TOP marks in maths and a knowing way with calculators aren’t enough to guarantee a long and prosperous career at KPMG, one of the so-called Big Four accountancy firms.

“The only thing we sell is our people,” says Keith Dugdale, director of recruitment and resourcing at KPMG (UK). “It’s critical that they are good communicators who can make an impact with clients.”

In fact, KPMG’s checklist of wants is all about people, not figures. “In a very competitve market, you need to be able to build and win business by building relationships,” Dugdale says. “KPMG is a team environment. You don’t work one-to-one with a client but in teams of up to 30 people.”

Another big tick in the box is for the right personal motivation. “It’s a bit of a Victorian attitude in a way,” Dugdale says, “but we’re looking for people who want to build a long-term career in the financial services sector.”

Such a commitment may seem old-fashioned when most of us get itchy feet after two or three years in the same job, but with a training budget of £24 million a year, lavished on some 9,000 staff, it’s perfectly understandable.

Kerry Holder, 35, has the perfect KPMG profile: having joined as a trainee in audit after university, she qualified as a chartered accountant before switching to corporate finance, where she is now a team leader and associate director.

Holder’s loyalty paid dividends when she took a sanctioned career break and bought herself a round-the-world ticket. Nine months and a suntan later, her career was still on track.

“My career didn’t suffer except that I had taken nearly a year off — as you’d expect. For me personally, having never taken a long trip, it was fantastic,” Holder says.

Career breaks are just one of the perks on offer. “KPMG has the most attractive pension scheme of the Big Four,” according to Dugdale and it’s not just time off work that’s considered for benefits.

“Staff can choose what is important to them so they can buy childcare vouchers, more pension or holiday allowance,” Dugdale says.

“KPMG has also made a big investment in flexible working,” Dugdale says, such as allowing people to go part-time by buying holiday. “It’s part of recognising that flexible working is important in recruiting women into senior management,” he says, and the result of lots of internal focus groups.

Getting into senior management at KPMG is easier if your card is marked as an “emerging leader”, a programme which fast-tracks learning and training for the top 15 per cent of the firm across all grades.

“We have a very strong coaching culture. Maximising people development is good for business and also critical for retention,” but even Dugdale will admit that it’s difficult to ward off poachers. It’s hard for KPMG to compete with the big investment banks offering twice the package and a view of New York.

Holder on the other hand is happy to stay put. “The best thing about KPMG is the variety of people and companies you get to work with,” she says. “From one week to the next, you don’t know what you will be doing.”

DATA FILE

• KPMG offers tax, audit and advisory services through a network of member firms in 148 countries. It employs about 6,500 partners, 70,000 professional staff and 17,000 support and administrative staff.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• KPMG reported the strongest growth rate of the Big Four accountancy firms in 2004 at 14.7 per cent, Mike Rake, chairman of KPMG International, says. Global revenues hit $13.44 billion (£7 billion).
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• KPMG employs 9,000 staff in the UK. The average age is 29.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• Last month, KPMG in the US agreed to pay £11.5 million to the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) after it was accused of allowing Xerox to “manipulate” its financial records. The SEC also told KPMG to set up a whistleblowers’ hotline to allow staff to “express concerns”. KPMG said that it had acted in good faith as Xerox’s auditor and that the payment neither confirmed nor denied the SEC’s allegations.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• The company website lists the firm’s corporate values, including honesty, respect and integrity.
  
  
• www.vault.com , an internet resource for job seekers, is full of gripes from disgruntled KPMG US employees. “The culture was the most self-serving ever imagined,” reports a former managing director in Baltimore. “The partners in my discipline couldn’t sell themselves out of a paper bag,” says one manager. “On the plus side,” another says, “the company trusts its employees.”
  
  
  
  
  
  
• www.kpmg.com/careers

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