PwC
Image: Connor McKenna

This is how PwC hires the best and brightest talent

16 Apr 2018

If you’re vying for a role at PwC, be prepared for informal interviews and group exercises designed to help you show who you truly are to the senior partners.

Perhaps you’ve heard of the global professional services firm PwC, and what you’ve heard has piqued your interest enough that you want to work there. The question is, how do you seal the deal and become one of the 236,000 people employed at the company?

We headed down to the PwC Dublin offices and spoke to some of the people there about how top talent is recruited into the company.

The first consideration is whether you’re a graduate or an experienced hire – this factor will shape your experience, as the processes for recruiting these kinds of candidates is quite different.

“With graduate intake every year, it’s a big structured process where we get quite a large number of applications from graduates. We go through a down-selection process and then they’re invited in for a full day where they do a group exercise,” explained Dennis Brown, technology consultant senior manager at PwC.

“With experienced hires, the process is slightly different. We go through a more informal interview to start with to get to know the candidate.

“If they’re successful through that, they go to a second interview where they’d be expected to do a business case and present to more senior members of staff.

“Very often, the second interview involves one or two partners.”

So, you know how the whole process works, but will you be successful? Again, it’s difficult to give a simple answer. Technology consultant Trish Dineen told us that what the company is looking for will really depend largely on the experience and expertise required for the role.

“For example, if we’re bringing someone in as an experienced hire, we might look for someone that’s worked on the delivery of a large-scale technology project.

“We might also look for someone that’s worked in a consultancy background, so has worked with giving technology advice,” Dineen concluded.

Enterprise architect David Stapleton was quick to add: “What we’re looking for is somebody who has a good insight into IT and how they can apply IT to [our] business needs, and how IT can be used to add value.”

If you want to learn more, check out the interview in full above.

Eva Short
By Eva Short

Eva Short was a journalist at Silicon Republic, specialising in the areas of tech, data privacy, business, cybersecurity, AI, automation and future of work, among others.

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