Company: PwC
Date: 2014-08-07
Overall rating: 3/5
Employment status: former
Experience level: Junior

Good money, difficult lifestyle
Pros: I received a great starting salary and a signing bonus, especially for having only a bachelor's degree.  I also received in-depth training in multiple industries.  Just being hired by PwC gave me a huge leg up when I was ready to look for a new job. The benefits package was also very good with several health insurance options, a reasonable 401k match and a decent amount of time off.  Some of the people I worked under were also very helpful and pleasant, and almost everyone worked with was my age or just slightly older.
Cons: There was only one major downside, but it was huge and caused pervasive frustrations throughout every part of the work experience: the schedule.  Due to my client mix, I often worked 70-90 hour weeks for at least 4-5 months of the year.  I would get to work around 6:30 or 7am and work until midnight, while others would come in at 9 and stay till 2am.  Many of the people I worked under were stressed and a little bitter about the hours and didn't treat those under them very fairly or respectfully sometimes.  I was sometimes given travel assignments on short notice (<2 days), and one time was told I'd be out of town for 3 weeks, only to have the trip moved back twice and then canceled.. effectively canceling 5 weeks of my "life" to accommodate a project I didn't even do.  I will temper all this by saying I was working there when the economy was not performing very well, which meant we were auditing accounts that sometimes had been under scope for many years and that we couldn't charge our clients any more.  Perhaps when the economy is strong, this is a great job to have but the peace of mind from a good pay/benefits was totally eclipsed for me by being tired, sick, stressed and missing out on a lot of things in my personal life.