The global accountancy firm, KPMG, has announced that it plans to create 75,000 graduate positions over the next three years. This is a 25% increase on its current staffing targets. This is positive news for current and prospective undergraduates interested in a career in the financial sector, particularly those with designs on a nomadic professional lifestyle; KPMG opens opportunities for global positions. The firm has made a statement commitment to filling the roles it hopes to create with graduates across all of its different departments.
Working with an accountancy firm or an investment bank is lucrative and ultimately more attainable than having vague designs on 'a job in media'. Similarly to law firms, which spends hundreds of thousands of pounds enticing graduates from Russell Group universities to join their organisation, jobs in finance pay well, even - rejecting a pervasive and pernicious trend - paying their interns large sums of money for a summer placement. Some finance interns may make as much as ??1000 per week. They work for their summer salary, hours are long and often torturous, and many will find themselves posted in London for a summer, which might be lonely if you aren't local. Don't expect time for a Skype home after work; unless your parents are nocturnal.
However, financial internships provide a professional trajectory that many will find comforting in its security. Those who perform well at these internships are likely to find themselves in the running for paid positions after graduation. Even those for whom a career in the financial suicide is synonymous with the mercenary flogging of the soul, there is something to be envied in the comfort of having a well-paid position to flee to after the disorienting experience of graduation.
KPMG's commitment to graduates comes weeks after a similar announcement by global giant, Tesco, which implies that buying into globalisation might be the graduate's route into certainty. For younger undergraduates and prospective freshers, application for internships is fierce - even for a relatively numerous number of positions - and these applications must be made early. At such a stage in your university life, it might be difficult to envisage graduation and beyond, but if you are career-motivated and convinced by the financial sector, then such internships are a worthwhile time-investment (especially since they will invest - literally and generously - in you). Ensure your references are coherent and effusive, and emphasise why you have chosen one firm over another. If you prepare, you may well find yourself filling one of KPMG's 75,000 global positions once your mortar board has been retired and graduation opens up a larger, scarier world.
Phoebe, GRB Journalist
