About PWC
PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) is an international professional services network of firms operating as partnerships under the PwC brand.
It is the second-largest professional services network in the world and is considered one of the Big Four accounting firms, along with Deloitte, EY, and KPMG.
PwC was formed in 1998 through the merger of two accounting firms: Coopers & Lybrand and Price Waterhouse. The company has 284,000 employees in 157 countries and territories.
PwC is a Fortune 100 company and is known for its employee-friendly policies and its culturally rich environment. The company offers its employees a variety of benefits, including flexible working hours, self-scheduled leaves, and the option to work remotely. In fact, PwC was the first consulting firm to allow all of its 40,000 client service professionals to work virtually from anywhere in the world.
Interview Process
Application
To apply for a job at PwC, you can create an account on their personal system, Workday, and submit your application. You can track your application status through the same system.
If your application is successful, you will receive an email invitation to take a quick and enjoyable set of games that will test your basic logic skills. The games take about 15 minutes to complete.
The games are designed to assess your problem-solving skills, your attention to detail, and your ability to think logically. Your scores on the games will be used to determine whether you are invited to the next stage of the interview process.
Video interview
After the game assessment, you will be contacted by a recruiter for a video interview. You can schedule the time and place of the interview at your convenience and the pace of the conversation shall rest upon you.
Assessment center
The assessment center is a full-day event that consists of 2-3 stages. It includes group activities, exams, and small rounds of interviews. The purpose of the assessment center is to test candidates on a wide range of skill sets, including their problem-solving skills, their teamwork skills, and their communication skills. The assessment center also gives candidates a chance to meet their potential future colleagues.
The assessment center is a competitive process, but it is also a great opportunity to learn more about the company and to meet your potential future colleagues. If you are invited to an assessment center, be prepared to work hard and showcase your skills.
Interview with manager or partner
This is basically the final one-to-one interview that decides your potential fate at PWC. The interview is designed to analyze your skills, behavior, conduct, and compatibility. You will also be asked about your motivations and aspirations, and you’ll need to prove that you are ambitious about the business world and working as a PWC professional.
Hired!
If you are offered a position, you will be invited to join the Portal Look Inside for new joiners to learn more about the company culture, your colleagues, and how your first few weeks or months can be at PWC.
Interview Rounds
There are generally 4 rounds of interviews including the very first contact you make with the recruiter. (If you applied through the website, then there are 3 interviews)After the first contact, the following rounds exist:
Video Interview
This is basically the pre-screening step of the process. In this interview, you can present your skills and achievements more interactively than that presented in your resume.
Super-day
This is a screening process that lasts a whole day. It will include interviews with different people, some group activities, and written tests.
Final interview
This is the final one-to-one interview with your manager(or partner). Here’s where you will be closely analyzed to confirm if you will be the perfect fit for the position based on your skills, attitude, personality, and future goals.
FAQ
Q-1 What are your major achievements to date?
Ans- This question is majorly asked to analyze your competencies and your ability to pinpoint your own strengths. However, refrain from answering achievements like, “I was the president of the finance society at my college”.
Instead, frame your achievements as a process that you undertook and executed with an effort on your part.
For example, the above example could be framed as, “I was a rather shy student in the college but I worked on my social skills, and kept enhancing my knowledge and ultimately became the president of the finance society of my college”. Remember, PWC likes people who are adaptable to change and can embrace challenging situations.
Q-2 Have you ever led a team? How was the experience?
Ans- If there is one thing common in all the big 4s, it's that they all want leaders! You can expect this question in all the Big4s interviews. Approach this question by illustrating your role in your previous team projects. Illustrate how you tackled the common challenges of team building, and how you established authority and smooth communication.
Note: Don’t talk about what your team did to achieve their goals. Talk about what you did to help your team achieve those goals.
Q-3 How do you think will be your first year at PWC?
Ans- ‘As clients go into administration, some of us may conduct research to help them rearrange or sell parts of their business. A number of others will be preparing documentation and presentations on such things as sector surveys.
Graduates will interview company staff for audits. Several of these tasks will overlap, but each will be distinct between divisions and their subdivisions.’
Basically, you must show that you have done your research and are enthused about joining the company. Confirming this is the purpose of this question.
Q-4 Have you ever had to deal with a difficult person? How did it go?
Ans- Note: Don’t complain about the difficult person.
This question is actually meant to understand your diplomacy and your conflict-resolution skills while managing a working role. These situations typically arise when a conflict arises between two groups because of a single person. So when you tell them about any specific incident from your past regarding a ‘difficult person', focus on the conflict that arose, and how you solved it.
Q-5 Pick any latest piece of financial news and let me know your opinion on it.
Ans-In the end, this comes down to research. Find a news story that relates to the division you're applying for and do some thorough research on it. It makes no sense to discuss PwC's findings on electricity consumption in the UK if your work has nothing to do with energy. Be prepared to back up whatever you say with evidence and further examples if you decide to discuss the financial implications of the news story you've chosen.
Remember though, for extra brownie points, discuss a topic that has ramifications for the business markets that PWC works in.
Q-6 What is Internal Audit? What are its advantages?
Internal Audit has several advantages. Some are mentioned below:
-It promotes greater organizational accountability by fostering transparency and oversight of operations.
-It serves as an invaluable early warning system by proactively identifying and remedying deficiencies, preventing potential issues from escalating.
-Enhances the overall control environment of the organization, ensuring that internal processes and procedures are robust and reliable.
-It suggests recommendations that can make the company’s procedure efficient and effective