PricewaterhouseCoopers Reviews in Vancouver, BC Area

Pros

Good experience, great people, good learning opportunities, great name on your resume when you are looking for a job with better hours and better pay.

Cons

The firm sets overtime time targets that you are expected to achieve (range up to 400hrs of free overtime). Overworked and underpaid.

Advice to Senior Management

The feedback process is very onerous and everyone dislikes it. Make it less cumbersome. Further, we work over 200-400 hours of unpaid overtime during the year...some compensation is appreciated for devoting such a great amount of our free time to your firm.

Pros

- Great benefits
- Internal university/training opportunities

Cons

- Poor feedback from senior management
- Little opportunity for growth within location

Advice to Senior Management

- Work on people skills

Pros

Supports social & sport events, charities, worklife balance (limited) and has decent benefits (health/dental, fitness, parking (Manager & Above). Recognizes staff who volunteers in the community. Supports a green environment.

Cons

Too much money spent on social events and internal moves (almost yearly) when the money could be used towards keeping people's jobs. Too many turnovers. Takes 10 years to earn an extra year vacation. Other companies are normally 5-7 years.

Advice to Senior Management

Although leadership is trying to keep morale, they can limit the amount of social events to secure more positions within the firm. Also, better plan seating plans to reduce the amount of internal moves to 3-5 years instead of yearly. Could provide better compensation for long-term employees (10+ years), for example increase fitness benefit amount, subsidized parking/transit pass.

Pros

Build leadership skills.
Build analytical skills
Build communication skills
Build accounting skills
Build organization skills
The organization gives you a lot of education opportunities by taking the CA designation. Study hard, and study hard, and study hard. Time management skills are critical to success at the organization. Team is very cohesive and people are generally very willing to help. Accounting is a great profession to pursue and a good stepping stone to senior management roles in the industry.

Cons

Hours are long
Management might be biased when it comes to promotion

Advice to Senior Management

Strategy should be reinforced more at the organization
Management skills should be developed more

Pros

overall a good company TO WORK FOR

Cons

On the downside you will have to work long hours

Advice to Senior Management

work life balance

Pros

Great work environment and good, caring people. Good perks and benefits pre-recession; we'll see about post-.

Cons

Unsteady working hours and dependence on clients to provide information often lead to difficulties in planning and scheduling, resulting in some days being too short and others much too long.

Advice to Senior Management

Keep it up

Pros

A great learning opportunity, an excellent environment, and great people. Senior management always looks for opportunity to improve on past successes, focusing on not just the revenue growth, but also diversity, social responsibility, and work-life balance. It is tough to get it right, but they seem to be genuanly understanding the importance of these.

Cons

the hours, and a sometimes hectic work schedule (in advisory), as well as the fact that advisory debt is structured under the audit model

Advice to Senior Management

keep focusing on retaining top personel

Pros

Great training and support for the UFE. Friendly and inclusive firm culture. Lots of social events so the people you work with really become your support system.

Cons

No compensated for overtime. The work load is cyclical so when it's busy season the work day can be very long. I enjoy traveling in general but the clients are not always in the most interesting places.

Advice to Senior Management

Thank you!

Pros

Room for professional growth; lots of training given.
Fairly generious benefits package, as well as lots of educationa support.
Lots of oppurtunity to travel with this job, see lots of North America, as well as occasional oppurtunities to travel overseas, etc.
Amazing social events, Christmas party is very extravagent, a lot of emphasis is put on social events - however the downside of this is that people that don't heavily drink can be frowned up.
Fitness allowance of $500 per year, as well as several sports teams and other athletic events that are firm sponsored. EPA is also included in benefits.

Cons

Work life balance during the busy season is non-existent - the office is regularily full (even on the weekends) until 11pm. Clients need to be held more accountable.

Advice to Senior Management

Managers and Senior Managers need to be more thouroughly evaluated by people below them - tendancy to treat staff poorly and place blame on them when jobs go wrong.

Pros

offer support for an excellent post graduate qualification. the chartered accountancy qualification is widely regarded the world over and allows you to work in other countries. PwC supports working overseas which greatly was a strong reason for joining.

Working for PwC gives an excellent start into the business world and builds a strong understanding of finance. It also allows exposure of how to run a successful finance dept because you get the change to watch so many different ones during the course of your career.

The social side of work is good, because there are a large number of young people.

Cons

There is solid (if slow) career progression available. Most people seem to get promoted based on working a set number of years, rather than by actual skills available.

Working hours can be horrendous. There is frequent dislocation between the message for work life balance and expected working hours. There is also frequent working over weekends. The general quality of staff is poor given that this is a service organisation that is built on the quality of its staff. New ideas are not often accepted by others and there is a good deal of politics played by more senior staff trying to get promoted.

Advice to Senior Management

1) Think about involving non-managers in the decision making process, and having some respect for senior associates who are in there promotion year and are quite capable of managing their own time.