KPMG has redesigned its graduate recruitment process with a hi-tech assessment centre which it says will create an immersive experience that closely simulates the working environment.
The centrepiece is an hour long ‘virtual office’ exercise which will see applicants, sitting at a computer with headphones, attempt to complete a pre-assigned task while at the same time dealing with incoming e-mails and phone messages. The bespoke software used for the assessment will see animated 3D characters welcome the candidates and also appear during the exercise to give them information or divert them with other tasks.
Elsewhere in the day, candidates have two 15-minute role plays with trained actors playing the part of a manager and a client. They also have a report-writing exercise which closely mirrors the real work a graduate trainee would do.
“We want to take recruitment firmly into the digital media age,” said Michelle Quest, head of people at KPMG. “Presenting tasks through an advanced technology platform means that young tech-savvy applicants will feel more attuned to the process. Our aim is to move recruitment beyond the traditional numerical and reasoning tests to provide an immersive and interactive experience that will tell us more about the applicant, and the applicant more about us.”
Around 2000 hopefuls are expected to attend the centre, which comes after an initial round of numerical, verbal and situational judgement tests and a first interview. After the assessment centre, the final round is an interview from a partner or director at the firm. However, the new process should reduce the time partners need to spend interviewing, saving time and money, said Georgina Kvassay, head of the Graduate Recruitment Review at KPMG.
“One of our aims while redesigning the process was to ensure that fewer people are rejected at a late stage,” said Kvassay. “By the time somebody reaches the final interview we should already be confident that we are looking at a very strong candidate, so the majority should get through it and it becomes more of an opportunity to spend time with the senior member of the firm and for us to answer questions that they have. Partners will spend half the time interviewing that they used to do when they were involved earlier in the process, which should be a considerable saving in chargeable hours.”
Another element that has been ditched from previous assessment centres is the group exercise, which proved of limited use for finding out how candidates would interact in reality, said Kvassay.
KPMG is expecting to take on 850 people in its next graduate recruitment round, as well as 250 students undertaking internships. Around 12 candidates will attend each assessment centre, which are held in offices in London, Birmingham, Bristol, Reading, Leeds, Manchester, Edinburgh and Glasgow.
Prem Paritosh
PGDM - 3rd
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