When Stephanie Arezzi walked into Sydney’s Quay Quarter Tower for her first day of work in February, swiping her security badge was a mundane act that 27,198 others across Australia had dreamt they too would be doing. Not because it meant they would be working in 2022’s World’s Best Building, but because it would be a sign they had defied huge odds.
The data analyst is one of 614 people admitted to Deloitte Australia’s 2025 national graduate program, a milestone achieved by Deloitte Asia Pacific chief executive David Hill in 1995. Hill is hardly the first high-powered executive to cut their teeth with an entry-level role at a big four consulting firm – Telstra chief executive Vicki Brady started her career at KPMG – and he won’t be the last.
But, thanks to a softer economic environment that means graduate roles across all sectors are down 15 per cent, the opportunity to do so is becoming harder to seize. Perfect transcripts with polished technical skills aren’t enough for candidates to stand out in the increasingly competitive market.
Arezzi completed her master’s of data science postgraduate degree in January, though her undergraduate degree was in theatre.Credit: Edwina Pickles
“What you can’t teach is the openness to be curious and therefore [the] want to problem-solve,” says Tina McCreery, Deloitte Australia’s chief human resources officer.
“One day you could be working with a big four bank … the next day you could be in the public sector, you could be out on one of the mines.
“You have to have that ability to shift and change and work with a huge range of diverse clients and people.”
What it takes to stand out among tens of thousands
While some companies in Australia start graduate recruitment around August, big four consulting firms either open applications around February – 12 months before the program’s start date – or keep them open year round. For Deloitte, it’s the former, and McCreery says it is to attract the best candidates.
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The longer lead time also allows her team to thoroughly sort through, with the assistance of technology, the plethora of résumés for the most competitive contenders.
That, however, is merely phase one of the hiring process.
In Australia, what follows for Deloitte, Ernst & Young (EY), KPMG and PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) is a series of trials that can span weeks or months, with prospective hires whittled down by online psychometric tests, timed video responses, assessment centres with group work and other short exercises, and one-on-one interviews.
Although Arezzi found the psychometric tests nerve-racking, it is the assessment centre that is still seared into her memory almost three years after she applied for a summer internship at Deloitte (called the vacationer program, candidates go through a streamlined version of the graduate application process, and often leave their weeks-long trial with a graduate role offer).
After Arezzi’s group was given a scenario, about three-quarters into their allotted time limit to solve it, recruiters “came in with something else that changed the way that we thought about everything”.
“It’s obviously to assess how you deal with the … added layer and added stress,” she says. “It’s assessing your ability to maintain your calm and cool during everything being thrown up in the air.”
Arezzi was studying a master’s of data science at the time, a qualification that got her foot past the gatekeeper. It was her undergraduate degree in theatre – and the soft skills, such as clear communication and quick thinking in stressful environments required to complete it – that ultimately led to her being invited to sit down for a hot meal.
Artificial intelligence has well and truly hit the workforce, from hiring – for better or worse, candidates use it in applications and companies use it to screen them – to the tasks themselves (questions were raised in August over a Deloitte report suspected of containing an AI-invented quote, which Deloitte stands by. There is no suggestion Arezzi or McCreery are involved in the matter).
“They won’t have got through the process without academic qualifications… the differentiators for us are much more the ‘human skills’, which we feel you need.”
Karen Lonergan, PwC Australia’s chief people officer
It means that for decision-makers, “human skills” – including critical thinking, which is crucial to effectively working with AI – are more valuable than ever.
“What will be a differentiator for the graduates who are coming in at the moment, it’s their ability to collaborate, both with team members and [AI] agents,” says Karen Lonergan, chief people officer at PwC Australia.
Lonergan, a former Qantas human resources executive director, looks out for curious candidates from across the country who ask good questions of their colleagues in the group interview stage, favouring contenders who clearly have a “strong learning orientation” over those who are interested in “telling people what they know”.
“There’s going to be lots of change that we can’t yet anticipate,” Lonergan says. “We don’t want people joining us with that fixed view of, ‘I’ve got an honours degree in a particular discipline. So I’m good to go’ … We’re looking for humble people who are much more interested in what they don’t know than in what they do know.”
Now a senior associate with PwC Australia’s advisory practice, Sarah Dang joined the firm as a graduate in 2023 after completing a vacationer internship the year before. It’s her first corporate job, secured in part thanks to the fact she studied not only commerce, but also psychology.
Dang also leaned on the experience gained from her retail job.
“I worked in a jewellery store,” says Dang. “Think about the communication and the people skills you’ve picked up … you always come back with customers complaining about broken bracelets. Think about how you handle those customer complaints.”
Sarah Dang interned as a vacationer at PwC Australia in January 2022, before starting as a graduate in March 2023. Before that, she worked in a jewellery store.Credit: Janie Barrett
Dang spent hours every night for a week studying for the interview, practising a 15-second elevator pitch about herself in front of a mirror, and learning as much as she could about her interviewer on LinkedIn.
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EY graduate consultant Fiona MacKenzie took a similar approach. A large portion of her application preparation was spent researching the firm extensively, ensuring she demonstrated in her one-page cover letter that her core values aligned with those that the professional services organisation advocates for itself.
“I wanted to make sure that my messaging was right and to increase my chances of going through to the psychometric and cognitive testing stage,” says MacKenzie.
What attracted MacKenzie to a big four consulting firm graduate role was, aside from the benefits of climbing the ladder with a core group of fellow graduates, the breadth of exposure to different clients, subject areas, and service lines. Recruiters, in turn, value the wide scope of their candidates’ life experiences.
“We look for … we call it culture add rather than culture fit,” says Jenelle McMaster, EY regional deputy chief executive and people and culture leader, Oceania.
“We’re not looking for one type of person to mould into ours. We’re looking for a person who can bring something to a culture that we feel really proud of.”
EY graduate consultant Fiona MacKenzie was attracted to a big four consulting firm’s graduate program because of the breadth of skills and service areas it would allow her to develop and explore.Credit: Edwina Pickles
Travel is another area candidates can lean on to stand out, says Relaunch Me career and interview coach Leah Lambart, or innovative start-ups or side hustles.
“Anything where they’ve really pushed themselves out of their comfort zone by taking a leadership role or doing something that requires them to be resilient,” says Lambart.
McMaster echoes this, noting she looks for adaptability, a growth mindset, and a readiness to learn, something KPMG Australia audit and assurance analyst Ella Nugent is a prime example of.
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After spending her whole university degree studying remotely thanks to COVID-19, she deferred her graduate year from 2024 to 2025 so she could spend 18 months skiing in New South Wales’ Snowy Mountains and overseas.
“I feel like I’m such a different person now,” says Nugent. “I did five months living in Japan, and obviously moving over there by myself takes a lot of courage and I think teaches you so much about independence and what I can achieve.”
Courage and resilience are two qualities Nugent says she has used the most in the nine months she’s been at the office. Another characteristic employers are seeking is inclusivity.
“One key attribute that they’re all looking for is that people are inclusive … you’re going to work well in teams … show respect for your teammates,” Lambart advises her clients, encouraging them to facilitate the opportunity for quieter candidates to contribute to discussions in the group interview stage.
KPMG Australia audit and assurance analyst Ella Nugent deferred her graduate year so she could ski in Japan and at Thredbo.Credit: Janie Barrett
Lambart has been helping candidates secure graduate offers for more than 10 years, and has noticed a particular increase in demand for her services – which include résumé and cover letter writing and interview preparation – this year.
She attributes that to the wider economy, which, despite rumblings that AI is eliminating entry-level roles in some sectors, is also what Indeed Australia credits to fewer job postings targeted at graduates across all sectors.
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Representatives from Deloitte, EY, KPMG and PwC shrugged off suggestions of substantial changes to the amount of graduate positions offered in Australia, which largely declined from 2023 to 2024.
Rob Dunderdale, head of talent attraction at KPMG Australia, says the firm’s graduate intake is higher than pre-COVID-19 levels, and highlights how history – specifically the global financial crisis – taught us that significantly reducing graduate hiring is a mistake.
“We felt that pain a couple of years later where we really struggled with the manager-level cohorts that we absolutely need at a firm like ours because we held back in recruiting them at the GFC,” says Dunderdale.
According to KPMG Australia’s FY2024-2025 Impact Report, the firm hired 637 graduates for that financial year. It is understood that number is similar this financial year. EY Australia hired 595 graduates in 2025, up from 580 in 2024.
Deloitte will see 730 graduates (of 38,218 applications) enter the workforce from March. Although that’s a cohort up 116 places compared with 2025, the heightened number of candidates slims the chance of success to 1.9 per cent, down from the 2.2 per cent odds Arezzi enjoyed.
PwC Australia’s annual report, released in June, said there was a 20 per cent increase in applications to the firm in 2024 compared with 2023.
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Adding more chum to the bloody waters is what else Arezzi, Dang, MacKenzie and Nugent have in common: they got into their graduate programs through vacationer programs.
“My biggest tip would be trying to get internships before they get to the graduate program process,” says Lambart.
For some firms, graduate spots reserved for former vacationers – often recruited year round through campus outreach programs – can be in the hundreds, further shrinking fresh talent’s chances.
But competition for vacationer programs isn’t any easier. Vacationers starting at Deloitte Australia in December have had a 2 per cent chance of securing the weeks-long opportunity.
“It doesn’t have to be a formal internship,” Lambart says. “It could be approaching some organisations directly to see if they can intern there during the holidays or one day a week if they have got time off from uni. I’d encourage younger students to be as proactive as possible in trying to get some relevant experience.”
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