Deloitte will not increase entry requirements for its graduate recruitment programme, despite record numbers of students achieving top A-level grades yesterday.
The national A-level pass rate rose for the 27th year in a row and soared to 97% – the highest ever, and up 0.3% on last year.
But the business advisory firm, which takes on about 1,000 graduates in the UK each year, announced it had no intention of upping the entry level.
Sarah Shillingford, graduate recruitment partner at Deloitte, said some graduate employers might be tempted to hike up their requirements, given the large numbers of students achieving top grades and the increasingly competitive graduate job market.
“At Deloitte, we have decided against this as we feel it can disadvantage some students, depending on the school they have attended,” she said.
“For Deloitte’s graduate programme we look for three B grades at A-level, plus a 2:1 degree as the minimum criteria.
“While this inevitably gives us a greater number of applications to assess, we feel it enables us to judge people on a range of skills and achievements that go beyond their school grades and helps to create a level playing field.”
Business group the CBI congratulated students and teachers on the A-level results, but added it was still concerned that too few young people study maths in any form after the age of 16.
Susan Anderson, the CBI’s director of education and skills, said: “Young people need to know that certain subjects – like maths and science – are highly prized by employers. Britain needs more people coming out of school, college and university with maths as part of their skills armoury.”
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She added that employers want to see more young people studying for maths qualifications after the age of 16.
“This means more students taking maths A-level, and more doing the ‘use of Mathematics’ AS-level, which supports subjects such as social sciences or business studies. Others will need support on functional numeracy to reach the basic level expected in the workplace.”
