What is the matter with how top grad employers hire grads?

Guarantee you this is not in investment banks. Anything below russell = very, very hard; 2:2 = death sentence unless you have a good reason. Even in Oxbridge.

Really?

KPMG doesnt care if their future accountants couldn't get GCSE Maths at a C...?

Care to elaborate why?

How is KPMG a top employer by any stretch of the imagination?

How much it pays its grads compared to the average grad salary on graduation...? ie which salary percentile of grads a roles at KPMG gives you.

I know, but I didn't want to get caught out by you saying most PGCE courses are in the 50% you'd keep.

Rightt..... so you want to keep Bath Spa, UWE and York St John courses then?

It looks like the German system: http://www.oecd.org/germany/48657384.pdf
Considering the very low graduate unemployment in Germany, maybe we should do the same.

Actually, I would argue that the deck is stacked in favour not only of the privately educated but also those who live in wealthier areas and go to better comprehensive or (where available) Grammar Schools. Students in poor performing schools, even if brilliant, are unlikely to get both the straight As and support in all the extra-curriculars to get past an interview with Oxbridge unless they are truly exceptional and far better than everyone else who gets in. So there is doubt in my mind. That and the fact that talent without hard work is irrelevant and every university, even Oxford and Cambridge, have students who don't do a lot of work.

I don't know if the Universities of Sheffield, Birmingham or Cardiff would appreciate that remark but I find it quite amusing given the crux of your argument. I've said a million times on this site that its A-Level grades and the fact that people with good grades tend to go to certain universities rather than any real difference in the course that leads to these students outnumbering others. It has much more logic to it than a recruiter agonising over who to pick because someone went to a university 2 places higher in the league tables.

A Levels are incredible easy content wise. I doubt Oxbridge, LSE, Warwick even Leeds, Manchester, Newcastle Law would be as easy as A Levels.

I've found KPMG to have one of the lower starting salaries. If you compare them to other top graduate recruiters like Aldi, Lidl and Microsoft for example.

I wouldn't tar all HR departments with the same brush.

Recruitment is fairly subjective at the best of times, but the "trendy" processes you are talking about aren't just plucked out of the air. There is often analysis and evidence behind the tools and the methods behind them.

I think the point would be, a PGCE would be the type of course that you do at a local, cheaper, day time college, it should not be something done at a university. The same with many other courses.

Are you saying that around 20-25% of German school leavers go to university as opposed to the more 50% of people that do here? If so, then yes, that is absolutely worth looking into.

Similar to degrees, depends how thinly you define your 'top'.

I thought they paid £29-32k, within the top 20% of graduate pay.

Aldi/Lidl pay more because you have no social life, the hourly wage is about the same. Oh you're right about MS, they've bumped their pay, they used to lag.

I didn't say KPMG was 'the top' grad employer, just an example. I'm pretty damn confident ALDI/LIDL care about GCSE grades tbh (assuming the application process is the same as when I did it).

I've no idea what you two are debating about, but I've always argued the above point. It is significantly easier to get something like AAA at Eton/a top state school than at a rough area, for all sorts of factors. We should take this as a given. Just thought I'd back you up here.

Sheffield, Birmingham and Cardiff are top top universities. Sheffield and Birmingham are in the World Top 100, above LSE. If you went to one of those you could certainly make it in law.

Also, there is a handbook lying around at university where it says 'The UK's top 100' law firms, and each of them has a mini Q&A with a graduate in, which also states their university, and you'll see that the universities vary, from the RG, to mid table, to post-1992 universities. And while the 150 per place competition for Investment Banking probably makes it hard at entry level if you haven't been to a Russell, for Law it's not the case.

Use of the word even here is snobbery. Leeds/Manchester/Newcastle wouldn't be much tougher than Oxbridge at all. For a written subject like Law it's minimal.

Have you got a source for more than 50% of school leavers going to uni? I thought it was 40%...

Psychometric testing is known to be one of the strongest predictors of performance when compared to other recruitment assessments or other filtering tools, especially for graduate programmes.

They do have to be used correctly though and in my opinion alongside other evidence/assessments.


Posted from TSR Mobile

My understanding (think this is E&Y to be fair) was that you're paid 21k for the first three years while you train. Where as the average grad scheme salary seemed to be about 25k for govt schemes and 27-28k for private schemes, that was just the impression I did for the bit of research.

The Aldi 41k and a company car grad scheme is very tempting. Yes the Microsoft grad scheme is 35k

Aldi just says you need a 2:1 and a driving license. I was on the website three days ago. I say all this because I'm a final year thinking about what I want to do.

GCSEs and A Levels should not matter, particularly for candidates who are a bit older. I suppose there is an argument for it for people who went to uni straight away and have not worked full time, but in my case I failed half my GCSEs for example, but am now on for a 2:1 at a Russell, and I would think my few years work experience make me more qualified than somebody with B in Maths at GCSE or AAB at A Level.

You a final year grad?

I think to be fair to you, I read 'nearly 50%', that was in a Telegraph article in 2013. Even if we go with your number, 40% is too many. Would have been 5% in the 1960s or something.

Well it was £27,500 back in 2009...
http://www.thestudentroom.co.uk/showthread.php?t=949695

What use it the company car? Not like you'll get chance to use it for anything other than home to one of the stores/regional office...
Its IB hours for middle management pay.
Point to note about Aldi, they don't pay expenses for their interview which I found an annoyance.

Yeah thats v competitive from Microsoft, five years ago it was £26k, they've completely leap frogged Accenture. I might let my grad scheme know about that tbh.

Its just numbers, there are plenty of people at Russel Group unis goign to get 2.i degrees and have decent GCSE/A Level score(the great majority do). Its simply not cost effective to keep more people int he process - otherwise might as well not have a degree barrier either.

As you know from either in the thread, I've already graduated and have a job (not with KPMG I should add!)

Top employers don't give a **** about GCSE maths.

No I don't accept that. Some would have performed poorly in school but got their act together since then. Particularly the work experience would probably make them a better candidate, even than someone with AAB. And many graduate schemes know this. Someone who worked for a few years before going to uni cannot be treated the same as someone fresh out of uni whose never had a full time job.

No, those universities are fine. Their cities did not have universities prior to their founding.

You must be talking about personality based testing rather than ability tests (although both are psychometrics). Ability tests are all about giving a factually correct answer by analysing information. The test is designed to see if you can get the "best outcome" and requires thought/logic to get to that answer.

Personality testing or situational judgement test analyse your behaviours/choices, and yes people can select their answers more on how they think the company would want them to respond versus how they would really respond. These people are usually picked up at other stages of the process though. SJTs are also known to be a good way of getting someone to think about whether they are right for the job, and often lead to people self selecting themselves out of roles. So they have their merits too.

I should have been clearer that I was talking about ability test in my previous post though.


Posted from TSR Mobile

Doesn't psychometric literally mean "personality measurement"?

psyche- personality
metric - measurement


The ability tests are ok, although quite why anyone would think that a 10 minute quiz would be a more accurate measurement of someone's true ability than the result of an intensive 4 year degree course is beyond me.

Nobody does, thats why it comes after the degree requirement.