Fuck that, if they ask me about the referendum I’ll lie and say I voted remain 
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Also, MrT I’ve just looked on the EY intranet and I can’t find Partner Interview success rates as they usually are incorporated into the Assessment Centre. However, of the 6 people in my AC that were applying for Graduate roles, 4 got them and one was offered but declined to go into banking - so from a very small sample, I can say it’s 83% combined AC and Partner Interview success rate 
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Ah thanks! I was actually going to ask you if you were able to the do the same but then remembered that EY/KPMG incorporate the interview into the AC as part of their big ‘Launch Pad’ assessment day.
Anyway. I like those odds.
Only thing is, I suppose, that those who’ve made it this far will have already passed a phone interview and group excercise. So the idea that the 10-20% of partner interview failures are made up of bright people who God bless 'em, just can’t hack it in an interiew or social situation and can be effortlessly sailed over as long as I’m vaguely competent probably isn’t the case.
By all accounts you have to screw up fairly badly not to get the post, but yeah, given the fact that the competition will by now, be pretty strong, I can’t take anything for granted.
Still, I suppose one or two in every ten who makes it this far could fall apart under a bit of pressure I guess…
I don’t know. As I say, I keep hearing that it’s just to get to know you and make sure you’re not a complete weirdo with bad breath and terrible personal hygeine but I just can’t see such a person making it this far in the first place, so…? meh…hm. I’ll just do a fucktonne of prep.
I’m basically typing/thinking aloud, but I guess the point I’m making is that despite the high pass rate, those who fail will almost certainly be just as hopeful as I am now, so I’m taking absolutely nothing for granted.
If you don’t get it just tell everyone on here that you did - it’ll be easier on you in the long run.
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Ha! If you had told me that I’d have made it this far when I first sent in my application form (12th of bloody July) my jaw woud have hit the floor.
Remember to google the crap out of whoever is interviewing you. When you get a tricky question, ask them immediately: “Oh , I meant to mention, while I was researching the firm, have a guess what I found on the internet about you?” Guaranteed to scare the pants off them and buy you at least 10 seconds before you say “oh, nothing bad, just how well thought of you are”.
But don’t worry, Bearsy will show you the ropes at BK
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If I don’t get the job, that’s literally where I’ll probably end up. At the moment, unemployable loser living at home forever and seven-figure earning Big 4 partner both feel like genuine possibilities.
A question.
You are a woman. You see a good NHS job opportunity in a location you plan to relocate to. One that you would be happy to do indefinitely and so you apply for it. You hear nothing for 4 months and in the meantime you get pregnant and forget about the job.
Out of the blue you are invited for an interview for the job you applied for.
What do you do?
Keep in mind the following. You absolutely do not want to sour relations with this department. At some point in the future you want to work there, even if not in relation to this particular opportunity. You are likely to be unavailable to work until the end of 2017.
it is a tough one -
The advantage of getting in before giving birth would be that they have to keep the role open for you, although you may not be entitled to Mat Pay
The employer would have to abide by the law and will probably do so, however they are going to to be irritated about having to recruit the role twice, which as you say, you wouldn’t want to happen.
I think if the mat pay was off the table then I would contact them, tell them about the circumstances, say you would want to apply in 2017, but appreciate that they need someone now and don’t want to cause them more work. I think that would stand you in good stead and they still might ask you to apply for the original role because they don’t want to lose a concientious person.
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That’s the sort of approach I was thinking, but then you think hang on a minute, this is the NHS, the biggest employer in the country, funded by the people, with a high percentage of female employees and an excellent understanding of the complications associated with bringing children into the world. If this organisation cannot accommodate the spirit of the law and appreciate the tricky position women find themselves in without prejudice what is the point of the law and what hope is there?
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You’d get statuatory Mat pay, we were in a similar position when we had my daughter as my other half took the job without realising she was pregnant.
You have to have a certain number of weeks on the payroll before you give birth
From here
To qualify for SMP you must:
- earn on average at least £112 a week.
- give the correct notice.
- give proof you’re pregnant.
- have worked for your employer continuously for at least 26 weeks up to the ‘qualifying week’ - the 15th week before the expected week of childbirth.
Was she one of those massively fat birds who doesn’t notice til she drops?
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Alrighty. After Saints’ excellent performance this afternoon, just one more sleep till the big day.
Done a metric fucktonne of prep. Felt nervous as anything throughout these past couple of weeks but over this weekend I’ve been feeling very chilled. I’ve literally done all I can. I can’t promise anything but if I don’t get the job, it’ll be down to things outside my control (partner might not like me/might expect more from me given I’ve been a business journo for the past couple of years and so on).
All in all its been a fun but stressful challenge and I’ll give it my all tomorrow. No real way of avoiding the fact that it’ll be pretty gutting if I don’t get it from here but I suppose making it through as far as I have does at least give you some confidence that PwC think you’re definitely up to the job intelligence-wise - which is something I can take home with me no matter what the result I guess.
Fingers crossed. There’s really nothing more I can do, so here’s hoping.
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Good luck mate
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So…that went well, up until one final question I asked towards the end which may have fucked me.
We had a good chat, I made a lot of eye contact and showed good knowledge of audit, accountancy and PwC in general. I smashed the competency questions out of the park and literally everything was going swimmingly. He was smiling and nodding and (whilst you can’t always read into these things), looked at me seemingly very approvingly. I wasn’t able to keep track of time but I do remember thinking “right, this is all going great, lets just wrap this up”.
Then the time came for me to ask questions. I asked him about secondments abroad, the various business units PwC has to offer and the kind of graduate they’d suit, I asked about whether he thought mandatory audit rotation would perhaps entrench the position of the ‘Big 4’ by forcing them to bid for contracts further down the FTSE 350/500 or so and about Brexit.
I then massively dropped the ball and asked (something along the lines of) the following (probably my journalism background showing through I guess):
“In an ideal world with no regulators, obviously a completely hypothetical scenario - PwC and large professional services firms would love to be able to offer as many services as they can to a client with which they share a good relationship - how do you balance the incentive to sell as much servies as you can to a client with the restrictive regulation?” (I probably ummed and erred a bit in the asking of the question to be fair as I was thinking aloud slightly)
Anyway; he simply took it fucking badly - looked visibly annoyed and gave a “…sorry…I’m getting a bit nervous here…why would you ask me that?”.
I tried to hastily withdraw the question as quickly but confidently as I could - and said something along the lines of “Sorry, no. Bad question. I understand”. To which he said something like “well…obviously the regulations…*are* there”… to which again I sort of tried to ‘wrap-it-up-and-move on’ with a brisk ‘woops-aren’t-I-silly’ shake of the head and an equally brisk “No, completely. No, bad question. I’m just thinking aloud slightly - I’ve put that wrongly - pardon me I withdraw that question” and a modest raise of the hand in acknowledgement as if I’d misplaced a pass to a teammate in a game of football (obviously its difficult to hastily withdraw a question whilst trying to come across as confident but I did my best lol).
Anyway. Up until that point all was going well - but I really think that asking that question might have screwed me. He clearly took it as words to the effect of ‘how do you get around the regulation?’ which obviously wasn’t my intention at all.
Bit of a shame but at least I don’t blame myself. I honestly had no idea he’d take the question as badly as he did and didn’t see any danger in asking it. I should have said something along the lines of ‘how do you adapt to changing and challenging regulation’ or something along those lines but hey, hindsight is 20/20.
Ultimately there’s a lot I can take from this. I’ve been vindicated as smart enough to get in (and self-confidence has been a massive issue for me in the past - 3-4 years ago after graduating I just thought of this work as ‘above me’ and ended up splitting my time between working on a building site and working in a call-centre) - so I guess there are positives.
Had it not been for that I’d be very, very confident. My friend who works for PwC thinks I’ll still make it and I’m in the 70/30 sort of zone but he admits its a really, really unique situation, and my friend who works for Deloitte is similarly optimistic but I’m afraid I’m not so sure.
Truth be told I think it’d be pretty unforgiving to knife me for that one thing; but I guess there are ethical standards they have to abide by and if I’ve given the impression that I’m trying to circumnavigate them (although God knows why they think I’d have the nerve to do anything of the sort) it may not even entirely be his choice. As I say, he really seemed to like me up to that point but I guess he was just looking for blander questions. I was just trying to show a bit of insight and originality I guess.
Ahwel. We’ll see what feedback I get.
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At least you didn’t ask anything daft like “Have you got a fit daughter I can have a go on?”
You’ll be alright.
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Remembering back to my E&Y interview, they asked to demonstrate my passion for auditing. I was utterly stumped and came up with some bullshit response. They still offered me the job though (and I still turned it down ). Don’t remember any questions as sickish as that one in my PWC interview mind (although the PWC one was an IT role rather than Audit).