Deloitte brings face-to-face interviews to UK graduates

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Deloitte has reinstated face-to-face interviews for its UK graduate programmes, amid pressure from the accountancy regulator on firms to clamp down on potential fraud in online assessments.

The Big Four firm said it would return to face-to-face interviews from September for applicants to its graduate and apprenticeship programmes, after moving its recruitment process entirely online during the pandemic.

The change comes after the Financial Reporting Council said Deloitte’s all-online recruitment process posed “risks” in its annual review of audit quality at the firm, published in July.

By contrast, the regulator praised Deloitte’s four major rivals — EY, KPMG and PwC — in its annual reviews for taking steps to reduce the risk of cheating in online recruitment tests, citing measures such as conducting in-person interviews and assessments.

In recent years, the FRC has raised concerns that some recruitment tests are vulnerable to cheating, saying this type of misconduct undermines the integrity of the profession. The FRC said in July that it had continued to find examples of cheating over the past year, adding that this was “unacceptable”. The FRC declined to say which companies it had found examples of cheating.

Deloitte said it would return to in-person final interviews for graduate and apprenticeship programs across all business areas. Last year, it conducted some in-person interviews for roles in financial advisory and risk, the company added.

“In-person interviews give candidates the opportunity to see first-hand what it’s like to work at Deloitte and meet the people they’ll be working with. The early stages of the application process will continue to take place online.”

Deloitte declined to say whether the FRC had found any examples of cheating by candidates on online recruitment tests at the firm. A person familiar with the matter said the firm “would investigate matters” if there were concerns that its staff were not demonstrating “the highest professional standards”.

The Big Four are among the largest graduate and internship recruiters in the UK, each recruiting over a thousand new staff each year and receiving tens of thousands of applications from candidates in the UK and abroad.

“A well-functioning audit market must be underpinned by honesty and integrity,” said Sarah Rapson, executive director of supervision at the FRC.

The rise of artificial intelligence has also raised concerns about cheating in exams, Rapson said, adding that the regulator is working with audit firms to ensure systems are in place to “detect, monitor and combat any form of cheating that could undermine audit quality, including from new technologies”.

Cheating on internal and professional exams is a common problem at accounting firms globally, with all of the Big Four firms being fined. EY paid a $100 million fine in 2022 for cheating by hundreds of employees in the United States, while KPMG’s Dutch business was fined $25 million in April.