Company: PwC
Date: 2014-05-08
Overall rating: 3/5
Employment status: former
Experience level: Senior

Many opportunities for learning and career development but getting too big
Pros: First off, it really dependents on the line of service (Audit, Tax, Advisory or IFS) and even then, the groups and/or offices within these lines.  Two people will have totally different experiences based on this.  I worked in Advisory, which has gone through a lot of changes in the past 5 years.  It's growing quickly, much of it by acquisition and the strategy seems to change frequently.  The work is hard and the hours unpredictable.  It can be quite easy between projects but then there is the pressure that you're not "chargeable".  You don't want to be in that position for very long or you'll have a target on your head.  The co-workers are top notch and you learn a lot from each other.  Benefits are good.  You're treated like a professional and expected to act like one.  The firm is very concerned with its reputation and looks at you as an extension of their brand.  Many merit-based opportunities for promotion.
Cons: While there are many opportunities for professional growth, you don't really have much control over where.  It really depends on the projects you're on and frankly, PwC doesn't exactly do the sexiest types of consulting work.  Much of their focus is improving operations, getting companies out of a crisis or some sort of reporting improvements.  There are often mixed signals between the firm leadership's position on things and how partners actually execute it.  That's not to say most partners aren't working just as hard as the staff, it's just that they have to make clients happy, make staff happy and make the firm lots of money and those three things are pretty hard to reconcile.