Is it PwC's UFE prep program or the related viral marketing campaign that's truly unique?
I found another CA blog out there - the first French Canadian one I've come across.
If you have trouble reading Julien's French, run it through Google Translate. The translation's not perfect, but it'll do.
The newest posting caught my eye; in the spirit of hyper-critical UFE prep, here's some analysis.
His writing's pretty good - the post about travel is a good read, and it's amusing to note that he looks forward to the chance to perfect his English in his travels, whereas I could say the same about improving my French when I'm sent on the road to the francophone parts of the world.
Going back to his newest post about the UFE process, however, Julien talks about two factors that he claims make his program unique compared to those experienced at other firms - any message like that delivered on an official blog deserves closer scrutiny since new recruits are going to put some weight into what they're being told.
Special Educators
The first claim is that Quebec gets the best coach in the business hired externally to prepare the students with a proprietary method.
I know of at least three such services - so to make it sound like you're the only people who have a special UFE prep consultant there to guide you is a little disingenuous.
If you're going to boldly claim that what you're doing is not
replicated by anyone else, you should probably do a bit more research
first. Of course, on the UFE you have limited time to look up facts, so
you should be well prepared with knowledge of whatever you expect to be
asked about - or you should know where to look it up.
We won't even get into a subjective discussion over which consultant
is the best since everyone has different styles of both learning and
teaching, so, as much fun as it would be, crowning any single person as the Chosen One won't fly.
Who
cares if a given person has been doing UFE prep for a few years to a
few decades? If you don't learn well with them, keep searching until
you find someone who helps you prepare and improve.
The long road approach
The secondly point, Julien raises is his belief that most firms offer merely a week long information bombardment session for the UFE, while he seems to suggest that his firm's process is the longest, and by extension best, prep around.
Decent firms have a UFE prep process that starts in many cases shortly after you get hired, and continues until your UFE graduation, with regular monthly or weekly sessions depending on which point you're at in the process.
The best firms also continually tinker with their process, using feedback from the writers and their coaches and mentors to find ways of delivering support more effectively.
I myself have to go read and mark some more cases this week to help my mentees. They're doing well but everyone always has room for improvement.
Sure the French Toast portrayed above may be unique in terms of the delicious bread used, but I wouldn't be so forward as to claim we're the only people to have ever consumed such agreeable French Toast..
In case you're wondering, I wrote up an analysis here instead of leaving a comment there because "over there" is an official Pricewaterhouse blog and we have our own fun history with trying to comment over there, though a recent test comment went through. We'll see if relations are thawing.
In other measures of unique items, I got hit by 725 pieces of spam in August, well down from 902 in July.
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