UK Assurance Intern Review

Overall I enjoyed the internship a lot, however some of the work was fairly boring. For 2 out of the 5 weeks at the Norwich office, I spent 1 week out on client site and 1 week in the office on 2 smaller clients – where I was able to cover a few different areas of the file. Most of this work was enjoyable and gratifying. The other 3 weeks I spent on a larger client that was near to completion, and I found a lot of this work repetitive and mundane, although again some was gratifying. I enjoyed the atmosphere in the office and working with my colleagues – as everyone was very welcoming and friendly. I see this as the major positive of working at PwC – the people.

I felt very valued. Throughout, I was given the responsibility of completing work that would go straight to the client, and I was given the freedom to complete it how I best saw fit. This was my first experience of work outside of education (excluding restaurant jobs), and it gave me a great experience for realising tasks can be done in many different but correct ways. PwC encouraged this and trusted in me, making me feel like a valued member of the team.

Coaching (teaching) is encouraged a lot at PwC, and as soon as you understand anything, you are expected to try to/ be able to coach others. Therefore even the first year graduates were very keen to help and support me, and every grade beyond that. Everyone was happy to answer my questions and appreciated the lack of knowledge you have as an intern.

I was moderately busy. On the majority of the days I had stuff to do to fill a 7.5 to 8.5 hour working day. While I was on the 2 smaller clients I was busy all the time from 8.30/9 to 5.30/6. This was because they were in the middle of the testing bit (actual audit bit) of the audit process. While I was on the larger client that was near to completion, the work was less constant as a lot of the tasks were small. But for the most part I could fill my day. It helped that I was the only intern in the Norwich office and so all the ‘intern work’ came to me.

As stated above, I felt I was given a good level of responsibility. I was allowed to complete my work in the way I thought was best, and send that work straight to a client. I was also allowed to complete different sections of the file ready for review by a manager. I also spoke to the client one on one a couple of times and was trusted with doing this. At first it was quite daunting when I wasn’t 100% sure how I would answer any questions they might ask, but felt very pleased after talking to the client and was very grateful PwC trusted me to do it.

My degree is non-finance so the technical aspects won’t help. However, having experienced the world of work I have a much clearer idea of what comes after education, and I think this will give me a much greater focus throughout my final year of study. I thoroughly recommend this experience on that basis alone, even if the internship is not doing something you originally thought you would enjoy. Beyond university, in business, I think this introduction to finance over the past 6 weeks will help hugely, as I now understand what a set of financial statements are, and what double entry book keeping means. Even if I do not work in finance, I feel this knowledge is invaluable.

PwC market themselves as a firm about the people - and it's true! Everyone was very friendly and welcoming and I couldn’t have felt more comfortable coming into the office each day. Everyone seemed to chat to each other throughout the day, and the interaction between juniors and managers was clearly very easy and natural – nobody appeared to worry about speaking to their seniors.

Very well organised. It begun with a 3 day residential induction at a hotel, where all the U.K. interns came together – to learn basic accounting and to find out how the internship would play out. This was great as it gave a chance to meet a lot of people who were all at the same point though university and that all had the same career ambitions as you. Then I had a 2 day local office induction. Then I worked on clients for the next 5 weeks. I always knew what I was doing and where I was meant to be – never felt lost or unsure.

PwC invested a lot of time and money. The 3 day residential induction was at a nice hotel was fully paid for all inclusive. The whole first week was an induction and I was paid a salary for it. The 2 day local induction was given by a member of the Norwich team who was prepared to give up 2 days to teach me (and the Cambridge interns). Then throughout I was given weekly feedback, and had 3 meetings with my people manager.

On the 2nd weekend, after working my first full week in the office, I was invited out with a few people from the office to somebody’s leaving drinks. After going to a couple of pubs and a bar, we headed to the local Friday night at a club. I really enjoyed getting to know my colleagues on a social level, and meeting some others that I hadn’t seen in the office yet, in a city that had some very good nightlife.