Consultancies continue to top wish-lists of Australian graduates

Despite a recent spate of bad press, Australia’s biggest consulting firms continue to be the country’s most sought after employers among graduates.

Headed by Ernst & Young, the consulting industry has once again crowded the top of the list of Australia’s most popular companies for graduates, as per the latest figures from GradConnection.

According to the employment services provider’s statistics, more than a quarter of its website users applied for a position at EY last year, while KPMG, Capgemini and Deloitte also featured among the top five, the latter pair split by ANZ bank.

Despite reports of widespread layoffs in the consulting sector last year, the industry continues to attract the brightest young minds, dominating the latest list with seven out of the top ten places, which further included Aurecon, Boston Consulting Group and DXC Technology. Of note however, GradConnection’s analysis considers application data alone, such that bigger organisations with a greater number of positions tend to be favoured.

Still, while the big end of the consulting industry may be out of favour at present with the government and general public, it appears undiminished among those looking to kickstart their careers. That said, the negative publicity generated by the PwC government tax breach scandal and ongoing senate inquiries may have had some impact, with the firm slipping from fourth to 16th place and its GradConnection application rate falling to below 5 percent.

Meanwhile, EY – which has gone a little more under the radar throughout the hearings despite acknowledging the need to address its own cultural issues – has leapfrogged Deloitte into first place, with more than 550 graduate hires for the year to date and positions still to be filled. EY’s Oceania talent leader Lauren Stanton told the AFR that the firm has been inundated with applications this year, in part due to a more flexible recruitment time-frame.

Notably, the firm took a novel approach to addressing the findings of its internal cultural review among prospective hires, which was triggered by the tragic death of an employee in 2022. Stanton: “Our grads are probably more informed than some of our experienced hires. When the culture review landed, we brought all the students who had accepted an offer together and encouraged them to read it. We feel that being very transparent with them is absolutely the right approach.”

Among the reshuffling at the top, KPMG held on to its second place from last year, while also once again being named the most popular employer in both the ‘professional services, accounting and consulting’ and ‘business and commerce’ categories. Capgemini meanwhile has proven once again that its recent slew of HR awards is no fluke, rising from 19th place in 2022 to now occupy the third place, up another four spots from seventh last year.

Following fellow top ten consulting firms Aurecon, BCG and DXC Technology, other business, accounting, engineering and tech advisories to make the upper end of the list included GHD, PwC and BDO in the top twenty, and Jacobs, RSM, Grant Thornton and SW in the ‘21 to 30’ bracket.

It should also be noted however that not all of Australia’s biggest consultancies advertise positions through GradConnection, an eligibility requirement according to the ranking methodology.