PwC assurance 2015 intake industrial placement assessment centre- my experience

Righto! Thank you to all the posts on WikiJob and TSR that have helped me in my preparation for the AC. I had my assessment centre on the 1st in London and unfortunately had a negative outcome. I'd like to give back and hence, this is my experience:

I got there at around 12:30pm (1pm start), sat down and got chatting with some of the other candidates, this is very useful as this helps you feel more comfortable in the group exercise, just in case you're with those particular candidates. When it was 1pm, we had a PwC Student recruitment representative take us to a room (there were about 10 - 12 of us), she explained that first all of us do the written exercise then we split into two groups with one group doing the tests first then group exercise and the other doing the opposite.

THE WRITTEN EXERCISE -
All of us were given a pen, double sided A4 sheet of lined paper, notebook for rough notes, calculator, pencil and a booklet with candidate briefing as well as information needed for the report. We had 30 minutes to read all the information on ways that the government could make businesses more environmentally friendly. There were 4 ways explained in the booklet along with some data and emails. This task is HUGELY TIME RESTRICTED so do not get stuck into reading every single word which is the mistake I made. Another mistake I made was explaining my pros and cons too much as well as explaining the option itself too much.

After the exercise, we all were given a 10 minute break before we split into our groups which were told to us at the start.

PSYCHOMETRIC TESTS -
My group did our psychometric tests first. I would say that they were fairly standard and of the same difficulty as all other psychometric tests. The website that I used to practice my numerical and inductive reasoning was assessmentday.co.uk, the numerical test had 20 questions to be done in 20 minutes and the inductive had 40 questions to be done in 20 minutes. Nothing much I can say here to be honest, you'll be fine if you practice for it and DO NOT SPEND TOO MUCH TIME ON A QUESTION, if you're not sure how to do it or what the pattern is then MOVE ON! because apparently, it is marker on accuracy AND speed.

Again, we had a 10 minute break

GROUP DISCUSSION -
The group discussion consisted of each one of us being given a pack of information as well as a candidate brief. The task was about choosing a by-product for this company. All of us were given 20 minutes to read all the information and calculate basic stuff such as profit. Then we had 20 minutes I think as a group to come up with which by-product should this company use. Make sure you do your calculations so you don't look like a fool when it's time for you to explain your by-product and any questions that the group have on it.

After this, everybody went into a room where we had some lovely cakes and a chat session with some ambassadors.

My feedback was that the report writing exercise let me down. The lady said that my content was strong however I couldn’t cover 2 out of 4 points because I explained and wrote too much about the other 2 points. Hence she said next time, write with bullet points and don’t write in too much detail due to time constraints. Apart from that, my psychometric tests were very strong and I showed good evidence on team working skills. She said that I always had eye contact, structured the discussion and looked at other options seriously as well as my own option. She also said that I got one of the calculations wrong which was bad however not enough to drag the performance of my group discussion.

Group assessment tips from me –
• Don’t be quiet
• Look at everybody when they talk
• Have a good reasoning behind contribution
• Remind group of timing
• Keep group on track
• Don’t talk over others
• Don’t ignore others
• Encourage others to make a contribution
• Challenge people if needed but not aggressively
• Stick to your point
• Don’t rush into saying something without thinking
• Be firm but show you understand the others point of view
• Positive body language – hand gestures, facing the person talking, looking enthusiastic, etc
• Use names
• Don’t mumble
• Clarify what the task is and how to achieve it

Thanks, very helpful

Some very good advice

Would also advice using headings in the written excercise and don't forget a good conclusion and of course good grammar/English

Reply 3

sjh3991

hey, how do the big 4 firms do background checks? Has anyone here actually been through the whole process and knows exactly how it works?

Reply 4

zaynab1995

Thank you very much that was really informative. Even though you did not do very well on one area did that result in you missing out on a placement with them?
Kind Regards

Reply 5

Classical Liberal

Another important skills to show in the group discussion is active listening. Make sure that you ask others questions about what they've just talked about. It shows you were listening and you're able to open dialogue.

PwC assurance 2015 intake industrial placement assessment centre- my experience

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