After the initial CV screening by HR, the first stage of the process was an invitation to complete PwC's online maths and verbal reasoning tests, which are the industry standard SHL ones. On the PwC careers portal, there is an opportunity to do a practice test before you start the real one, which I would highly recommend to everyone (even if you've done SHL tests before), as it gets you in the mood and prepares you for answering questions in an allotted time. The feedback is almost instantaneous – there will be a minimum score that you have to reach – and I received an email 5 minutes after I had completed the tests to say that my score was satisfactory and that I was proceeding to the next stage. The second stage was an interview with a senior manager in the division I was applying for. It was mainly a dissection of my CV and a focus on my motivation for applying to PwC, why I am considering leaving my current role, what I know about PwC and the particular division that I am applying to, and so on. This is the stage of the interview that you can prepare most for – make sure you know your CV back to front and be prepared to elaborate and bring in specific examples of where you have excelled, as the interviewer will be assessing you against a number of core criteria. There were a couple of curveballs, but they were always related to the role and the position that I was applying for. I had the opportunity to ask questions, and like any good interview, it felt more like a discussion rather than simply a question and answer session. I then received a phone call 3 hours after the interview from PwC's internal recruitment team (more on them at the end) saying that I had been successful and that I would be sent through to the next round. The more detailed feedback from the interview came a couple of days after (you'll have to request this, but they are happy to provide you with it), and it was useful to see areas of improvement for the next round. The assessment centre is split into two halves - a group exercise and a written exercise. For the group exercise, you are each representing a potential host country for a major international sporting event. You are given a brief with lots of facts and figures about the country you are representing, and you are given an allotted time period (around 30 minutes) to digest and prepare for the discussion. You should not nominate a timekeeper or a leader (this instruction will be repeated) and the exercise has no right (or wrong) answers. The assessors will simply be looking at how you perform in a group discussion and whether you can either argue a point or support others. Keep an eye on the time and make brief notes on major points mentioned by the other candidates - you'll be referring back to them a lot. The second part of the assessment centre is a written exercise. Again, you are given a brief with lots of facts and figures - this time, you are choosing a company to sponsor a major arts and culture event. In 50 minutes, you will need to digest the brief and write a report outlining the pros and cons of each sponsor, and your recommendation for a sponsor and why. Make sure you plan your report out (you are given rough paper) and that you write neatly and eligibly - and be aware that they can only mark 2 sides of A4 paper. Anything over this will be thrown in the bin! The final interview is conducted by a senior manager/director and focuses more on you as a person. By this stage, they have pretty much made a final decision that they want to hire you - mine was another run through the CV and an in-depth discussion on how my skills and knowledge can fit into the role I was applying for. Again, the only preparation you can do here is reassure yourself why you want to work for PwC and why you are a good fit for the role you are applying for. The final interview lasted about 40 minutes, and as mine was on a Friday, I got a call back on the following Monday saying that I had been successful and that they would like to make me an offer. For such a large company, PwC's assessment process is incredibly smooth and the internal recruitment team have been an absolute pleasure to deal with. With my application, they always got to back to me within the timeframe promised (in most cases, sooner) and feedback was almost instantaneous after every single stage. The new portal is also very easy to use, especially as you can see the last date that someone from HR updated your profile (putting an end to the question of "have they forgotten about me"- check the portal to see when your profile was last updated!)