Student Review

I enjoyed the insight very much - albeit there were times where there was not much work available for me to do as the team was pretty quiet for that period. I met some really nice people on the scheme.

I did not exactly feel valued at the company; my feedback at the end of the scheme was vague and did not reflect my time at the firm. This made me feel like my time was not valued. The only people who I felt valued me at the company were some of the other interns.

Everyone was friendly during my time there, meaning gaining support during the insight was great. However, after the scheme, PwC did not support or provide much guidance with regards to feedback and how you could improve; which is a bit annoying seeing as you spent a long time applying and then consequently undertook 3 weeks with the firm.

The skills I developed definitely helped me with office work and future jobs; I was familiar with legal jargon, drafting letters and the email system which aided in my next few jobs.

The scheme was well-structured in terms of giving us a timetable of the three weeks. However, it was annoying to be placed in a team where nothing was going on, when another team had no interns but was extremely busy. I felt there should have been more thought put into this. Also for my final assessment - the presentation - the wrong room was booked and my examiners wasted time trying to rearrange the booking. During my time at PwC, there was one thing that everyone complained about a lot and was significantly true - the disorganisation. This was a problem that is not only restricted to the insight scheme, but to the firm as a whole.

The general atmosphere during the insight was great - the social scene was fun, everyone was friendly. However, it did seem at the end of the vac scheme in particular, that there was a bit of a popularity contest. The trainee solicitors definitely had their 'favourite interns,' and there was a lot of gossiping and drama, which was a bit immature and reminded me of secondary school.

The firm failed to provide me significant feedback after the scheme; this highlights that in terms of personal development, PwC failed to deliver. I even emailed HR regarding the fact that the feedback I had received was not reflective of my time there; but they completely ignored my question and refused to answer.

To some extent it did help me to understand that this work is not a normal 9-5 job. However, due to the teams I was in facing quiet periods, I would be stuck sometimes with nothing to do, and using my own initiative to seek work from other teams. Therefore, I think PwC should have thought more in depth about placing interns in busier seats.

The company culture is very relaxed, with very much a work hard play hard policy.

Albeit I knew PwC Legal was not the correct fit firm for me, I knew that the work I was undertaking (when I was given work to do) was interesting and did consolidate my existing decision to be a commercial solicitor.

The socials were restricted to that between trainee solicitors and interns mainly. There was one partner drinks event but only 3 partners turned up out of a whole massive guestlist - so would not rate the networking that highly.

The socials were really fun, if not a bit wild at times. We had gone bowling, and this cool ping pong bar in Shoreditch.

There was not much emphasis on this which was surprising.

No. The firm is not one that is transparent to its' people and does not seem to value their vac scheme students much. There are significant problems in HR and there is significant disorganisation throughout the firm, especially with IT problems and even in the way the office is structured; their open plan is a bit wild and means you cannot find anyone outside of your team. The feedback I had received was actually false and they could not justify their reasoning to me, as it contradicted what had been said to me during the scheme.