Women in Business - Assurance Review

I thoroughly enjoyed my time with PwC. Despite being a three day programme, I was exposed to a huge variety of work, and got a real insight into life with PwC. I got sent out to client sites, attended meetings with Partners and Directors, and met a range of really interesting people. It was a really great week!

I felt very welcomed by everyone at the office and out at client sites. I did not feel like a burden by being there and I got the opportunity to ask lots of questions to different people, and an effort was made to get me in contact with more senior members of staff as well.

Everyone who I interacted with was very supportive. I wasn't necessarily given specific tasks to complete, so it was up to me whether I wanted to ask for something to do or to spend the time speaking to people around the office and learning more about different roles. When I asked, I was always given something to do and received a lot of support with it (i.e. helping with spreadsheets which I didn't have a lot of experience with, someone sat and talked me through what to do).

I think that this insight gave me a much better idea of what I want to do for a future career, which was not necessarily in the business area that I originally chose. PwC are an excellent employer and I would love to have the opportunity to return as an intern in a different business area next summer.

We were all briefed on the first morning, and paired with a different staff member for each of the days. This meant we had something different to do each day and we were exposed to a range of people in different ranking positions. I spent each day doing roughly the same things as the staff members I was shadowing.

I love the atmosphere around PwC offices - it is relaxed and supportive. Everyone gets their work done and collaboration is made easy by the office design. Everyone is very friendly and willing to help, which really sets this firm apart. I'd feel very comfortable coming into a PwC office as an intern or recent graduate.

We had access to the online training platform, which we could use to complete short training courses throughout the insight week. I didn't use this personally. I was assessed throughout the week by the people I had been shadowing, which led to an internship offer a few weeks after I finished this programme. I felt it was very worthwhile.

I got a really good idea of what it would be like to work for PwC. The fact that you can be offered an internship after this insight is great because it means you really try and get as much as you can out of the experience to see if the internship, and eventually a graduate role will be the right thing for you.

Spending time in the office as well as being with PwC staff at client sites gave me a great understanding of the company culture. It is a great atmosphere for working with a diverse range of people and there is a lot of emphasis placed on this within the firm.

It was really useful as I got to have an insight into a career path that I hadn't previously considered, and I decided that I wasn't going to pursue that particular business area into the future. Luckily, if you're offered an internship you can put in a transfer request to do an internship in a different business area, which was ideal as I wanted to stay with PwC for an internship.

This was a paid experience - I got paid for the time I spent in the office/with my buddy. I had to pay my own travel expenses but the amount I was paid was more than my expenses cost. I was paid promptly at the end of that month and received the proportionate holiday pay as well.

There was plenty of opportunity for networking. On my first day, my buddy took me around the office and introduced me to people from different business areas and different roles within the company, including partners, directors, managers, senior associates, recent graduates and an intern, so I got to speak to plenty of different people and network this way.

There wasn't any social events or networking for us as we were only there for three days, but I know that interns and graduates are offered lots of opportunity for this, so that is something to look forward to if you are offered an internship of the back of this experience.

I asked about this and was told that there was plenty of opportunity to get involved in activities outside of work. Recent graduates especially got involved in loads of things - many of them said it was very similar to university in the sense that you can get involved in pretty much anything you can think of!

I would definitely recommend this insight to a friend because it is a great way to learn about PwC, meet lots of employees and ask lots of questions. As well as this, the application process is the exact same for this as it is for internships and graduate programmes so it is a great way to get an insight into the graduate application process as well.