Cyber Security Analyst

The PwC recruitment journey started in January 2025 with the launch of the Launchpad Program. This program was open to all university students with a CGPA of 6.5 and above. The initial shortlisting was done through 3 online examinations, based on which students were filtered. After the initial screening, PwC selected 118 students from the entire batch to continue in the process, which included the Launchpad Program, Hackathon, and interview rounds. The Launchpad Program ran from February to July, during which PwC provided- Online classes, Programming and technical training, regular assessments and exams. Students had to continuously qualify these exams, otherwise they were eliminated from the process. After the Launchpad Program ended, only 56 students remained, who were eligible for the Technical and HR interview rounds. PwC conducted its hiring process in multiple stages. The first round was a Hackathon, from which 6 students were shortlisted. It was a 3 hour long hackathon conducted within a fixed time window. The hackathon consisted of 9 stages, and the questions were very tough. In my case, the problem was related to voting and hacking concepts, which required strong knowledge of Computer Networks, Operating Systems fundamentals and Security concepts. Then the technical interview was conducted 2–3 months after the hackathon. Students were divided into two groups: Online technical interview and In-person technical interview on campus. I was selected for the in-person technical interview. The technical interview was mostly resume-based, and the difficulty level varied from student to student. In my case, the interview was quite detailed and in-depth, while some other students received relatively easier questions. Interestingly, after discussion, we found that a few students were selected even without being asked many technical questions.

Your PwC application story would include the Launchpad program → exams → hackathon → technical interview → HR interview → final selection.

Although I was able to answer all the technical and HR questions confidently, there was no specific feedback shared regarding the rejection. Based on the overall experience and discussions with peers, the final selection seemed to depend not only on performance but also on factors like role requirements, interviewer expectations, and overall fit on that day.