We recruit for temperament.

What we look for

Audit is a documented procedure performed under time pressure to a fixed standard. It rewards a particular temperament, and we have learned to identify it early rather than train for it late.

• Comfort with an unresolved item. Most items resolve. The ability to leave one open, correctly documented, and to stop thinking about it at the end of the day, is the strongest single predictor of progression here.
• Discipline of scope. The best associates perform the procedure that was planned rather than the procedure that suggests itself in the field. Curiosity is an asset in the planning meeting and a cost after it.
• Numeracy, with judgement attached. Noticing an anomaly is the ordinary requirement. Knowing whether it belongs to this engagement is the one we assess for.
• Tolerance for repetition. The file looks the same in every entity of the group. People who find this restful stay. People who find it otherwise tend to leave in the second year.
• Discretion. Everything you will see is confidential, and it remains confidential after the matter closes, after the client changes and after you leave.
• Composure with senior people. You will ask a finance director for an explanation and then write down whether you accepted it. Both halves of that sentence are the job.

We do not require an accounting degree, a finance degree or any prior exposure to the profession. Sixty-one per cent of our current intake read something else.

The path

Progression is by grade and by year. The rates below are the observed outcomes for the graduate cohort of seven hundred and thirty-eight recruited thirteen years ago, and are published because candidates ask for them and because we are the only firm in the market that answers.

Nine partners were admitted in the current period from that cohort of seven hundred and thirty-eight. One in eighty-two.

The other eighty-one are not failures and we do not treat them as such. The majority move to senior finance roles within the entities they audited, and nine hundred and four alumni of this firm currently hold finance positions across the group. The alumni programme is administered by the recruitment team and is open for life. A partner may not accept a key management position with an audited entity within twelve months of last participating in the audit; below partner grade no period is prescribed and none is imposed.

The professional qualification is funded in full: examination fees, tuition, materials, and twenty-two days of paid study leave per sitting. A bonus is payable on each first-time pass. Failure at a second attempt at the same examination is a termination event under the training contract, which is standard across the profession and is set out in the offer letter at clause 9.

What our people say

“I asked in my first month why a threshold had been set where it was. My manager took down the file and showed me the memorandum. The reasoning was there, in writing, signed and dated. I have not needed to ask since.”

R.T., Senior Associate, four years.

“The work is the same in every entity of the group. You move from one to the next and the file looks the same, the software is the same, the sampling is the same. People outside think that would be dull. It is very restful.”

K.M., Manager, nine years.

“I have signed one hundred and forty opinions. Every one of them says the same thing, and every one of them was true on the day I signed it.”

A.D., Partner, admitted in her twelfth year.

“The hours in the first quarter are exactly what everyone tells you they are. What nobody tells you is how quiet it gets afterwards.”

J.P., Associate, eleven months.

How to apply

Applications for the graduate intake open on 1 September and close on 30 November. There is one intake per year and it starts the following September.

1. Application. Online form, academic record, one written answer of no more than three hundred words. We do not ask for a covering letter.
2. Assessment. Numerical reasoning, thirty-five minutes. Verbal reasoning, twenty-five minutes. Both are taken remotely and both are timed.
3. Assessment centre. One day, in the office you have applied to. A case study on a set of accounts, a group exercise, and an interview with a partner. The case study is a real file from a closed engagement with the identifying details removed.
4. Decision. An offer or a decline within ten working days of the assessment centre. We give reasons on request at every stage, including the first.
5. Offer. Signed training contract, start date confirmed, qualification funding confirmed in writing before you sign.

Experienced hires are considered at senior associate and manager grade only where a candidate holds a current practising qualification and has performed statutory audit work within the preceding eighteen months. We do not recruit at director or partner grade. We never have.