IF ACCOUNTANTS are all digit-fiddling bores with a love of tax loopholes, why are the Big Four professional services firms, including Ernst & Young, such magnets for graduates and professionals alike?There’s the challenge of the job: from greasing the wheels of huge corporations to advising small start-ups, not to mention the lure of a partner’s pay and bonus. But at the end of a long day, isn’t it rather dull?
We’re not dullards, says Stevan Rolls, 40, an HR director at Ernst & Young. “We want bright people who are good at solving problems, enthusiastic and ambitious, client-orientated and who share our values.” Is there anything else on Rolls’s shopping list? “People who’ll be fun to work with.”
Fun isn’t the first word that springs to mind when you think about tax, business risk services and audit, to name a few parts of the business, but, Rolls says, Ernst & Young is “people orientated”. Take benefits such as flexible working, for example. “Oh, we do all that,” Rolls says. One member of his team is allowed to take time out to pursue his other job — singing in an internationally renowned gospel choir. “We give him a flexible working arrangement so that he can pursue that aspect of his career,” Rolls says.
The firm attracts 20,000 UK applicants a year for 550 graduate places, 300 internships and about 1,500 hires with more experience. Rolls says that many of the successful candidates are introduced by existing employees which in turn puts cash in their pockets. Referring a new partner will earn you £10,000 so it’s well worth selling the firm to outsiders.
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Fiona Sheffield, 28, a senior manager in UK Financial Services, is glad she switched from a rival company. “The technical training (across) the Big Four is a given,” she says. “At Ernst & Young the focus on personal training is exceptional. Within three months I was on the two-year accelerated leadership programme.”
She is now the leader of a 20-strong team and moving on to the partnership track. Sheffield also spent a training day role-playing with actors in which she learnt management techniques under the watchful eye of the firm’s partners.
“The six months (since) have been a real adrenalin patch,” she says. “I’ve identified so much that I can do.”
Sheffield’s swift promotion is not unique. Rolls says that rapid progression is at the heart of Ernst & Young’s HR programme: “Our strategy is to hire ambitious, talented people and develop them quickly.”
“If you are doing the job you will get the promotion,” Sheffield adds. “They don’t hold people back even if there is no one else left at the lower grade. They’ll make room at every grade for you because they don’t want to lose talent.”
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The strength of Sheffield’s own team lies in the diversity of the nationalities and experience within it. “It’s not just trained accountants with three years’ experience,” she says, but “long-lifers”, lawyers, even a New Zealander with a background in inland revenue. Sound tempting? Then, start by writing F-U-N on your CV.
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