Assurance Associate Review

I enjoyed working for PwC. As an assurance associate, you are treated as a first year on the graduate programme. This means that you have lots of people in the same position as you. You have a year group of which you grow very close friends with across the placement. Everyone working for PwC is so friendly and you never feel awkward asking questions - they expect you to! The only reason I haven't rated my placement a 10 is because of all the exams. It was stressful balancing a full time job alongside the ICAEW professional exams. However, I knew that this would be the case and it is great that you are able to get so many of your exams done during the year.

Everyone is so friendly at PwC. In the first week, you got told so often that you shouldn't be afraid to ask questions and that everyone will expect you to. I cannot reiterate how true that was. When you are put onto jobs, every one is different, so you will always have questions to ask. No matter how senior the member of staff, they are always willing to help, as they will have gone through it too. The feedback system in place allows you to get praise for your work which really makes you feel valued by your colleagues.

My placement champion at PwC couldn't have been more helpful. She was there for me and the other placement students whenever we needed anything. My people manager was also good and if I had any problems she would help sort them for me. You also get given a buddy in the year above you. This is so helpful as they have recently been through what you have so can help with anything. They are there more as a friend and want to help you as much as they can!

You are given a lot of work but in a good way. When working on external audits there are deadlines to meet, and how busy you are usually depends on how long you've got to complete the audit. This means you get a wide variety of experience with the workload though. The busiest times were when you had exams as you'd work at a clients in the day and then have to revise at home in the night. The audit team are very understanding though and make sure you leave on time if you're in exam period.

There were different areas where I had different responsibilities. Across the year, I conducted many stock counts. With these, I went to the client on my own, and had complete responsibility for how it went and doing the write up etc. I also did audits on grants on my own so had lots of responsibilities with those too. However, there is always a manager of those jobs who you can contact with any questions at all, so you never feel on your own or out of your depth. With external audits, there is usually a small team of you so there are lots of you to take responsibility.

Some of the biggest skills I will take forward are confidence and communication. Having to go and talk to clients on my own with sets of questions and queries really helps to build confidence. You have to be clear and to the point when talking to clients, and adapt the terminology you use so that they will understand what you want from them. The balancing working and exams will also help so much - my time management skills improved vastly, as they had to!

My office was great. Everyone is so friendly and helpful. My office had a social every month where people would get together and relax after the working week. As the office wasn't a huge one, you usually get chance to work with most of the people in the office, so by the end of the placement year I knew nearly every face. People are always asking each other whether they would like a drink, whether they are working on the same job together or not!

As PwC is such a big company, the work placement programme was organised really well. You have regular webinars from someone in charge of placements with all the other placement students in the U.K. outlining what happens in each stage of your placement and you are able to ask any questions you have about it. There was no point where I didn't know what was required of me and what was happening in each stage of the placement.

At the start of the placement, I was given weeks of assurance fundamentals training. This helped to ensure I was able to do my job correctly once put on an external audit team at a clients. The company also put lots of time and money into me by putting me through my ICAEW exams. This has helped me so much as I am well into my qualification now, thanks to PwC's investment. I had many weeks at a college to help me study for my exams, which really aided my learning.

I have been offered a job as a second year on the graduate programme and have chosen to accept. I am hoping I will be able to finish my ICAEW exams and become a qualified chartered accountant with PwC. I really enjoyed the experience of working on such a wide range of clients and would love to gain more in the future.

The Cardiff office was great as it has monthly social events. It is a great way to relax with colleagues after working so hard in the week. It is also good for meeting colleagues that you haven't worked with yet, as it makes it easier when you do eventually get put on an audit team with them. As some people spend a lot of time out of the office on client sites, the socials are a great way to catch up with them.

Cardiff is quite expensive but not too bad. I decided to commute from somewhere nearby called Cwmbran. I had family there and the cost on the train wasn't too bad each day. I actually found that because I was all over the region with clients that I didn't actually spend that much time in Cardiff.

Cardiff is a great city for nightlife. There are lots of lovely bars and restaurants - almost too many to choose from!! On Friday nights there seems to be thousands of people visiting Cardiff for the nightlife, it always has a really fun, lively atmosphere. There are things to do no matter what your age is!

There were sports teams that you could get involved in. For women, there was a netball team, which many of the girls took part in. For men, there was touch rugby, rugby, football, cricket etc. There were also many charity events run by PwC which you could get involved with. These involved helping out at a forest digging up weeds, visiting a local school to help teach the students about business and charity bike rides and concerts.