Assurance Associate Review

PwC is an excellent place to start your professional carer. Within months you will have contributed to the completion of the financial audits of numerous clients, gained experience liaising with high profile professionals and advanced your network further than you could imagine. Whilst PwC is an excellent employer to develop yourself professionally, it is also has an incredibly social culture. From my time there I got to attend black tie balls, Christmas parties, sports day, charity day and even a pub style quiz in the office as part of the integration of the new joiners. With a whole host of young professionals, you are bound to make friends for life create a fantastic social circle.

Within audit teams, placement students are valued like any other members of the team. Placements are given real responsibility early on, conducting professional testing of financial statements. PwC have a strong feedback system where mangers and team members can review your performance on each engagement, highlighting your strengths and identifying the areas that you should work on. This ensures that placements are able to contribute

Senior members of staff always review work performed by junior members before ticking it off as complete. Not only does this ensure your work is of a high standard, but it also allows senior staff to coach you and highlight areas that you may need to address again. Although this may sound bad, it actually helps placements create a stronger understanding of audit proceedures, thus allowing placements to be an even more valuable asset to future audit teams. Performance reviews happen twice a year, where your people manager assesses your development over the duration of your placement. Finally the culture at PwC revolves around helping others. Whenever placements are having difficulty with work, there is always a plethora of colleagues who are more than willing to help out.

If you enjoy being busy then PwC is for you. Busy season runs from January to April, and outside of these times you can expect to work between 7.5-10 hours a day. However during busy season, life becomes hectic. You are expected to work 45 hours a week, however it is a luxury if you only do 45 hours. You will more than likely be balancing workloads from numerous clients and have to spend the evenings revising for professional accounting exams. However this does develop resilience in you and if you can survive busy season at PwC, you can survive anything!

Responsibility is something PwC provide give to their placement students in abundance. Whilst you are not 'running the show', you will be responsible for conducting your own testing of the financial statements, performing stockcounts solo and questioning clients based on your findings. There is a real opportunity for students to develop into professionals at PwC, as you are treated professionally, rather than a student, thus you are given responsibilities of a professional, not a student.

One thing that can always be said about PwC without any doubts, is that they provide incredible learning, training and development opportunities. From starting the placement with a variety of training courses, attending college to pass the professional exams and learning on the job by conducting real work, the skills I have learnt from placement will stick with me for life and are an excellent platform to becoming a successful professional.

Very vibrant and talented, where everyone was exceedingly friendly and wanted to get to know everyone. I was fortunate enough to move into a brand new office (Leeds) on the second week of placement. Everything was state of the art, from standing desks to ipad coffee machines. Sometimes the work can be dull, however as you are surrounded by like minded individuals, you know that you can turn to others to break up the tedium of financial audit. Overall the atmosphere was excellent, and I am sure many other employers are second to PwC's working environment.

Very well organised from start to finish. In each office, members of staff who have previously been placement students are made 'Placement Champions', who you can go to for any issues regarding placement, as they have experience it themselves not long ago. Regular conference calls with the recruitment team keep you up to date with any changes to the programme, so even if things do change, you are always aware of what is going on.

Placed a lot of investment in myself. PwC put you through the ACA professional qualification, paying for you to attend college and for the exam entry, even as a placement student. They also spend a lot of time giving feedback to ensure you are constantly developing yourself and can prove in your performance reviews how you have developed over the spread of the year, something very important you can demonstrate to other employers.

For me personally, I will not be going back. However, this is more becasue of the actual job rather than life at PwC. I had numerous excellent experiences during my placement, however ultimately working in financial audit is not for me and I would like to find a role where I can be passionate about my work. PwC still appeals as a firm to work for, as they provide incredible support, opportunities and experiences within numerous aspects of business.

As the office was full of like minded individuals, who are of a similar age there was a very large social side during my time at PwC. There is a dedicated social committee, who put real effort into organizing a whole host of different events throughout the year, from the famous Christmas party to the always fun Sports day. There are even opportunities to socialise with clients upon completion of the financial audit.

Cost of living in central Leeds can be quite pricey, however that is expected within most large cities. Far cheaper than living in London, however there are plenty of pricier establishments. With a lot of investment recently pumped into the city, there are now multiple central shopping centres, with a variety of price points. I think there is a nice mix of cheap and expensive areas.

Nightlife in leeds is very good. There are numerous restaurants, bars and clubs available. As a large city you often find a nice mix of young professionals, students and locals in every bar and there is such a variety you will find the venue of your pleasing. At PwC you will experience a very social environment and thus be able to make ample opportunity to explore what the city has to offer.

Several casual sports teams exist at PwC. In my office there was, football, netball, spin classes, circuit training, running club, badminton and many more. PwC encourage the use of the employee email lists to get everybody involved in outside of work activities. PwC also arrange regular socials such as sporting events, dinners, and black tie balls to ensure staff have plenty of opportunities to release the stress of work.