Company: PwC
Date: 2013-12-21
Overall rating: 3/5
Employment status: former
Experience level: Junior

Know what you are getting into
Pros: PwC is a global organization that has many opportunities for learning and development. The resources the company has at the employee's disposal is similar to other top world class organizations.The company is very generous with perks and spend lavishly on out of town trainings. If you are willing to work hard, you can advance quickly and your pay check will grow fast. Your exit options are good as the name carries a lot of weight in the accounting world. As an entry level position, it is the best job you can get in accounting. 

Out of the Big 4s, PwC is the best the work for.
Cons: What I write below is probably typical of other big 4 as well so its really a big 4 wide issue. 
Are you willing to sacrifice your personal life and in many cases mental and physical health for career advancement? At least in the NYC office, workaholics are celebrated and type A personalities dominate the higher you go. You are expected to perform work that you have not been trained for, yet perfection is expected. There is an unrealistic expectation that employees perform at the highest level with the least guidance possible.Seniors and Managers are often times overwhelmed but the"high performance" culture encourages them to pretend they have things under control. As with any large corporation, politics is huge, there are people that get by based on who they work for. There is a definite sense of who is popular and who is not and a lot of kissing up is done. 

Many people in the company buy into their own hype. You will encounter many many aggressive know it all personalities and they are the ones that survive the longest due to their willingness to put up with the workload to get ahead. You will often see Type A Managers that are hard workers but don't know how to coach or manage. Once you stay past senior, think about what you want to do because you will be labeled as an accountant, the "great" exit opportunities are limited to accounting. 

At the senior level, the work responsibility vs the reward becomes out of balance. You are expected to know and be responsible for much more for a marginal pay increase over the people below. I think that's why the company and other public accounting firms have no problem getting people straight out of school but could not find senior and above even for more pay.