Company: PwC
Date: 2016-08-26
Overall rating: 2/5
Employment status: former
Experience level: Junior

Professional to a Heavy Fault
Pros: + PwC is Big 4 brand with Big 4 professionalism and networking.  As a young person beginning a professional career, PwC is a great place to start for professional development.  The environment is challenging and intense, but is a very rewarding experience in the business world, provided market forces are good and work is available.

+ (Ideally) Travel a lot and work with a variety of clients.  Some may view this as a con, but this was what the reviewer primarily signed up to do (but didn’t – see Cons).

+ Many great benefits and can pay a lot, provided you're with the firm long enough to accrue/earn them.

+ Though complicated, the career coaching system was very beneficial, provided a new hire’s coach takes the responsibility seriously.  The coach was a higher rank than the new hire and has experience for how to move up in the firm, and was helpful for simple questions such as what resources to use to professional development feedback.
Cons: + Employees, especially newer associates and managers, are just a number.  Recent layoffs (including the reviewer) as a result of a bad market and over-hiring based on inaccurate projections reflect poorly on PwC's ability to plan ahead, and can screw over recent graduate hires.  This is to say nothing of those who are working in the US on a work visa, who could be (and have been) dropped on short notice and thus lose their visa status.

+Very bureaucratic and complicated hierarchy and corporate structure.  Changes are very slow, especially as they reflect social professionalism.  For example, PwC only within the past year implemented a policy to be able to wear jeans on Fridays.  

+ In technology consulting there was little work going on for a newer associate to get staffed on.  Associates (or other new hires not yet networked with experienced and veteran PwC employees) are frequently told that it is not their job to get staffed on engagements.  However, finding work below manager level is a mixture of networking and luck, and in some cases favoritism/preference for some associates over others is obvious, making staffing for new hires even more difficult.

+ Though the reviewer signed on to ideally travel a lot for the gig, this didn't happen.  In fact, the associate from end of new hire training to getting laid off did not fly out or travel once for client work and worked remotely on client work.

+ Though the consulting market was difficult, there was no explicit communication that layoffs were impending until the day of the layoffs.  Forewarning would have been beneficial to find another job without the obvious “I was fired” end date of employment on a résumé.

+ Though PwC will highlight its ability to hire a diverse workforce, the representation of that diversity was not present in the PwC culture.  For example, the expectation of drinking (e.g. happy hours, open bars) does not reflect well to those who are not inclined to drink for religious or personal reasons, but this appeared to be a prominent social fixture and a key custom to be part of to move up within the firm.

+ The HR and internal systems and applications are a mess.  Between several overlapping internal social networking sites to what seemed like 100 different applications and services that were very similar in function, navigating internal services was complicated, confusing, and time-consuming.

+ The market wasn't looking great in the summer for technology consulting.

+ On a more personal note, many associates came across as arrogant know-it-alls and were aggressively assertive.  The amount of times the partners at New Hire Training addressed the question of "When can I expect to make Partner?" was ridiculous.  Speaking of which, the partners seemed little concerned or interested in knowing associates on a personal basis - conversations for the most part felt overly formal and disconnected.