Graduate Blog

Peter - Advisory

At the beginning of this week I’ve been completing the final changes to the Hospital IT network architecture report, there were just a few more changes left to make. My Senior Manager and I had spent last week finalising the detail and making sure the wording was just right. I just needed to finalise the network diagram and insert it into the report.

The second half of Monday I was preparing to start a new engagement. I’m starting a high level ISO 27001 information security review in an investment management company. I arranged meetings for the week with all key stakeholders such as the Head of Risk, the Information Security officer and the IT Director.

I spent Tuesday and Wednesday at the client offices conducting the meetings and gathering as much information as possible about how IT security is managed and how information is secured in the organisation.

On Thursday morning I attended a Human Resource Department presentation on our Career Management system. After the presentation, I spent the rest of Thursday and Friday drafting our initial findings from the ISO 27001 information security review meetings and reviewing documents I gathered over the past two days. I made great head way and have an initial rough first draft complete. The client stakeholders are unavailable next week and I’m on holidays for the week so I’ll complete the review when I return. I expect I’ll need one or two more follow up meetings to confirm our initial findings so we can begin to finalise the report. Anyway, it’s 5:30pm now and time for my holidays to begin…...

Kirstin - Assurance

September can be a little bit more quiet than normal in my department. Our busy season tends to be from January to April, so sometimes in Autumn we are assigned to other departments to help with their workload. These past two weeks, I have been working with the Training and Development Department, as they prepare for the arrival of new associates in October.

Over 200 graduates will start their 3 weeks induction training in Croke Park next week, and I have been helping get the material for training together. Most of what I have been doing is administration work and hasn’t involved any accounting or auditing work at all, which is a nice change as it adds variety and lets you see how different areas of the business work.

It’s also nice to spend some time in the office as most of the BWS jobs are based at client sites around the country. Next weekend I’m going to Wexford with a group from work, for the Annual PwC Golf Society Weekend Away, which should be fun so I’ll let you know how it goes…

Shane - Advisory

Well now that you know a little of my history I suppose I should give you an idea of what I do on a regular basis and the best place to start with I guess, is what has been going on theses past few weeks.

I am only just back to work after sitting my FAE’s. I came straight back to work last week after completing the exams and I had an easy introduction back after a 10 week absence. We are currently planning for our year end audits so I was given some light work by the manager that I was working for. I had to contact various clients to enquire of their readiness and availability for us visiting and setting up camp on site in order to carry out our work.

Much of the work we do and reports we produce is stored electronically on various files so I spent much of the week setting up new files for the upcoming audits. I also carried out reviews of work completed last year to establish what should be carried out this year. So it was a nice way to ease back into the swing of it all again.

It has been tough coming back to the hustle and bustle of the City and the office after spending a little over 10 weeks at my family home in Donegal, where I was spoilt with home cooking and comforts. But so far so good.

I had a small break last week and this week I am out of the office at a client looking at various reports and computer systems ensuring that their security standards are in good order and that all reports are carefully reviewed and managed.

Our work in the Process Assurance department is predominantly client facing so we spend much of our time not only at client sites but at the desk of the IT Managers and Financial Managers as well as the FD and heads of Computer Operations. It is fun and you meet some colourful characters. My current client contact is from Scotland so you can imagine the fun in that office. Keeps the mood light hearted and makes the work seem that bit easier!

Ana - Assurance

I’m not that long back from holidays, four and a half weeks in America and Canada, so it’s quite fitting that my first assignment on my return should be the audit of the financial statements of an Irish subsidiary of a US company! Their business consists of offering global consulting and technology services to large blue chip businesses.

Due to the small size of the operation the team consists of me, one manager and one partner.  Also because the financial function for this entity is carried out in the States I am utilising the mediums of email, telephone and good old fashioned snail mail to liaise with the client’s financial team to request and obtain the various documents I require to complete the audit, depending whether copies or original documents must be maintained on our files in order for us to comply with the guidance set down for us by the ISA’s (International Standards on Auditing).  And you thought they were epic novels your auditing lecturer made up to keep you busy in the library and out of the college bar!! No, they are very much a part of our everyday work here in PwC.

Now I guess you must be wondering how I managed to have four and a half weeks off for holidays.  One word – overtime! As I’m sure you know, the busiest time for audit firms is January to April because most companies’ year end is December and so we have a tight timeframe to work with to carry out audit fieldwork to arrive at a final approved set of financial statements.  The advantage of this is that any overtime worked in the cold dark dreary winter evenings can be accumulated and taken as leave during the cold wet dreary summer days to catch the first flight to the sun!

Tracey - Tax

Hi my name is Tracey and prior to joining PwC as a graduate I completed my degree in Accounting and Finance in DCU followed by a Masters in Financial Accounting, also in DCU.

During the final year of my degree I did the ‘milk round’, applying to most of the big firms for an audit position. I received offers from most of the firms I applied to, however, I decided on PwC.

My decision to go with PwC was based on a few things, primarily the feeling I got from the interviews I attended and also from meeting with PwC staff when they came out to DCU. The staff I met were friendly and helpful. PwC also had a great reputation among the top accountancy firms. This has proven true since it won the ‘Best company to work for’ in 2008. And finally, I thought the large number of graduates taken on each year would create a fun environment to work in.

There were several reasons as to why I chose to enter the Assurance section of PwC, firstly as I had studied audit in college I was more familiar with this area than others within PwC. Secondly, I wanted to work in a client facing environment where I would experience a wide range of clients, and finally I wanted to develop good managerial and coaching skills.

I started in the business unit Technology, Information Communication and Entertainment (TICE) in November 2003. TICE’s industry is quite wide ranging which meant I worked on a wide range of clients from a telecommunications provider, to an internet search engine provider, to an explosives manufacturer.

Following three and half years in audit I transferred to the tax department of TICES, where I currently work. During my time in audit I was able to get great study leave to sit both the Part 2 and Part 3 AITI tax exams. This was a huge benefit to me when I transferred over to Tax. As I am still within the same business unit the type of clients I work on are quite similar. However, now I also work on many US multinational companies who are looking at setting up companies here in Ireland.

Outside of work I play basketball twice/three times a week and I also use the gym within our building in Spencer Dock when I can. Every Wednesday at lunch time I go to Pilates in the fitness centre which is also part of the company’s gym.

I love to travel and having completed my FAE’s I spent 5 weeks in South Africa and last year I was fortunate enough to be able to take three months off work to travel around Asia and Australia which was great.

Shane - Advisory

Hi my name is Shane and I am originally from Donegal. I moved to Dublin 11 years ago to complete a BSc. in Genetics, in UCD. I graduated from this in 2001 and went to Trinity where I graduated with a Higher Diploma in Education. From there I went to the Rotunda Maternity Hospital and through Trinity completed an MSc in Pathology after which I taught for a year in England and Donegal. I then went back to university to the Michael Smurfit School of Business and completed a Postgraduate Diploma in Business Studies. From here I joined PwC in October 2005.

My decision to join PwC was purely based on the good reputation it had and how much I had heard about it in The Smurfit School. Coming from a Genetics background I knew very little about the Financial Services Industry but time and time again PwC’s good name would come up in conversation with the many business students on my course.

I joined Process Assurance (PA) which is part of the Advisory practice within the Firm. I choose PA as it seemed to be quite varied in the services it provided to clients and this appealed to me as I knew I would be exposed to all types of Business from Investment Management to Computer Software to Manufacturing. I felt I’d gain a wide wealth of experience of many types of industries and to date I have not been disappointed.

As you can see I have spent a good few years in University and one of the main drivers of this, besides academia, was my sport. I was a competitive swimmer for almost 19 years, competing at the highest level for The Ulster Swim Team, The Leinster Squad (in later years) and the Irish National Squad, as well as for my club Trojan Swim Team in Dublin. This is quite a disciplined and dedicated sport and college was probably the best place for me to be in order to train and compete at that level.

Since giving up swimming I now compete in Triathlon and play Gaelic football. I am a huge fan of any sport and like to keep fit. The gym here in our Spencer Dock Building makes it very convenient for me to pursue this and still work hard for the Firm.

Peter - Advisory

Hi my name is Peter. Just to give you a brief introduction, I’m a consultant in the Performance Improvement (PI) Advisory practice for over 3 years now. Before that I was enjoying the college life in NUI Galway and IADT in Dun Laoghaire. My primary and post graduate degrees are in Electronic Commerce which included both business subjects and IT subjects. I also spent a year long internship in the Civil Service as part of my post graduate degree.

I’m just back from a PwC Advisory 2 day training course held in Disneyland Paris. Did we go to the theme park you’re probably wondering? Well, during the day we attended training courses and network events to get to know our PwC colleagues from offices across Europe. The course which I attended covered Enterprise Application Architecture. This was a very interesting course and provided attendees with knowledge of an industry standard architecture framework which is used to develop information systems architecture within organisations.

After the first day of training, we spent the evening in the Disneyland theme park with all of our PwC colleagues from across Europe. We attended a drinks reception and a buffet dinner in a Disney Studio within the park. Then we hit the theme park. The theme park was closed to the public for the evening so we had the place to ourselves. We went on lots of the rides and there were no queues which was brilliant. We went on the Rock’n’Roller coaster and the Finding Nemo Crushes coaster, after that I wasn’t sure which way was up!! We were having so much fun on the roller coasters I lost count how many times we went on them.

Back in the office now and I’m completing an IT network architecture review for a Hospital at the moment. This has been really interesting as I’ve learnt a lot about state of the art medical treatment machines which rely on the network in order to treat patients so identifying where the network is or isn’t resilient and secure has been a priority in this review.

I’m on holidays the week after next so I’m looking forward to put my feet up for the week..

Kirstin - Assurance

Hi there, let me introduce myself. My name is Kirstin and I’m a Senior Associate in the Assurance Department. I started in PwC last October, after graduating from Business and Politics in Trinity. While in Trinity, I took various modules in accounting throughout my four years there, and I always liked how logical and practical it was, so a career in it seemed to be a possibility. In November of final year, the milk round process began and I applied to some of the firms. I accepted PwC and so here I am today.

As an introduction to PwC I attended a three week induction  training which was a great experience. With over 200 people starting together, it was a fantastic chance to meet the people I would be working with for the next few years. The effort put into training us from the very beginning was impressive, and really helped us out on our first few audits.

I’ve been here for almost a year and the experience has been positive and worthwhile. Through my market group, Business and Wealth Services (BWS), I have worked with many diverse clients, both in Ireland and the UK, and the exposure to such successful entrepreneurial businesses has been very beneficial. I chose BWS because it specialises with small to medium-sized companies as well as local government and healthcare which makes for good variety.

It hasn’t all been work though. Throughout the year, I’ve been involved in many social activities which have really added to the whole PwC experience. In December, we had a Christmas party for some of the kids of the National Children’s Hospital and in April, I got the chance to take part in PwC Stars In Their Eyes which was held in Vicar Street. The summer was spent playing tag rugby in a competitive league, where our newly formed team admirably held its own and came second at the end of the season.

In July, I was promoted to Senior Associate which means I will be working on more advanced areas of the audit so I will be keeping you updated as they happen.

Denise - Assurance

Hi my name is Denise and I joined the firm in October 2007, along with over 200 other Assurance Graduates. My first 3 weeks were spent in Croke Park where we received excellent training that really helped me feel confident when I went on my first audit job. There was also a big emphasis on the graduates getting to know each other and having fun along the way too. 

If I was asked what has been the best thing about joining PwC, it would most definitely be the amount of really great people I have met. I am originally from Cork, but working in the Dublin office, and I could probably say I have more friends up here in Dublin then I have left back home. No matter how much work there is to be done there is always room for a bit of banter.

I work in the Investment Management (IM) department-or “funds” as everyone calls it. It’s the biggest Audit department, and our busy season starts in January and ends in April. The first job I was on was out of the office. Being out of the office can mean not seeing the rest of the gang back at work but luckily for funds people we are never sent too far away. Other departments do more travelling and often get put up in hotels around the country but funds people are generally somewhere in Dublin.

My busy season job was working at a big Administrator’s with a very large team, while this was very daunting we all got stuck in and as a team we managed to get through it. My audit team were literally my family for three weeks while I was on that job. We worked together, ate together and even managed the few sneaky drinks together too! If there were a few of us staying on in the evening, we would order in take away to get us through. It was probably the toughest job I have done so far, but the managers showed their appreciation at the end and brought the whole team out for dinner and a few drinks.

Ana - Assurance

My name is Ana and I’m from Co. Laois. I joined the Assurance team as a graduate in the Dublin office in September 2005, after completing a 3 year degree in Accounting and Finance in Dublin City University (DCU).

I work within the Business and Wealth Services (BWS) group. I chose BWS because it specialises in providing assurance services to owner managed/family run small to medium sized businesses, Irish subsidiaries of international companies, not for profit organisations and government bodies.

It was this variety of clients combined with the size of the department that first attracted me to BWS. There are approximately 70 of us in the department, 8 of whom started along side me back in 2005. It was great having other graduates in the same boat to bounce ideas off. Also we were all teamed up with a ‘Buddy’ ( a colleague a year ahead) to help us with any issues we may have encountered during our first year, issues ranging from where to find archived files to where to find the tea bags!!

By their nature, BWS assignments tend to be for periods of two to four weeks with team sizes of two to three fieldwork staff, a manager and a partner. Working as part of these small teams has given me great responsibility and exposure to working closely with senior managers and partners early on in my career while at the same time giving me the advantages of working for one of the ‘Big 4’.

As I mentioned, I studied Accounting and Finance at university. This gave me exemptions from Company Law and Prof 2 exams, now referred to as CAP 1 since the introduction of the new ACA syllabus in 2007. In my first year I completed Prof 3 (now CAP 2) exams and in my second year I passed the final admittance exams (FAE’s). It’s been great having my evenings and weekends free this past year with no more lectures or study to occupy my time – leaving me with plenty of time to keep you all up to date on the goings on in PwC over the next year!!