Company: PwC
Date: 2015-11-16
Overall rating: 5/5
Employment status: current
Experience level: Junior

Assurance Senior Associate
Pros: I've really enjoyed my time with the company. Annual raises are great, range anywhere from 6 - 12 percent and even more in a promotion year (which occurs every 3 years). Bonuses are okay but get much better once you make senior associate. Constantly learning and growing, work is challenging and rewarding. Work with the best and the brightest - PwC recruiting process is generally very tough & thorough. I work with managers, partners and co-workers who really care about my development. Mentoring program is great with the right coaches. Benefits are good and there is an increasing focus on flexibility. Decent matching for 401k and if you can stick it out the 12-16 yrs it takes to make partner and stay with the firm, you can retire at 55 with a sweet pension pushing a million a year. The social committee always has something going on for employees, great events too like baseball games, beach days and family picnics. I feel that I work in a family-like environment where many of us are friends (at all levels). Constant training, they fly us out at least twice a year to train and offer great milestone awards with each promotion (trips, big bonuses, and sabbaticals). Overall, a great place to start or make a career.
Cons: Work-life balance can be challenging at certain times during the year. You have to know how to multi-task and be efficient or, how to say no/ask for help when you are overwhelmed. Not ideal to start a family unless you are manager & above (they have a lot more flexibility w/their schedules), however, I've known mothers that have taken a year off after the birth of a child and the firm has been supportive. Also, everyone's experiences vary depending on the clients you are staffed on. I have always been on great teams so have had a great experience, but have friends that are on nightmare clients with extended busy seasons. They have partners/managers who do not trust them and treat them more like children instead of professionals (don't get me wrong, some associates earn that mistrust). Depending on the stress level on some of these jobs, co-workers can be straight up rude and disrespectful to each other. Again, not my experience but I've heard stories. I would say this type of client is the exception and not the rule but full disclosure and all. Bonuses in the early years could be better. Performance process can be arbitrary but it's this way at almost every other company and PwC is making serious efforts to make it as "fair" and transparent as possible. Going over budget on a client can be very stressful as your expected to quantify and "explain" why when it just may simply be that your associate(s) was a slow learner, but who wants to throw someone under the bus like that?