What it does: One of the ‘Big Four’ and the second-largest professional services firm in the world. Delivers quality services in Assurance, Consulting and Financial Advisory
Staff Stats: Around 250,000 globally, with about 8,000 people in Australia.
The good bits: Getting to work alongside people from a range of different disciplines on meaningful projects, while servicing prestigious clients both in Australia and across the globe.
The not so good bits: The work is challenging. The hours can be long at times, depending on the team and the nature of the work you do.
Hiring grads with degrees in: Engineering, Maths, IT & Computer Sciences; Finance, Accounting, Economics & Business Administration; Health & Medical Sciences; Humanities, Arts & Social Sciences; Law & Legal Studies; Property & Built Environment; Sciences; Teaching, Education & Human Welfare
PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) is a product of a merger. In 1998 Coopers Lybrand, which began life as a London accountancy practice in London in 1854, combined with Price Waterhouse, another London accountancy practice that began around the same time and which had also grown into a multinational powerhouse. PwC now has offices in 776 cities across 157 countries and three service lines: Assurance, Advisory and Consulting.
PwC works with governments, private businesses and not-for-profits to “assess their performance and improve the way they work”. Domestically, PwC does everything from undertaking due diligence on the nation’s biggest corporate deals, to crafting policies to improve the nation’s health system, to advising some of Australia’s most successful entrepreneurs.
Like many corporations, PwC supports diversity and has taken the extra step of putting a concrete goal in place. It has targets mandating that at least 40 per cent of new partners be women and at least 20 per cent (rising to 30 per cent by 2020) be from a “diverse cultural background”.
PwC is a WGEA Employer of Choice for Gender Equality and PwC Australia's Luke Sayers was named CEO of the Year for diversity and inclusion at the 2018 Pride In Diversity Australian Workplace Equality Index (AWEI) awards.
PwC’s global purpose is to “build trust in society and solve important problems”. In Australia, they try to bring this to life by through the work they do for their clients. Such as improving the livability of Australia’s cities with better transport networks and housing affordability, creating better food production & distribution, redesigning the health & education sectors and tackling homelessness. They’ve also encouraged governments to engage in comprehensive tax reform and prepare students for the jobs of the future by promoting STEM (science, technology, engineering and maths). PwC encourages their people to think about how they can contribute to social impact through Social Impact time. This provides people with the opportunity to volunteer, mentor and champion issues.
PwC hires people from all educational backgrounds for roles within consulting, technology, accounting & finance, tax, law, analytics and project management. No CV’s or academic transcripts are requested up front and there is one application for all, ensuring a fair and equitable process right from the start.
You start the process by submitting an online application (takes about 10 minutes) via the careers’ section of the PwC website. The next stages are a digital interview then attend an assessment centre (Career Jam). Here, you’ll need to demonstrate that you’re “driven and agile; innovative and commercially aware.”
PwC offers grads a salary that is competitive with industry standards. As an entry-level employee, it is all about gaining experience to start but once you ascend to more senior positions, you will have further opportunities to be rewarded for your performance through salary increases, bonuses and other incentive schemes.
Benefits include discounts on everything from phone plans to gym membership, study support, and overseas secondments. Some of the best perks are a flexible work culture, no dress code and free coffee. As a member of the Social Club, you can also snap up discounted movie, entertainment and sporting tickets and as well as a spectrum of other party and retail discounts.
There’s a structured career path, with transparent performance metrics that take you from graduate to senior consultant and right through to Partner. If you’re a strong performer, you can expect to be promoted every two to three years. It typically takes 10-15 years to make partner.
You can expect to be based in well-appointed offices in stunning locations with access to some of the best technology around. PwC has a trust-based culture. With no dress code, you will be able to wear what is appropriate for the work you do with both your team and clients. You may also find yourself working from the office, home or a cafe thanks to PwC’s All Roles Flex Policy which encourages you to structure your work around your life. PwC is a friendly and very social workplace, there's a big emphasis on teamwork and both managers and partners make themselves available to those in the grad program for both mentoring and support.
Overall satisfaction rating among grad employees: 4.1 stars
Explore our student and graduate programs and discover how you can create your career with us:
Graduate Program
Our Graduate Program is a full-time employment opportunity open to graduates and postgraduates. Applications open in February and are accepted a year prior to program entry.
Vacation Program
Our Vacation Program is open to students in their second last year of university. This 4-6 week internship is an opportunity to gain industry experience and a potential fast track into our Graduate Program.
Trainee Program
Our Trainee Program is a unique three-year program that offers paid work experience while you complete your degree. It is open to university students in their first year of a three year single degree or students in their second year of a four year double degree.
Legal Clerkship
Our Legal Clerkship is open to law students in their second last year or final year of university. This 3-6 week opportunity offers valuable exposure to the fundamentals of commercial law, including: corporate advisory, regulatory, employer & workplace relations, projects & finance, and legal tax services. Our program aligns with the NSW and Victorian law society dates and timeline.
Higher Apprenticeship Program
Our Higher Apprenticeship Program is open to high school graduates who hold an HSC, VCE, VCAL or equivalent. This is an opportunity to build a foundation of skills in business and technology, gain on-the-job experience and receive coaching from industry professionals over a period of 24 months.
Tech Academy
This one day immersive experience is open to all students, including recent graduates. This hands-on interactive event will help you understand how your tech skills can add value to the many disciplines across PwC.
Insight Academy
This one day experiential event is open to undergraduate students with two years left on their degree. This fun experience is designed to help you develop the tools to start your career. Familiarise yourself with our culture, recruitment processes and explore opportunities within the firm.
Our recruitment process has never been easier! Simply:
Once you complete the process, offers will be issued from your local recruiter.
Check out our recruiter tips videos here for tips on each stage of our recruitment process.
At PwC, Diversity & Inclusion (D&I) is an important part of everything we do. As part of this commitment, we want to remove any conscious or unconscious bias from impacting the recruitment process. Therefore, we no longer require you to upload a CV or resume as part of our application process. We care about your potential and ability, and look for people whose purpose and passions align with our values. We hope this will help create a more equitable, fair and diverse application experience for you.
Academic transcripts will be requested upon successfully reaching the final stage of assessment to verify your degree.
Reasonable adjustments
We recognise the benefits of diversity and are committed to increasing the diversity of our workforce, including the number of employees with a disability.
As part of our commitment to creating a culture of inclusion, if you have a disability we'll be happy to make reasonable adjustments to our processes for you.
When applying, you’ll be asked if you require any adjustments during our recruitment process, or if you anticipate needing any workplace adjustments to enable you to perform the role you're applying for. If so, we’ll be in touch to discuss your needs so that we can help you perform to the best of your ability.
We’re one of Australia’s leading professional services firms, a top graduate employer, and a leader in emerging and disruptive technology. What does that mean? We work with diverse industries to tackle some of the most significant issues challenging our nation. From digitising healthcare, to tackling homelessness and creating smarter, safer cities, our people are passionate about making a difference for our clients and together, we build trust in society and solve important problems.
Here, you’ll join a collaborative, innovative and forever evolving community that delivers quality services in Assurance, Consulting and Financial Advisory. We offer a variety of programs for students and graduates to start creating their careers with PwC. We hire people from all educational backgrounds for roles within consulting, technology, accounting & finance, tax, law, analytics and project management. With our diverse range of businesses and variety of work you’ll discover a unique way to help us solve important problems together, and create a career that grows and evolves as you do too.
We believe that everything we do must be driven by our human spirit - our collective creativity, authenticity and difference. That’s why we’ve fostered an environment and culture that encourages you to be yourself, bring your best self to work and create a successful career by striking a work life balance through our many employee benefits.
Flexible work: Our ‘All Roles Flex’ policy means you have the freedom to choose how, when and where you work to best suit you day. At PwC, we trust our people to work around their individual and client needs and provide the tools and movement to be able to truly do it. Whether that means you flex the hours in your day or choose to work remotely, PwC empowers you to work smarter and in a way that suits your lifestyle.
Digital learning: Take control of your professional development with our personalised learning platform, tailored to your individual skills and interests. Our learning platforms have been designed with you in mind, so you can remain continually inspired and focussed on developing your skill set.
International opportunities: If travel is your thing, we have no shortage of short and long term secondments.
Health & fitness benefits: We understand the importance of health and fitness and offer a number of perks including discounted memberships and up to $295 for activities that support wellness.
Wellness platform: Our dedicated wellness team provides information and support via our wellness platform, ‘Be Well’. This hub helps you in achieving your wellness goals by encouraging regular wellness checks to track progress, offering wellbeing programs and information, and by providing opportunities to participate in firm wide wellbeing challenges.
C.A.R.E program: The C.A.R.E (Coaching, Advice, Resilience & Empowerment) program is a confidential and psychological well-being service provided free of charge to all staff and their immediate family members. Whether personal or work-related, C.A.R.E can be tailored to assist in resolving issues that can prevent you from being your best or impact your wellbeing and is an avenue for accessing confidential counselling and advice in times of need.
Free coffee: Coffee is on us! We have full-time baristas in most locations.
Creating equal opportunities for women
At PwC, we work hard to address issues of gender equality in the workplace. By empowering female career advancement we not only create gender equality, we also create more diversified workplace communities. This means we’re better equipped to solve society’s most significant problems because we are able to view them through the most holistic lens.
As a Workplace Gender Equality Agency (WGEA) Employer of Choice for Gender Equality, we’re proud of the work we’re doing to achieve gender equality throughout our firm and are dedicated to ensuring all of our people (regardless of whether their unique differences are visible or not) are equally supported throughout their respective careers. In addition, our CEO Luke Sayers is a Male Champion of Change and a WGEA pay equity ambassador.
Creating a culturally diverse workforce
At PwC, we recognise the importance of having a culturally inclusive workforce, where all our people understand and appreciate different perspectives and worldviews, and interact successfully and respectfully with others across cultures.
We were the first professional services firm to set cultural diversity targets, whereby 30% of our partnership admissions will be from a culturally diverse background. We ensure pay and promotion is both fair and unbiased for people from diverse cultural backgrounds. And we provide training for our people on cultural awareness and cultural competency.
PwC has partnered with the Australian Human Rights Commission on thought leadership to promote cultural diversity in leadership and our CEO Luke Sayers is a founding member of the Leadership Council on Cultural Diversity.
Making a difference to the lives of LGBTI people
At PwC, we believe that having a culture where our people feel valued for what they bring, will thrive and inspire others - irrespective of their sexuality, gender identity or intersex status.
As a firm, we don't just believe in LGBTI inclusion, we actively support LGBTI inclusiveness in everything we do. We were one of the first professional services firms to support marriage equality, and actively advocated for and supported our people throughout the campaign. In the 2018 Australian Workplace Equality Index awards for LGBTI Inclusion, we won CEO of the Year, the Executive Leadership Award and were recognised as a Bronze Employer. We are proud members of Pride in Diversity and the global group OUT Leadership. And we have written thought leadership on LGBTI inclusion, most recently on same-sex attracted women.
Our vision for reconciliation
PwC Australia acknowledges and pays its respects to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as the First Peoples of Australia, whose ancestral lands and waters we work and live on throughout Australia.
As a firm, we are committed to reducing the inequality experienced by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander People. In Australia, reconciliation with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people is core to our national identity. We are proud of the contribution PwC has made to date, but we know there is still much more to do.
We continue to bring our skills, expertise and people to the challenge of making positive progress towards reconciliation. Our Reconciliation Action Plan demonstrates that we are continuing to challenge ourselves to do better, and upholding our responsibility to our communities.
Aspiring to be an employer of choice for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, we’re living our shared purpose through a commitment to significantly increase our Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander workforce. We believe that it's only through a diverse workforce that we're able to create meaningful change.
Another milestone our community is proud of is the launch of PwC’s Indigenous Consulting (PIC), in 2013. PIC is a separate member firm in the PwC global network which maintains an Indigenous majority owned, managed and 60% staffed operation. We like to think of PIC as a partnership between the world’s oldest living culture and one of the world’s largest professional services firms. This two-way relationship built on trust and respect is one part of our story, to demonstrate how we are living our values."