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Deloitte has reinstated in-person interviews for its UK graduate scheme, amid pressure from the accounting regulator for firms to clamp down on the potential for cheating in virtual assessments.
The Big Four firm said it would return to in-person interviews from September for those applying for its graduate and apprenticeship programmes, after switching to a fully online recruitment process during the pandemic.
The change comes after the Financial Reporting Council said that Deloitte’s fully online recruitment process posed potential “risks” in its annual review of audit quality at the firm, which was published in July.
The regulator, by comparison, praised Deloitte’s Big Four rivals — EY, KPMG and PwC — in their respective annual reviews for taking steps to reduce the risk of cheating in online recruitment tests, citing measures such as conducting interviews and assessments in-person.
The FRC has in recent years raised concerns that some recruitment tests were susceptible to cheating, saying that this type of misconduct affected the integrity of the profession. It said in July that it had continued to find examples of cheating over the past year, adding that this was “unacceptable”. It declined to say at which firms it found examples of cheating.
Deloitte said it would return to in-person final stage interviews for graduate and apprenticeship programmes in all business areas. Last year, it held some in-person interviews for roles at its financial and risk advisory business, it added.
“In-person interviews provide candidates with an opportunity to see first-hand what it’s like to work at Deloitte and meet the people they will be working with. The initial stages of the application process will remain virtual.”
Deloitte declined to say whether the FRC found any examples of cheating by candidates in online recruitment tests at the firm. One person familiar with the details said the firm “investigates matters” if there are concerns that its people are not demonstrating the “highest professional standards”.
The Big Four are among the biggest graduate and apprentice employers in the UK, each employing more than a thousand new recruits each year, and receiving tens of thousands of applications from candidates in Britain and overseas.
“A well-functioning audit market is underpinned by honesty and integrity,” said Sarah Rapson, executive director of supervision at the FRC.
The rise of generative artificial intelligence has also increased worries about exam cheating, with Rapson adding that the regulator was working with audit firms to ensure that systems were in place to “detect, monitor and combat any form of cheating that could undermine audit quality, including from new technologies”.
Cheating in internal and professional exams has been a repeated problem across accounting firms globally, with all the Big Four firms having been fined for instances. EY paid a $100mn fine in 2022 for cheating by hundreds of its staff in the US, while KPMG’s Dutch business was hit with a $25mn penalty in April.
