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PWC Career Conversation Advice

filletofish

Please help a brother prepare!!! No idea what to expect!!

Reply 1

AW_1983

Original post by filletofish

Please help a brother prepare!!! No idea what to expect!!

Don't overthink it. If you want to prepare, then there are essentially three simple you need to be able to answer with conviction:

1) Why you want to be a chartered accountant;

This can be sub-divided into why accountancy generally (you might like solving problems, making order out of chaos, want to learn the nuts and bolts of how a business works or learn to use far too many clichés like me). And secondly, why ICAEW rather than ACCA, CIPFA or CIMA (it's probably one of the two more technical focused bodies with ACCA and it's depth in Audit and Tax is arguably the greater. Don't worry too much about ACCA vs ICAEW though, they are very similar. Think more about why not CIMA).

2) Why you want to work for PwC:

It's a big firm so you've got plenty of places to grow, it has a global reputation for developing people and maybe look at whether it is the leader in the field you want to go into. Try to find a reason to differentiate it from the Big 4 (and if you succeed in doing that without getting the inside view, let me know! Big 4 are outwardly all very similar!)

3) What evidence is there in your past experience to demonstrate a desire and aptitude for this business?

Did you do a relevant degree (it doesn't matter if you didn't, it's just a talking point if you did)? What extra-curriculars have you done? Can you show you work well in a team? Etc.

Other than that, read your written application a couple of times and be prepared to talk in more depth about the things you said on your application form.

Having sat on the other side for a large bank, what I would say is your interviewer knows you tick all the boxes to meet the criteria because you've made it to interview. What they want to check for is to ensure you're not a liar or someone they don't want to work with for the next three years! So, dress nicely (black shoes, tie etc), talk with confidence and don't make any distasteful jokes! Obviously there is also competition but the reality is that about 40% of the applicants are ********s who people like me don't want to work with, and this is the stage where we phase them out.