2010 PWC 普华永道网申答案 open questions answer

1. In PwC, we encourage our people to learn and coach everyday. Please describe a specific
achievement of which you are particularly proud and how this contributed to your development as an individual.
Three years ago, when I entered university, my English was not so good. But I found the importance of English and made up my mind to achieve a high level of overall use of English. From that time when I was a freshman, I kept on getting up early and read English newspapers every week. In order to improve my listening stills, I formed the habit of listening to English songs, VOA, BBC news to keep myself in an English environment. For oral English part, I take the chance to speak English with foreigners in the English corner in my university. In addition, I kept on reciting words from the book IELTS, GMAT and other English sources. Through these practice, my English level upgrades dramatically. I successfully passed the IELTS with a score of 7.5 and also got the certificate of BEC Higher Level. My experience of the achievement on English makes me believe that the perspiration will finally turn to fruits of victory. There’s no end of learning and I should keep on the habit of learning and coaching to make myself updated so that I can catch up with the times.
2. PwC sets priority on developing our people's project management skills in accordance with client
expectations and professional standards. Please identify and a major activity/project you undertook and describe what it was and how you managed the project.
A major activity that I undertook during my university life is the 60th Anniversary of my university,
Zhongnan University of Economics and Law. During the preparation of the anniversary, I was appointed to be the head of publicity team of the anniversary and I became the volunteer leader.
Before the anniversary, I held a meeting of all the members to discuss about the issue related to the reception of the alumnus, the events of the anniversary ceremony and other itinerary of the anniversary. Then I appointed different members to take charge of the different activities. For example, A is appointed to write news about the reception in the airport and accompany the alumnus to our university; B is appointed to write news and take photos of the grand event in Zhongtian Century Hotel, etc. After the division of our work, everyone got a clue of what and when to take actions. During the 3 days of the anniversary, I kept on connecting each member to stick to their positions and informing them about some reschedules due to the change of the situation. Due to the allocation of the whole work, we collected the updated information about all the events. The news was edited timely so that people can have a view of how the anniversary goes on the website and in newspapers. My work is done perfectly and I was awarded the “Good Role Model for Volunteers” and “Outstanding Student L eader”. My leadership has improved a lot by undertaking this major activity.
3. PwC aims to maintain high standards of professionalism. Please describe a situation when you
were engaged in a task where you took a different approach or had a different opinion from others.
Please share how this contributed to the team’s success.
During my study in Australia, one of my courses is Capstone. This is a business simulation program that uses Capsim business simulations to engage participants in a dynamic competition to turn struggling companies into successful, profitable businesses. Our classes are divided into teams that work together to focus on strategy, finance, production, marketing and all the key elements that interact to build the business. I had 5 members in my team and we were from different countries. From the start of the simulation game, I got the indication that since our team members are from different countries, our distinct cultural background would give our cooperation more challenge. Things turned out to be just as what I thought. We had different views during our first meeting. One guy from Sri Lanka held the view that we should invest and produce as much as we can so that we can be the market leader. I went against his idea by stating that if we invest and produce too much, we would get emergency loan and if we cannot sell all our products we would cost a lot to supervise the inventory. I discussed with other group members with the predicted figures to convince them and they finally agreed on what I said. In the practice round of the simulation, we tried to produce the amount out of customer expectation and we saw the results turned out to be really bad since we got a large amount of emergency loan and a relatively low ROA, ROE. In this way, all the team members were convinced that my opinion about the business development strategy was right and I became the team leader in a team with students from Australia, Singapore, Sri Lanka and China. For the overall 8 rounds of the capsim simulation, we as a group lead by me achieved good results of the performance. We beat the other teams in our class and get a high mark for our performance.
It is through collaboration and negotiation that we made all the decisions of the simulation. How we communicate with each other really matters in a situation when people have disagreements. When faced with contradictions, I keep myself to talk to the ones against me politely and reasonably. Collaboration is not about compromise, it is about the contribution made by all the team members. In my future work with others, I will bear in mind to listen to others’ advise if that’s right and rise my doubt if I’m disagree with my members and interact with each other and help to create the open, friendly and supportive culture。