Kickstart your career in consulting? The top employers for graduates
Graduates in Australia can be as picky as ever over their choice of employer due to a number of market factors, with consulting remaining one of the most popular professions for those seeking to kickstart their professional career.
The Big Four accounting and consulting firms – in order, Deloitte, KPMG, Ernst & Young and PwC – have swept the top four spots in this year’s GradConnection Top100 Graduate Employer list, with one in five of the website’s 285,000 unique users having applied for a position at Deloitte last year.
Technology consulting firms Capgemini and DXC Technology also featured among the top ten most popular companies for graduates in Australia.
While it should be noted that the size of the Big Four means they tend to have a lot more jobs up for grabs, chronic skills shortages and record low unemployment rates also meant that the estimated half a million graduates could be abnormally picky in their choice of employer last year. Still, close to one fifth also applied to KPMG (which just welcomed close to 1,000 fresh faces this month), while both Ernst & Young and PwC attracted rates above 10 percent.
“Grads are quite fickle anyway but it is really important to them that they feel engaged,” said GradConnection operations manager Rita Biankin, who added that aspirants are looking for a commonality of ideals. “When grads meet employers, they are taking it as an opportunity to interview the company as well as for the company to interview them. They’re keen on finding out what sort of training they will receive or whether this will be a stagnant position.”
While KPMG got the nod in the most popular “business and commerce” and “accounting, professional services and consulting” employer awards, it was Deloitte which pushed ANZ out of the overall top spot from 2022, rising from third place last year. DXC Technology held its top ten position from the past two years, placing in ninth, while Capgemini was one of this year’s biggest bolters, jumping from 19th position last year into seventh for 2023.
Other business, accounting and tech advisories to make the top half of the list included RSM, Accenture and Grant Thornton, which all ranked between 20th and 30th, while BDO, Wipro, and Infosys also landed in the top 40. Findex, McGrathNicol, Cognizant, KordaMentha, Turner & Townsend, and Pitcher Partners also made the cut for Australia’s top 100 graduate employer lis.
According to GradConnection statistics, the percentage of business and management graduates who were in full-time work within four months of graduating has risen from 78 percent in 2019 to almost 95 percent last year.
Figures published by GradConnection Top 100 media partner the Australian Financial Review suggest Deloitte will take on 1,400 graduates this year alone, while that number is collectively pushing 4,800 across all disciplines among the Big Four, with applications in some instances still open. They each boast offices in every major capital, as well as a number of outlets in regional centres such as the Gold Coast, Townsville, Wollongong and Newcastle.
Note: the Top Graduate Employers ranking by GradConnection is based on a volume-based analysis of job popularity, meaning that smaller consultancies tend be ruled out from a listing due to the methodology. Meanwhile, not all consulting firms post their jobs on GradConnection, as a result, they are not included in the listing process.
In related news, last year ConsultancyAU released the inaugural edition of its Australia’s top consulting firms list, identifying the country’s leading players across 40+ sectors and 40+ areas of expertise. The ranking is non-opt-in, exhaustive and non-commercial, with the aim of providing an inclusive, industry-wide benchmark of the landscape.
