CAREERS: A taste of the future with a 'Big Four' firm

Sixth former NICOLE LAMBERT reports on attending a Females of the Future event at one of the world’s ‘Big Four’ accounting firms

I WAS lucky enough to attend PwC’s (PricewaterhouseCoopers) Females of the Future event in Leeds.

This was an insight event into the firm, which is the second-largest professional services network in the world and is considered one of the 'Big Four' accounting firms.

The event was the day before International Women’s Day; therefore, it was aimed at female students interested in joining their company.

I acquired my place through Young Professionals - which is a company that allows students to make links with employers and access work experience and apprenticeship opportunities. This also helped me gain insights into other large accounting firms such as KPMG and Grant Thornton.

The PwC event presented a fantastic opportunity to network with current apprentices and their recruitment team, allowing me to build connections with people I could potentially encounter in future.

After A-levels, my goal is to achieve a degree apprenticeship or apprenticeship with one of these global accounting firms and study towards becoming a chartered accountant.

At the event, the student recruitment team welcomed us, and gave a presentation on career paths, whether as a school leaver or postgraduate, outlining the perks and benefits of working at PwC.

They also went through the assessment process, including information about the application, online assessments (behavioural and cognitive), video interviews and the assessment centre.

The assessment process is rigorous and extremely competitive, with each round being a knock-out for a lot of people.

We were introduced to a panel of current apprentices and graduates and had a Q&A session with them, which was very informative. We found out about day-to-day life for employees, alongside social events, travel opportunities and work-life balance. The panel were very engaging and open to all the questions asked.

Afterwards, there was an opportunity to network with other attendees, apprentices, graduates and the student recruitment team in a one-on-one environment and ask any specific questions we wanted.

Overall, the event was extremely informative and provided the opportunity to experience, in person, an event with one of the largest accounting firms in the world.

I would really recommend these events to students looking to go into a finance-based career, they look great on your CV and demonstrate interest in a company if you wish to apply to them in the future.

They also offer a rare opportunity to experience what the environment in an accounting firm is like and build connections with individuals within the firm.