
This review was submitted over 4 years ago, so some of the information it contains may no longer be relevant.
Rating
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The Role
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The Company
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The Culture
- 1. To what extent did you enjoy your work placement or internship?
- 2. To what extent did you feel valued by your colleagues?
- 3. To what extent were you given support and guidance by management/your supervisor(s)?
- 4. How busy were you on a daily basis?
- 5. How much responsibility were you given during your placement?
- 6. To what extent did/will the skills you developed, and training you received, assist you in your degree studies and beyond?
- 7. What was the general atmosphere in your office?
- 8. How well organised was the overall work placement or internship set up?
- 9. In terms of personal training and development, to what extent did the company or firm invest in you?
- 10. What were the perks on your work placement?
- 11. How appealing are future employment prospects within the organisation?
- 12. Was there a good social scene amongst any fellow placement Î÷¹ÏÊÓÆµs/colleagues?
- 13. What was the cost of living and socialising in the area you worked in?
- 14. What was the Nightlife like in the area you worked?
- 15. Were there many opportunities to get involved in activities outside of work?
The Role
This is a really great internship - not too long and not too short (6 weeks) interns were given a pro-rata salary and we were given lots of free meals and drinks during training week. The actual work you get to do is on real clients and you immediately feel like a contributing member of the team.
Because you are new it takes a lot of patience for more experienced colleagues to coach you. At times near the beginning you don’t feel that valuable but in a matter of weeks you’re suddenly able to carry out tasks alone and truly do become valuable to the audit overall. This is a nice feeling.
Each intern is allocated a ‘people manager’ who is directly focused on supporting you throughout the internship. They meet with you regularly and provide feedback on how you are doing. The other managers you work with will always be able to listen and help whenever it is needed. My people manager was exceptionally supportive and arranged extra experiences and meetings for me to really get a feel for PwC.
It’s a busy 6 weeks with lots of new experiences but on a daily basis you’re not overwhelmed. I felt challenged with the tasks I was given but not so much that I couldn’t compete them timely. Some of the other interns I worked with were far busier though and were expected to stay in the office late. I was lucky and always finished at around 6pm.
From the very first day in the office you are working on real client audit tasks. Everything you do is reviewed so you are supported to create correct and accurate work but you also get to speak directly to clients on behalf of PwC, which I feel at this stage is a lot of responsibility.
Not much of the internship was directly related to university as such. However having a better understanding of how auditing and accountancy in general is carried out in ‘real life’ will no doubt strengthen my ability to understand concepts in a more hypothetical sense back at university – which will be useful when writing reports/ sitting exams etc.
The Company
The office I worked in (Edinburgh) was really positive – there are various sports teams and social events going that the interns were encouraged to become a part of. The general ethos was supportive and although we were working hard on serious jobs there was a lot of laughter and general upbeatness.
You can tell that a lot of effort goes into planning for the interns coming. We are issued with laptops to use throughout the 6 weeks which were all set up and ready to use. We got our security passes on the first day and any travel etc was arranged and communicated to us efficiently.
The interns were given 1 full week of training in the service area they were going to be working in. The rest was all learned on the job while actually carrying out tasks. I fell that the training was good but I haven’t left with any more or less knowledge about accountancy than I went in with (just more experience of it being used first hand). However the people who don’t already study accountancy probably left with lots of new knowledge.
Sports and Social Club
Company Parties/Events
I think the great thing about the internship is that it allows you to get a feel for the job and the firm. It highlighted to me that I absolutely want to go back and work there as a graduate. Everyone in my intake felt the same but I guess for some people it highlights the opposite.
The Culture
There were 9 interns in my intake in my office. We bonded a lot and tried to socialise after work quite a bit. It is nice to be around people going through the same thing, we were actively encouraged to socialise and PwC created many team-building tasks for us to complete together.
I already live in Edinburgh so it is difficult to answer this question. My costs didn’t go up or down as a result of doing the internship and the cost of socialising as an intern, for me, was the same as socialising as a Î÷¹ÏÊÓÆµ so made no real impact.
Edinburgh is a lively and busy city and there is always some event on at weekends. During my placement it was the fringe festival so nightlife was particularly busy. If anyone is thinking of coming to Edinburgh just for an internship and is interested in nightlife Edinburgh would be a good fit.
Our office has various sports clubs – football, touch rugby, jogging group, etc and on our first day we were asked if we would like to join any of these groups. It was a very welcoming environment and no-one cared that we would only be there for 6 weeks, if anything this made people even more likely to invite us to things.
Details
Internship (1 Month+)
Accounting
Scotland
July 2016