Company: PwC
Date: 2020-12-12
Overall rating: 2/5
Employment status: current
Experience level: Confirmed

Culture of overtime; limited opportunities
Pros: Great firm to have on your resume, in turn opening doors to other places; high-performing environment which in turn allows for you to learn good skills; colleagues are, for the most part, all impressive and good at what they do; positive experience to the extent you are in a caring, collegial team; it's possible you can avoid excessive overtime (but you may be disadvantaged by doing so); very inclusive for LGBTIQ.
Cons: Culture of overtime (I have been told there is an expectation of overtime and PwC is not a 9-5 business); prioritises output over quality, such that you will be disadvantaged if you don't/can't work overtime (and, as a result, I frequently see people who work 24/7 but produce only average work get promoted over people who have better technical skills and produce high-quality work, but can't do crazy hours), and as such not a good environment for a primary carer; some senior people are so focused on being partner (or performing well upon recent admission) that they'll act with zero care, tolerance or compassion to those around them; rather than opening up doors within the organisation, often teams are quite insular and partners will fight to stop you leaving (and it's unlikely you can go anywhere without them backing you); teams are quite specialised such that your skill set can limit your opportunities for more generalist roles; pretty average pay until you're at least senior manager (terrible pay at the junior levels); relatively slow progression; lots of diversity and inclusion policies but many of these are just on paper (ultimately an old school firm that expects blood and rewards those who can give it over, say, those that need to care for kids). Note that the above may be team/department-specific to some extent.