Working at PwC: My Honest Experience & What Really Went Down

so i worked for pwc as an i.t consultant for almost two years one year and 10 months to be more accurate if my happiness level was represented in a graph it would look like this this is where i started my job search and this is where i switched to dxe technology in this video i want to walk through this graph with you and really tell you what happened during my time there and i'll tell you everything no sugar coating only the truth the truth even pwc doesn't want you to know maybe so hopefully if you can be prepared if you ever worked at pwc a little disclaimer here before we start i worked at pwc canada and this is based on my experience only so let's get started so i started working at pwc in january 2018 my first week was exactly how i expected it to be i walked through the doors sat on the couch in the lobby and waited for one of my colleagues to come to get me he showed up like five minutes later and the first thing he said was hi how are you and the second thing was are you available to go to chicago next week and my eyes were like heck yes i'm available i started pwc for this the first phase of my pwc career had officially started which i will call the honeymoon phase in this phase i traveled a lot and met lots of people first i went to chicago where i visited the workday office to get my workday certification if you don't know workday is an enterprise resource planning system which is like a giant software that helps companies manage their hr and finance processes easier it was a certification i needed to be enrolled in projects and help my clients implement workday in their businesses i wasn't too threatened to be back in class and having exams just one month after graduating but i was learning something new so i was excited especially after pwc told me i had 75 bucks to spend every day on food i think that was my favorite part and since i don't eat breakfast usually and lunchtime was limited i couldn't spend too much of that money in that first part of the day so i always had like over 50 dollars to spend in the evening so with my friend kelvin who was a deloitte consultant i met at the training we spoiled ourselves trying all sort of restaurants in chicago after passing the workday exam i came back home in montreal only to be flown to toronto a couple of days later for our yearly team meeting where we bonded with the rest of the pwc team in canada since we have offices all over canada pwc organized a yearly event where we had the chance to meet everyone i think that it was available to collaborate better on projects all of this was new to me i was not even thinking about work consulting or clients i was just having fun traveling eating at fancy places and meeting new people and growing my network if that wasn't enough my manager came to me after a couple of weeks and asked me if i wanted to get two additional workday certifications so i thought so you're asking me to travel again eat at fancy restaurants again and be a more competitive candidate of course yes so i went back to chicago for my second certification and then a couple of weeks later went to san francisco for the first time to get my third certification while i was there i had the chance to visit google's campus and went to oakland to watch golden state versus lakers and at this point i was just grateful i was working at pwc not only did i work for a company with enough budget to make events like the one in toronto but also send me abroad to get additional certifications and make me a more valuable candidate ultimately i knew these certifications were mine i became a more valuable employee like i said which made me proud i was enjoying myself a lot but little did i know what was coming next traveling and getting certifications are a lot of fun but this is not the day-to-day reality i had at pwc during my time there i understood around four months in that pwc is an international firm yes but operas most of the time locally especially in canada meaning no there weren't many opportunities to get shipped to i don't know switzerland for example for a project those were rare occasions most of the time we'll get local clients and travel by bus like 20 minutes to their office so i told myself well i think it's good for now i guess it's okay but i didn't even get this chance i was still new i couldn't get any actual project yet i had to shadow my colleagues and do basic admin tasks i told my manager about this and he kept saying you need to be proactive and ask around for opportunities and i noticed this sentence was the most famous sentence people used at the firm and i realized a bit later that it was their excuse when they knew they didn't have a lot of work available so that's what i did every week i would email the whole department and ask them if there was anything i could do i told them i had three certifications and that i got a little bit of experience shadowing other colleagues but no one would ever respond with an actual task like for example hey so i'm doing this for this client i don't want to do it and since you're new you need training here it is like go and figure it out right i didn't even had this opportunity at first i didn't understand i thought man if i was them i would give everything to that new guy and decrease my workload and have some free time it's only now like three years later that i'm a senior consultant working on multiple projects that i understood why they never gave me anything when you've been working with clients for several months and have complex problems and configurations it will take too long to explain to a newbie with no experience you would just rather do it yourself it it would be faster than giving it to to someone new so because of that i stayed around five to six months without an actual project and i named this phase the bench face when you're on the bench it means you're not needed for now and you just need to wait until a new project is signed and don't worry it's normal to be on the bench sometimes in a consulting firm especially in the big four for a couple of days or a couple of weeks but not six months and days were long and i was not feeling challenged there was even a point where i questioned if pwc was the right firm for me i was still fresh out of school what i needed most right now was to learn valuable skills and become a more competitive candidate not looking over the window and go through my emails all day right yes i had three certifications already but i won't get practical client experience if i don't use them i was even thinking about my long-term career where i was headed and at that point pwc was not providing what i was expecting from them so i waited and waited i was still doing basic admin and excel work nothing meaningful really if that wasn't enough my manager reached out to me one day saying he noticed my billing hours were low billing hours if you didn't know are hours worked on actual projects in a given week those are hours clients pay the firm for so let's say you work 40 hours every week you want most of these hours to be hours worked on a project not doing admin stuff i was doing mostly all day right the more billing hours you have the more money you bring to pwc and the happier they get if you're not billing hours well pwc is not making money which is not a position you want to be in for too long and you'll see a little bit later why there was just one problem you don't control this you don't choose which project you're put on you don't choose how many hours you allocate every week to a project you don't decide anything so i found my manager didn't make any sense coming to me asking me to build more if they didn't give me a project in the first place and i realized this was a common problem back in the days at pwc they would hire too many people because they thought projects were coming soon still when signing clients took more time than expected well all these employees will stay on the bench which is precisely what happened to me and in this bench phase i also understood that yes working at a big firm meant lots of resources and budget like i said before still it also meant management communication and processes problem and because it's a big firm it's harder to find solutions and implement them because of the many layers of people in place thankfully though i got past that after many months on the bench pwc finally signed two significant clients which meant two new projects i would be enrolled in i will name this phase the consulting life in this phase i went to my client's office many times did a few presentations and learned a lot about the work day erp i was certified in i also realized no matter what training you take it's nothing compared to the real work despite having three certifications i struggled at first to understand my clients problems and giving relevant solutions training stays theoretical just like university clients problems were real so i had to rely on my more experienced colleagues a lot to help my colleagues were great don't worry about that it's one of the things i would never say about pwc like back in my days because i don't know if it's still the case right now my colleagues were just awesome but i have to say the vibe you get when you go to your clients office sure and thai and everything i was feeling powerful and knowledgeable when the client came to me with questions these guys were like 50 years old coming to a 22 year old boy to solve problems worth millions of dollars for the first time i felt like a real consultant i had to learn how to talk to clients how to present information efficiently and more importantly how to explain complex problems in simple terms which i knew was a great transferable skills no matter what job i will have in the future and that was the work i wished i had from the beginning so i was happy to finally have a taste of it i wish i could tell you this was my last phase at pwc and that i learned so much i became consultant of the month and i lived happily ever after i wish i could say that but the reality was far from it at the end of my first year at pwc i witnessed the first wave of layoffs one day i woke up and saw an email saying they had terminated around 10 people randomly the reason budget and project problems we were just too many in the department without enough projects bench life is not a good life like i told you believe me i think that was my lowest point i think at pwc i still had this dreamy image of a perfect firm that takes care of us where i traveled got new certifications got the chance to meet new people and work on challenging projects then i saw the harsh reality pwc is just a business if profits are not where they want them to be they will cut people like nothing based on metrics billable hours and other performance indicators it can sound naive but i really never thought that would happen from the vibe i was getting at the beginning when i started at pwc man i thought i was part of a family i thought i was part of a firm cares about their employees that they will never lay them off and then it sounds so naive but yeah all those firms are still businesses at the end of the day if they don't perform they will make those decisions i was still in that unicorn world and that event brought me back to earth i had to focus on being a good employee prove my value and work hard if i didn't want to be next this phase i call reality check no matter how much you love a firm or how much you feel loved the reality is you still need to perform every day bring revenue and be among top employees if you want to stand out get promoted and stay within the firm after that first layoff i felt that the dynamic changed a little it wasn't like before the culture changed a lot i think everyone was shocked and feared for their jobs this was when i started my second year at pwc i was still enrolled in those two projects i mentioned earlier so i kept working and learning as much as i could and shortly after my last pwc phase started that i will call awakening i did a lot of retrospection in this phase it's been a year since i graduated so i thought about my career what i learned during my first year at pwc hint not that much and where i was headed i took some vacation time to thailand and meditated a lot there i started asking myself if it consulting was really the job for me if i had to switch to another firm maybe to another industry or if i just should stay i don't know if it was luck or the stars aligning but when i came back from thailand a few events helped me realize what next move i should take to give you context i read approximately one book a month luckily i read so good they can't ignore you let me show it [Music] not sure if you can see it but yeah this is one of the best books i read uh so far in my career so if you didn't read it you should i'll put a link in the description anyway i read this book during the time i was contemplating if i should leave i t consulting and in the book call newport explains that what matters most in your career is your skills they need it to be rare and valuable and that it's normal if you don't like or if you struggle in your first few jobs out of university simply because you still don't have valuable skills that will give you all the work conditions you dream about it's only by getting rare and valuable skills that one day you can land an opportunity where you will dictate the conditions that you like for example working hours salary autonomy etc at that exact moment my friend kelvin who i mentioned earlier in the video got a new job at dxe technology and told me about his projects his remote work and his salary he was a recent grad just like me but was already a senior consultant there he was already leading projects he could work from anywhere in the world and he was making double his last salary so i was impressed but i thought he was just an exception and after a few google searches i discovered workday was a rare and valuable skill that call newport was talking about a skill that was needed a lot across north america but also in europe and i possessed a rare invent so i realized i possessed a rare and valuable skill all this time and i didn't know about it i was much more worthy in terms of skills that i was aware of and this was when i decided i will stay in it consulting especially within the workday niche and take advantage of the skills i have been acquiring to boost my career even more so i knew i had to quit pwc they were not signing clients at the rate i needed to grow in my career i was still a support consultant and i did not see any future where i could lead a project as soon as i wanted we were just too many consultants and not enough projects my rare and valuable skill wasn't used at full potential if you want to know more about how i realized i needed to quit pwc and the crazy story about how i landed dxc technology in the us despite being in canada i made a video explaining everything and i'll put a link i think here and in the description my experience at poc wasn't always positive i have to say but i don't think you can have a positive experience from start to finish in any firm you work for you will have highs and lows but i'm still grateful i worked at pwc where i had the chance to meet amazing people but more importantly got the chance to be certified and introduce the workday world where i strive right now i had the opportunity to understand how an office works its politics how to handle problems in a team how to communicate with my managers and how to always show a positive image of yourself i had the opportunity to make a lot of mistakes a new grad had to make in his first job out of university and it's because of that experience that i am now thriving at dxc i truly believe it i'm pretty sure my experience is a lot different than a lot of people so if you worked at pwc how was your experience let me know in the comments section and if you want to work for pwc then go for it i'm sure you will learn a lot it will have a positive impact on your career but be prepared and be ready for challenges you may have never encountered yet if you enjoyed this video then please hit the like button it helps this channel grows and gives me a great indicator if i should create more videos like this one subscribe for more consulting and career content and i'll see you soon ciao

Channel: The Independent Consultant

Views: 394,115

Keywords: working at pwc, pwc consulting, pwc, big 4, big 4 accounting firms, pwc consulting interview, what consultants do, pricewaterhousecoopers, graduate experience, primal career, mahdi kafi, big 4 accounting, consulting jobs

Id: QmCv8O2pg5I

Length: 15min 56sec (956 seconds)

Published: Mon Apr 12 2021