Toughest competition: 100 candidates per job

Almost 5,000 candidates have applied for the 50 entry-level positions made available by consulting and audit firm KPMG, one of the highest number of candidates per position recorded in the last few years. The number of applications received is four times as high as last year, with 100 candidates competing for one job. The recruitment process saw 50 people hired, most of them fresh graduates. The salary of an employee working in an entry-level job in a Big Four company (KPMG, PriceWaterhouseCoopers, Ernst & Young, Deloitte, starts from 600-700 euros, according to market information. KPMG currently has over 650 employees in its offices in Timisoara, Cluj-Napoca, Iasi, Constanta and Chisinau. “Out of the 5,000 applications we have received, 500 CVs were relevant. There were also many graduates who applied, whose background was different from what we were looking for. In the end, we chose 120 people who were tested in our assessment centres,” says Mikael Olsson, audit partner with KPMG, and head of HR and training. Traditionally, Big Four companies recruit a few hundreds of faculty graduates every year. “This year, PricewaterhouseCoopers Romania will go on to recruit over 100 new staff (around 6.5% of the current staff), fresh graduates and interns, as well as highly skilled and experienced staff,” says Alexandra Iorgulescu, Senior Manager – Human Capital with PricewaterhouseCoopers Romania.