hours a month), non existing help/willingness to negotiate for mental health
A typical work day can be anything from working on a multi-million pound proposal, to researching the latest Insurance news and developments for my account members, to meeting with key client contacts. No 2 days are the same, and there are always new ideas that can be brought to the table to enable the accounts I work on to run more efficiently.
I have learnt a lot in my time at PwC. I have learnt that knowing your client is key - you have to anticipate what is round the corner for them, and how you can help as a team. I have also learnt that no matter how organised and well prepared you are, you are always met with some requests out of the blue! This definitely has enabled me to keep in close range with my colleagues and the client.
The hardest part of my job is when we lose pitches to our competitors, you always feel very protective about the accounts you work on and you want to see your fellow colleagues winning work and making a difference to the client. Though I find that when we do lose pitches, it can be an effective way of looking into why we lost – is there something that we could have done differently? There is always an opportunity to learn and evolve as an account.
The most enjoyable is seeing a colleague or a project really making a difference to the client. It is great to see colleagues having really long standing relationships with the client and working on real life changing projects.
Main responsibilities including, but not limited to:
1) Performing audits of financial statements and conducting financial reporting
2) Meeting with companies’ management and chief accountants to corroborate evidence regarding financials, internal controls and significant business cycles
3) Sharing knowledge among colleagues and ensuring team is up-to-date with latest developments in the fieldwork
3) Managing audits for several clients and delegating responsibility to junior staff members.
Every day brought new challenge as I used to work on several audit engagements simultaneously. Typical working day required me to go to clients' premises and meet accounting representatives and those charged with governance in order to conduct various audit procedures. As a part of audit procedures, I asked probing questions regarding financial accounting and internal processes within the audited companies.
Work experience in auditing allowed me to acquire immense accounting/auditing skills, which are of paramount importance for my further career in diverse finance industry. Career in PwC was a great opportunity for me to engage and collaborate with so many different people from different lines of service. In addition, the work experience strengthened my teamwork, communication and influencing skills that are of significant importance in financial sector. “Putting myself in clients’ shoes”, was one of utmost valued behaviours within the firm that helped me to build strong relat
En typisk arbetsdag under högsäsong så kommer jag till jobbet runt 8, kollar mina mejl och sätter mig i en taxi och åker ut till den kund som vi ska arbeta med under dagen tillsammans med mitt team. Vi kommer ut till kund och har ett par planerade möten under dagen och resterande tid så reviderar vi färdiga bokslut där olika delar är fördelade efter tidsåtgång och erfarenhet inom teamen. Andra pågående uppdrag vilar inte utan man bollar ofta flera projekt samtidigt, både externt och internt under dagen. Strax innan 17 så åker vi tillbaka till kontoret. Läser mejl igen, löser det som går att göra via mejl eller bokar upp nya möten med klienter samt arbetar ikapp det som inte hunnits med under dagen.
Jag har lärt mig otroligt mycket och som revisor så slutar man aldrig lära sig. Projektledning är något som man snabbt kommer in i och på PwC så har man högt till tak, öppna dörrar och en teamanda som jag inte haft på någon annan arbetsplats tidigare. Allt är upp till dig.. Vill du och kan du jobba mycket så får du det, behöver du gå tidigt så är det också ok i de flesta situationer så länge som du tar ansvar för ditt arbete.
Säsongen som revisor är väldigt varierande, på PwC har du komp timme för timme vilket inte alla revisionsfirmor har. Detta har lett till att jag jobbat 40-80 timmar/v under högsäsong och sen tagit ut 8-10 veckor ledigt under ett år.
Intresset från rekryterare är stort och att ta nästa steg mot controlling redan efter några år är inte ovanligt. Är d
ProsFlera bra förmåner inom allt från träning till städhjälp. 35h arbetsvecka på sommaren, kompledigt för övertid utan gräns (eller pengar)
ConsDåligt med resande, dragit in på massage (dock går detta under sjukförsäkringen)
I worked for PwC for more than a decade, so there were enough positives to keep me there, however, there is one significant flaw in the firm that can affect anyone at any time. Promotions to management grades tend to be made on the strength of length of tenure, technical knowledge and/ or networking, and not on management skills. Consequently there are often issues with decisions made by people who are not skilled in managing people and teams. You can be lucky to get a manager who has the skills or you may be unlucky. The most obvious sign that all is not well is PwC's decision to split the roles of Line Manager and People Manager, a role that is normally done by one job holder in companies where management skills are much stronger. Because this has been a long term issue, many of the most senior people are under-skilled and perpetuate the situation by hiring and promoting more people with poor management skills. The consequences are many and varied examples being- people competing instead of working as a team, being defensive and indecisive and decision-making lacking objectivity and adequate preliminary information gathering. This causes significant additional costs to the firm.
The practical implementation and maintenance of the firm's stated culture, that is in theory very good but in practice suffers from the same issues. When tested, senior people rather than juniors tend to fall short of standards.
Having said that, if you are lucky to get a good line manager,
ProsHigh profile clients, client facing work, the name PwC, the firm's reputation.
ConsPoor management; Ponderous costly internal firms services, Competitive culture, poor out of date systems.
Great teams to work with, comfortable workplace, but with heavy workload
Risk Assurance-BI Developer
A typical day at work:
Most of the time--Arrive at client's office at their time of starting a day's work (and unfortunately, some clients' companies are far....). Communicate with clients in the morning or afternoon, and implement the BI application according to the discussed requirements. Go to the client's canteen or cafe nearby for food. Report to senior manager at the end of the day. End work and go back home when the client is about to shut their office's door.
Sometimes--Arrive at PwC's office at 10 a.m. Look for a seat maybe if new employees come and occupy the tables. Design and make demos and documents for the next bid, or implement tools for internal use. Report to the senior manager at the end of the day. A lot of the times, literally, about 10 p.m or 11 p.m....Because the workload is heavy and they have strict limitations about how many employees they can hire.
What to learned? To deal with priorities under heavy workload, and to communicate with all kinds of clients.
Management? I think it depends. I was luck to be in teams with an easy-going senior manager. And he always stays with the team if they need to work overtime, which actually happens a lot....But I've also seen other managers with a big temper that loves to shout at their associates all the time.
The company has a full set of internal IT systems for all kinds of activities related to communications and management.
Workplace culture: Generally about doing ou
ProsFree food and taxi for some overtime. Free fruit every Wednesday.
There is a lot about the firm that is great. It is a great culture that values collaboration (below the partner level), that truly values diversity of its employees, and that is very collegial. The Advisory business has grown significantly over the past 5 years since reconstituting a consulting arm with the acquisition of BearingPoint, followed by other large acquisitions of PRTM, Diamond and most recently Booz & Company (Strategy& - which is, actually, a dumb name for a company that garners eye rolls and open chuckling among the staff). The firm has also made smaller tuck in acquisitions as well to fill in small, but important strategic capabilities such as Ants Eye View (for social marketing, social media strategy, and social listening), and BGT (for digital marketing agency work). It is a place where you can build a great career if you can deliver great work, excel at networking across the firm, and can build partner support. Exceptional employees are the "average" here, so if you aren't knocking it out of the park all the time then you can expect to only be rated in the middle of the pack, and receive nominal raises and performance bonuses. It has a strong brand in the market. The firm's latest brand health index rated it at the top of the other "big 4" firms (Deloitte, KPMG, and EY) as well as other non-audit/tax firms like Accenture. The Strategy& acquisition added significant strategy consulting capability to position PwC to compete with the likes of BCG, Bain & McKenz
I highly stressful work environment with limited oversight and a lot of responsibilities towards the succes of the bussiness.
A typical day would include the following:
Reviewing junior staffs' work files, coaching junior and other senior staff, budgeting projects, managing client resources and arranging audit projects. Performing timesheet reviews, approving budgets and expenses and managing staff bookings. Communicating deadlines with clients and report to the Directors of the company (as I report directly to the Director) on a daily basis. Review accounting records and auditt files and compiling audit files and financial statements to report to management and following up on exceptions and crisis management.
I believe I contributed to management by showing the importance of appreciating staff and being involved in the development and coaching of junior staff.
My co-workers are very experienced and is fun to work with. In the profession it is difficult to afford time for social events and social discussions, as we all have to work 90% + productive and we all have extremely high productive work days to finish our duties.
The hardest part of the job is time management, always working late and not being able to obtain leave as client commitments are to important.
The most enjoyable part for me is the part where you develop younger article clerks, coaching and developing them to growth into qualified CA's. The interaction with clients and the fun of sharing your technical knowledge with other, e.g clients, staff, directors and other charged with governance.
The company I work for is e
ProsExposure to various industries, Excellent technical support structure available, Excellent client profile exposure
ConsLong work Hours, Difficult to plan & obtain leave, Overbooked Schedules, Poor Reward System vs Responsibilty
• Actively involved in different stages of Project Life Cycle
• Participated in gathering Business Requirements and System Specifications
• Designed and Developed Database Objects like Tables, Stored Procedures, Triggers, Rules, Defaults, user defined data types and functions for this project.
• Maintained databases, performed software installations and monitored Database Performance.
• Thorough understanding of physical database design for constraints and data types for figuring out the sequence for modification (insert, update, delete) of data in various tables.
• Managing Logins, Users, Roles and User permissions
• Tested OLAP cubes for all business conditions
• Tested Complex ETL Mappings and Sessions based on business user requirements and business rules to load data from source flat files and RDBMS tables to target tables.
• Created the test environment for Staging area, loading the Staging area with data from multiple sources.
• Created Views for specific columns on a table to maintain privacy of a customer data
• Created Indexes to get the high level performance
• Performing the ETL operations to support the incremental, historical data loads and transformations using SSIS
• Maintained databases, performed software installations and upgrades, monitored Database Performance.
• Responsible for gathering Business Requirements and System Specification from users
• Designed numerous ad-hoc and custom reports using SQL Reporting Services
• Created various T
Questions and answers about PwC
How does someone get hired at PwC? What are the steps along the way?
Asked 2 Mar 2018
Interview, and call interview
Answered 16 Mar 2022
Either through the graduate or experienced hire pathways.
Answered 6 May 2019
What should you wear to an interview at PwC?
Asked 22 Apr 2017
Very smart suit, ironed.
Answered 13 Sept 2019
A suit; Jacket and a Skirt
Answered 18 Jul 2018
How are the working hours at PwC?
Asked 8 Apr 2017
It’s a 6 am start except Tuesday when’s it 4.45 am but you get the weekend off
Answered 9 Jun 2018
Hours normally range from 9.00am till 5.30pm. It is not unusual to see people working past these hours. However, I understand that there are now opportunities to work more flexibly in areas of the business.
Answered 17 Jan 2018
What is the paid holiday policy like at PwC? How many days do you get per year?
Asked 15 Dec 2018
Intern does not have paid holiday. However, you get to work from home if you are not feeling well and do not want to get MC.
Answered 9 Feb 2020
20 days per year
Answered 2 Jul 2019
How would you describe the pace of work at PwC?
Asked 1 Nov 2018
Fast and Efficient
Answered 20 Mar 2022
Formal times and expectations with a fast pace and high turn over of work . Continuing changing of temporary staff not helping to create a team spirit
