The process took 2 days. I interviewed at PwC (San Jose, CA) in Nov 2010
Interview
It is now standard practice that the Big 4 firms will invite you to a dinner the night before the interviews. Don't be fooled- dinner is an interview. A lot of your time as an associate will include luncheons with clients and they want to make sure you can be comfortable, relaxed, intelligent, and most importantly neat.
My dinner was done as a group of 6 people (3 candidates, 2 associates, 1 partner) at a local restaurant. It was a very nice dinner. Making conversation is important, but it's equally important not to be a conversation bully. Be active but not overbearing.
The next morning started with presentations by several employees of varying levels in audit. PwC did a great job of selling themselves. After the presentations, each candidate was matched up with a "buddy" associate to take us to our interviews. I met with a Sr. Manager and a Partner- some people met with two partners. All interviews are conversational. They hardly ask anything that could be considered behavioral, it was all about having a smooth dialog with someone you just met. My experience was that you should still have several good questions to ask before you get there, but that you may not need them if you can listen to what they tell you about themselves and ask questions based on that.
After the interviews, they took all the candidates to a room to have another meeting on benefits at PwC and then out to lunch. Lunch was also done in groups of 6 (3 candidate- 3 buddys) and it's really casual. Just keep in mind that if you say something especially stupid, they WILL tell the partners and managers, so use your brain.
I got a call from the partner I interviewed with about 3 hours after lunch. I accepted my offer.
The process took 2 weeks. I interviewed at PwC (Los Angeles, CA) in Oct 2010
Interview
The interview started with an email notification and then two phone interviews with HR. 2 weeks after phone interview I went in for a office interview and met 2 managers, 1 hr and 1 partner each had 30 min interview with me. The whole process went very smoothly and barely had any difficult questions if you know exactly what you are doing and experienced in audit. Everyone I had to deal with from HR to managers or even partners were all very firendly and easy to talk to.
The process took 1 day. I interviewed at PwC in Oct 2010
Interview
It's more like how long you are able to continue the conversation with the interviewer, rather than how good you are at answering the questions posted by the party.
my experience did not turn out to be as good as anticipated because firstly, the interviewer had no ideal where my degree was from. (I did not grad from a local university) Later, the interviewer asked me if anyone from my batch inspired to join the Big 4, as "it is quite unique that she see these universities applications".
Other than that, there were the usual interview questions like "tell me about yourself" and "what do you think are your strengths".