Summer Vacation Scheme in Deloitte Careers
From audit to recruitment: my journey with the firm so far.
I would say my number one rule to anyone considering applying to a Graduate career is that you must feel incredibly inspired and passionate about what the position, and firm, can offer you. That’s how I feel about my job within the Deloitte Student Recruitment team. My name is Steve Green and I look after our Early Identification (‘EID’) programmes. This encompasses over 700 students joining one of our school leaver programmes – our ‘Scholar Scheme’ and ‘BrightStart’ programmes, and the undergraduate opportunities, namely ‘Spring into Deloitte’ – our Easter experience for 1st years, plus our penultimate year offerings of the ‘Summer Vacation Scheme’ and ‘Industrial Placement’. These are business placements that vary in length from several weeks to several months.
I love what I do because every day is different. I’ve recently delivered a skills event for our Scholars, where we had a guest speaker presenting to our new gap year cohort on the key business skills that will help them excel in their career. Our university scholars have started coming in now for their Winter placements, and that involves a lot of coordination from the business – as we only ever provide work that a first year Graduate starter would genuinely be expected to undertake.
It’s that responsibility and opportunity that attracted me to Deloitte when I joined on August 30th 2004. They say you never forget your first day! After a year travelling to celebrate completing university, I looked into graduate careers and in many ways fell quite accidentally into the firm. I was looking for a top company where I could use the skills gained on my degree, but benefit from a great community of people around me – and during the interview process I soon realised Deloitte offered that. After joining the audit practice in London, I took the chance to support recruitment events. So after I qualified, the opportunity to take a secondment full time into the team was a natural step. Elsewhere, friends from my intake were considering transfers into other parts of the firm, or transfers to offices overseas. These thoughts crystallised into permanent moves for many. I am in no doubt at all as to where a career with us can take you – the opportunities are incredible… You can take it from me!
As I learnt more about our ‘EID’ programmes, the more I wished I had looked into this when I was aged 16-21. The BrightStart programme for example provides the chance for clued up college leavers to join us full time, starting their careers at 18 and studying for a professional qualification over five years, rather than the usual three. Students need to be sure they want to work in the business world and within a service line in particular, but so many of our 1st and 2nd year cohorts since the scheme started have been full of praise for what BrightStart has provided them, and the friends and networks they have built here – in much the same way they would have done at university anyhow.
As you can probably tell, I could talk about our opportunities all day if you’d let me. It’s because we have such diversity within our firm – in terms of intake, opportunity, flexibility – that I am genuinely inspired to inform students about what we offer.
Deloitte and Professional Services may not be for everyone. It is all about finding your fit, so that you are most happy in your future career. It’s a massive part of one’s life after all! And if, after researching our opportunities online, you feel one of our Graduate or Undergraduate positions are of interest, you should definitely explore the opportunity.
You never know where it may take you.
Steve Green.
Back to the Future: The world of work for students in 1994.
Last week I was having a new boiler plumbed into my house. All very interesting I hear you say (not to mention timely, what with the temperatures dropping) but what does this have to do with student recruitment?
Under the carpet in one of the spare rooms our plumber found an entirely intact copy of the Daily Mail from November 17th 1994. Resisting the urge to burn it immediately, I had a brief flick through and reached the Career Mail section (this being in the days when print advertising for job roles was still a multi £million business).
It so happened that this particular issue focused on the skills that Graduate recruiters of the day were chasing. It gave an interesting - albeit fairly brief and high level - insight into the working world that faced individuals graduating all the way back in 1994/1995. The headlines made for interesting reading…
Demand for students with engineering and financial qualifications was significantly outstripping supply. Recruiters were also looking beyond traditional academic qualifications for their students to possess the softer skills that would enable them to begin impacting the business they join early on – communication skills, commercial awareness, teamwork. The top graduate recruiters of the day included Price Waterhouse, Coopers & Lybrand, Ernst & Young and KPMG Peat Marwick, holding 4 of the top 5 positions in the newspaper’s run down.
Some 20 years later and what has changed we might immediately ask? Engineering in particular is still in huge demand. Those softer skills, for consulting and advisory businesses such as Deloitte, have never been so important. And the professional services firms still hold most of the Top 5 positions for graduate recruiters.
But there have been shifts over the last two decades.
For one, the article mentions employers beginning to see the value of the work experience or sandwich course options offered by the polytechnics. While the Poly’s themselves may be resigned to history, Deloitte is proud to now offer a huge range of work experience, placement and other chances to engage with and experience a working life at the firm. In fact we place increasing value on the skills that can be gained in work experience or teaming roles, wherever that experience may have been gained. Of course academics remain critical, but at interview we love to hear from students who have demonstrated important skills outside of the lecture theatre.
Of course salaries have also changed (although, with an average of just under £15,000 at the time where no tuition fees were charged, the argument about being better off is hard to quantify).
The other massive, amazing and scarcely believable change from 1994 to 2013 is the absence of Deloitte from that previous list of top employers. From sitting outside the Top 12 in the mid 1990’s to being named Graduate Employer of Choice for Consulting in 2013. That’s an incredible period of growth and success we have seen and continue to build on. If being part of that kind of business is something which appeals, visit www.deloitte.co.uk/graduates to find your path with us.
While you do that, I’m off to dig around under some more carpets to see what else I can find.
The Student Recruitment Autumn Roadtrip: Part 4
I’m Alice – the Midlands Student Recruitment Advisor. This is my 3rd year with Deloitte, my 3rd time experiencing the busy Term 1 campus season but my 1st time attending events that I have organised or put into place myself.
Events at this time of year seem to happen every day if not several times in one day. If we aren’t attending, we are often spending time preparing or promoting the events to ensure maximum attendance. It really feels like a whirlwind at times!! Coupled with that is the amount of time spent on trains and the rather quirky people you sometimes meet en route! It’s fun though, as every event and every journey is different. I always have such regard for how motivated Deloitte people are to ensure they get to events to represent us, despite the unpredictable British weather – as in evidence again this week. Only yesterday we were battling high speed winds to get to Nottingham Careers Fair! Luckily most of us made it and the complimentary bacon rolls on arrival made it all worthwhile.
I am now coming to the end of my period of attendance at Term 1 events which have allowed me to stay more locally to home this year, experiencing those campuses I have been working to build relationships with during the Summer period in my new role as Midlands campus lead. This has involved visiting some of our top tier universities to deliver skills sessions and attend fairs, and most recently hosting the Autumn Careers Evening at Aston - the university I graduated from. This was a real trip down memory lane, although I soon came to the rather sad realisation that a lot has changed on campus: the age gap is ever widening between me and student population and my favourite Scream pub is no more!
One thing I have noticed more widely now however, is the real focus on becoming employable, and enhancing their future career prospects. I get a buzz from meeting really high calibre students that are likely to apply and the feeling that my invested time has been really worthwhile. It was great to catch up with some academics and lecturers at this event too, given they are often the gatekeepers to students we wish to target.
From the green scenic campus that is Nottingham to the sporty, very large (I got lost) campus that is Loughborough, having the chance to attend events across the Midlands this Autumn means I’ve really seen the ‘fruits of my labour’ from planning stages to delivery which has been a real experience and one I have learnt a lot from.
It’s also been a great chance to talk with candidates about the range of opportunities we have across the range of our UK offices. As a large firm, London tends to be at the front of everyone’s mind. Campus events, with colleagues from local offices in support, are a great chance to highlight face-to-face the fantastic work being done and career paths available at every Deloitte office across the UK.
You can keep up to date with all of our events here.Why Deloitte?
Early in your career it’s a good idea to join a big firm. Deloitte heavily invests in your development. You will gain professional qualifications that will boost your CV. You will receive a lot of training along the way that will give you hugely valuable skills. I was sent to Dublin for three weeks to learn Java. Having never done coding I experienced a steep learning curve (and got to discover Dublin which I had never been to).
At Deloitte you also have a much broader range of options as to where you want to take your career. We are such a big firm that no matter where your interests lie, there will always be something for you. We work across the private, public and financial sectors and within those cover a wide range of industries. We work for the automotive industry, the healthcare industry, insurance firms etc. Though you are initially encouraged to get a flavour across the board, eventually people specialise in one area.
Another great thing about Deloitte is its community investment. There are a lot of charity events, such as the Christmas Pudding Race, and Movember that sees your friends and colleagues make fools of themselves for charity, but also more serious ones such as the Ride Across Britain event. We are also encouraged to do pro bono work where we offer our skills and services for free for a good cause.
Finally, you will meet a lot of impressive and fun people along the way. With a consulting graduate intake of nearly 300 people you will get to make a lot of new friends and will always have someone to go for a drink with after work. There are lots of social events also. Yesterday I was at a “Women in Technology” event where Judi James, who worked for Big Brother, talk to us about confidence and resilience, and Jay Kumar taught us about Bollywood dancing and the Gangnam style dance. Tonight all technology analysts are invited to an open bar to catch up with our fellow colleagues. Deloitte has a very good stand on work life balance and the social events will mean you will never get bored.
The reasons mentioned above made me choose Deloitte to start my career. Clearly, the statistics about the firm also speak for themselves so check out our website if you want to learn more.