Company: PwC
Date: 2015-07-11
Overall rating: 1/5
Employment status: former
Experience level: Junior

Great global firm, visionary partners, incompetent managers
Pros: The PwC global network is incredibly powerful -- I had the opportunity to work with team members from China, Malaysia, Singapore, the Nordics, and the US all in one go. The scale of the firm is amazing and really gives you a different perspective on being part of a multi-national enterprise -- it makes you think with a more global mindset.

As a consultant (i.e., client-facing and non-audit) you have the opportunity to interact with C-suite client contacts immediately, and build huge relationships that help you down the road. You also see how all the partners' clients are their former staff at PwC, which says a lot about the firm. You eat well (via Seamless, or something similar depending on your market) and travel in style (Uber) when you work late (which is very often). The work is often interesting and keeps you engaged late at night (client calls at 3am are entirely fine when you are the one driving a huge engagement as a first-year).

The partners are also very involved in mentoring high-potential staff. They take true interest in staff development and try to make sure the talented staff stay at the firm, by giving opportunities to stretch yourself and take on bigger challenges.
Cons: The management can be incredibly disorganized and incompetent. My "coach" was one of the worst managers I've ever had the misfortune of meeting -- she consistently was rude to staff, disrespected their personal time by calling us at 1am about non-urgent tasks, and missed client deadlines causing long-time Fortune 10 clients to become angry at us. Said manager also had the attention span of a goldfish in that she would remember a client deliverable, harass us about it because it was "urgent" (lest she forget about it), and then not review it until our client deadline has passed because she forgot about it. While there were a few great managers, the general trend was horrible engagement managers.