PwC Women in Business Review

I absolutely loved my experience at PwC. This spring week is unlike any other, you are not with a big group of undergraduate students and the firm shows you around the offices and offers you some presentations about what they do and what your role would be like. In this case, you get the chance to get a tailored first-hand experience, you are placed in an office and shadow a female business leader, following her around and experiencing everything she does, this is why it is so unique and you enjoy your time so much.

The good thing about this programme is that it's all about you, you are not just a candidate among a group of other 50 students who were chosen to take part in the spring week. It is a one to one experience with PwC workers. You are obviously shadowing your leader but alongside her there are other PwC employees working in that same project so everyone gets to know you and wants to take you around to meetings with them, so you feel very valued.

Because this is not a normal insight week, but instead you are left alone in an office working alongside people who are doing their job, the induction is quite brief. You get a 30 minute chat with your leader to get a feel of what the week will be like and after that you start working. You also get a few online modules that you need to pass in order to complete the spring week, they teach you things about business ethics and the philosophy of the company.

To a very very large extent. All that I did was practice and really experience first hand the work of an office and of a consulting project. I attended meetings, learning about personal dynamics and strengthening my emotional intelligence; I had to prepare presentations, improving my oral and audiovisual skills and I learnt a lot about problem-solving. Hence, I developed my skills to a very large extent.

This was not a normal programme, hence the structure was not too standard. PwC never gave me a brochure with a list of the activities I would be doing every day, basically because the nature of the internship didn't allow it. As I was working in a real office and not attending a "presentation and insight" spring week, every day was a different experience and the tasks varied to a very large extent. Thus, there was no real structure, but in the end this is what real life in an office is all about.

The atmosphere was incredible, could not have gotten any better. I experiences the real office life. It was very dynamic, social interactions were taking place all the time and they all carried very important information that you had to take in. People in the office I worked in were amazing, really intelligent individuals and extremely professional, yet always willing to get to know a bit about you and show you around as much as they could.

I think that the investment in myself was not given by any external training or any presentations I had to attend, because there was none of that. The real investment was in the opportunity itself, I was attending meetings with the clients, witnessing confidential conversations and meeting these professionals who had made it to the top of PwC, so that was all the training I received and it was invaluable.

This response deserves a 100%, the spring week was itself an experience of life in the office. I had to attend meetings, write reports, make presentations, undertake online modules for company training.. It really felt like I was already living in the business world, so I got a perfect picture of what it would be like to work at PwC and what working in the business world entails.

I could not have gotten a better sense of the company. Sometimes, in spring weeks they show you some power point slides with the values and philosophy of the company. It is very nice to see on paper what the company wants to be, but to know how they really come across you need to get first-hand experience. Working with PwC individuals, seeing the way they address issues, how they organize work, how they interact with clients, etc. It all gave me a perfect idea of what PwC life is like, better than some power point slides.

Extremely helpful. I learnt many things, for instance, the project I was working in involved an insurance company as a client. I discovered many things about this industry that I did not know about. I remember that when I thought about consulting I thought that the projects would be interesting or not depending on the nature of the company, and I regarded insurance companies as very boring. However, after working for this company, i realized that what makes a project exciting is not the company itself, but the issue that the consultants have to resolve.

I chose my location to be London, therefore as I do not have a house in the city itself it was very expensive to rent an apartment and to pay for my food and transportation. I received around 300 pounds for my week with them, which is a great salary for just five days of work, however it did not cover all of my expenses. Nevertheless, what counts in this situations is the experience, and if you are only doing this for the salary you will receive maybe this kind of insight is not the most appropriate and you should aim for one that pays more, yet you might be missing out on the experience.

At all times! In theory, the programme is called "Shadow a Female Leader", and I was expecting to literally be the shadow of this PwC Senior Manager. However, I was surprised to see how keen everyone was in the office to get to know me. I would be sitting with my manager as she was writing an e-mail and someone would come over and say to my manager "Hey, I left the papers in the printer" and she would say, "Have you met Carla? She is shadowing me this week". And instantly they would introduce themselves and ask me to join them for meetings.

I was working alongside a girls who had just joined the company on one of its graduate schemes and she gave me a very good explanation of what it is like to balance you life and work and PwC. She told me that there are networking events all the time, there are sport activities, there are eating activities, charity work you can take part in... It just seems like a wonderful environment to me .

Absolutely, I had such a wonderful time and I learnt so many things, not only about the company, but also about consulting and I acquired so many skills that I would strongly recommend this experience. The process to get accepted is quite tough, but if you really read their advice for interviews and assessment centers and you do your best PwC really values individuals on a one to one basis.