PwC Audit Associate interview questions

Following the standard aptitude testing stage, was interviewed by phone by an HR person. It was a competency-based interview. Overall, the process is very standardised given the amount of applicants. Applicants are accessed against the PwC hiring framework and break down all questions into five categories. PwC outlines the selection process in great detail on its graduate hiring page.

There was a first interview and if you made it through that there was a second interview round. The first interview included a dinner the night before. At the dinner the staff said the purpose of the dinner is to help you feel relaxed and take away some of the nervousness - and it did just that. I was surprised at how calm I felt after the dinner. It was nice, because my interview was the next morning and I was able to go into the interview with minimal nervousness. During the first interview I was surprised by how few questions were asked - maybe 3 total. The partner who interviewed me mostly talked a lot about pwc. I can't remember what all the questions were. But I do remember he asked me about a time when I had to work with a difficult person/group of people. The first interview was 30 minutes long. All the employees during the first interview process were really nice and did a great job of easing our nervousness. I received an email less than a week later, stating that I had made it to the 2nd round of interviews. The 2nd round also included a dinner the night before. The actual interview consisted of 3 different interviews, each one lasting 30 minutes. Going into the 2nd round of interviews I had prepared a lot but was surprised by how unexpected the actual questions were. These questions were unexpected because pwc has recently changed their interviews. The questions they now ask center around the "pwc professional" framework. This framework consists of 5 skills pwc looks for which are, whole leadership, business acumen, relationships, technical capabilities, and global acumen. Some questions that threw me off were.....1) describe a time you had a different opinion from someone and you had to convince them of your opinion. 2) describe a time you were a leader and had to enforce your decision when a person or group of people disagreed with you. 3) I had to talk about some recent news that I recently read, in order to demonstrate that I keep up with the news. (this question was not as surprising, I just didn't prepare very well for it) I was able to answer these questions pretty well, by taking my time to answer. I briefly paused and thought about it before I started speaking. And whatever preparation I had done helped me even though I was a bit surprised by some of the questions.