Deloitte, the business advisory firm and one of the largest recruiters of graduates in the UK, has won the ‘Personnel Today’ award for Excellence in Graduate Recruitment. The award, judged by a panel of industry experts, recognises best practice in the human resources profession. The firm was also runner up for a Talent Management award, which recognises an organisation’s ability to recruit and retain staff.

John Connolly, Deloitte’s Chief Executive and Senior Partner, commented: “This is an excellent achievement and follows Deloitte's earlier success this year, when we were ranked second in The Times Top 100 Graduate Employers 2006.”

The Excellence in Graduate Recruitment Award recognises key achievements of the graduate recruitment team’s 2006 campaign, which saw a large rise in applications on 2005, including the share of enquiries from women and ethnic minorities.

A variety of initiatives were implemented by the winning HR team, including online testing, allowing graduates to schedule their own interview slots and a unique partnership with the charity, Teach First, which funds eight recruits each year through a two-year teaching placement in some of London’s most challenging schools before joining Deloitte.
 
The Personnel Today Award highlighted the team's achievements which included:

• Improving online recruitment, by enabling graduates to schedule their own interview time and dates
• Launching a 'Taste of Deloitte' - a two-day work experience programme for students
• Linking up with the charity, Teach First
• Touring university campuses to hand out Deloitte-branded smoothies as part of a two-year 'Feed Your Mind' campaign
• Holding 23 university presentations and 30 employability seminars across the UK
• Conducting research of 5,000 students from 52 universities on its recruitment activities
• Targeting minority groups and non-business students.

Sarah Shillingford, Graduate Recruitment Partner, said: “This year’s biggest challenge was to ensure we would receive enough quality applications to fill some 1,200 vacancies, but on a budget per recruit lower that the industry average.

“We decided to implement a multi-tiered campaign which would focus our efforts on both building brand awareness and targeting of high quality students. The results were incredible and resulted in us receiving over 2,500 more applications than last year, that’s an increase of 30%. We’re all absolutely delighted by this result, but the icing on the cake was receiving this fantastic award from the industry in recognition of all our hard work.”

About Deloitte
In this press release references to Deloitte are references to Deloitte & Touche LLP which is among the country’s leading professional services firms, providing audit, tax, consulting and corporate finance services. Deloitte & Touche LLP is the United Kingdom member firm of Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu (‘DTT’), a Swiss Verein whose member firms are separate and independent legal entities.  Neither DTT nor any of its member firms has any liability for each other’s omissions.  Services are provided by member firms or their subsidiaries and not by DTT.  Deloitte & Touche LLP is authorised and regulated by the Financial Services Authority.  The information contained in this press release is correct at the time of going to press.  For further information, visit our website at www.deloitte.co.uk

Deloitte & Touche LLP is authorised and regulated by the Financial Services Authority.

The information contained in this press release is correct at the time of going to press.

Deloitte’s Teach First scheme
Deloitte’s Teach First scheme funds recruits through a two-year teaching placement in some of London’s most challenging schools.

In a formal agreement with independent charity Teach First, Deloitte sponsors Teach First recruits to begin teacher training after graduation, starting at schools each September where they will teach for two years before joining Deloitte’s graduate recruitment programme. At the end of their first year participants gain Qualified Teacher Status.

Deloitte funds the cost of leadership training and supports eight Teach First recruits throughout their two year teaching programme each year, and offers three-week internships with Deloitte over the summer break. The Teach First recruits are supported by a Deloitte mentor for two years and are eligible for an early advance on the interest-free loan Deloitte offers graduates.

Teach First targets high calibre students who would not normally consider a career in teaching and places them in disadvantaged secondary schools around London, and Greater Manchester. From next year, the scheme will also be rolled out to schools within the Midlands.