Assurance Associate Review

I really enjoyed the people at PwC, the social side and team atmosphere in my department was amazing. Also living in London was an amazing experience. However, I did not enjoy the work as much, the hours were very long and I was very rarely based in central London as most of the clients of my department tended to be outside London which meant a long commute. Of course, these are features of audit work that are to be expected.

Most of the teams I worked with made me feel very welcome and valued. They gave me responsibility for areas of the audit and listened to my opinions. Even the most senior members of the teams would make the effort to engage with me. Although, working on a wide number of teams you will always come across the odd senior who treats you like you're the bottom of the food chain, however this was very rare.

Everyone at PwC is allocated a People Manager who is there to help and support you with any issues you may face. Mine would regularly check in with me and we would have regular catch-ups, which made me constantly feel as though he was there if I needed him. In addition to this on all of the teams that I was a part of, my supervisors were always very willing to help me whenever I need it.

It varied, however, normally I was very busy - I very rarely worked 9-5. I was part of two year end audits which both included working late nights for about 2 and a half months at a time to meet short deadlines. These times were often very stressful and it was hard to keep up a life outside of work as often I would have to work over the weekends too.

I felt that I was given just the right amount of responsibility on my placement. I did feel like I was making a real contribution to the teams I was working on. However, they didn't overwhelm me with duties as they always made me feel very supported and were always there when I needed help.

While at PwC I took several of my ACA exams to become a Chartered Accountant. I have found that some of these exams will help me in my final year at university. In addition to this the professional skills that I learnt over the course of this year will stay with me forever and I hope that they will help me in other professional situations such as interviews and networking.

In PwC's office it was generally very positive and friendly as it's all open plan and flexi desk so you often find yourself sitting next to a friend. however, the majority of my time was spent at clients sites where the atmosphere is a lot more tense and pressurised as we are constantly client facing and teams have to keep up the firms image.

The placement programme was integrated with the graduate scheme so that we went through everything that a first year graduate did, from studying for our ACA to internal training events. As there are a very large number of graduates this was very well organised. However, although this was largely beneficial, at times we didn't know what was going on with the placement programme as we had very little contact about the placement programme.

PwC invest a lot of time and training in you. Over the year I took 7 out of a total of 15 exams for the ACA, which included having a lot of study/college time. They also sent me on many internal training course where I got to learn how the firm worked better. Even my seniors on every team I was a part of would invest a lot of time and effort in training me on how to do thing required on the audit.

Very good - I was offered a place on the September 2016 graduate scheme.

There were only 2 placement students in my department amongst almost 100 graduates, so there wasn't a very big social life amongst placement students. However, amongst the graduates there was a great social scene with very regular events, normally organised ourselves. Similarly on the teams I worked on there were often very good social sides to them, such as the end of audit meals which were very fun!

Very expensive as I was living in London and the cost of living and travelling is very expensive - although it was worth it to live in London!

Great as it was London and it has pretty much anything you want from a night out. however, I found that as I was often working late I coudln't always make the most of this.