45,000. That's the number of graduate CVs their China business receives each year. 20%. That's the % of their annual graduate intake that's made up of haigui. Here, Arthur Wang, recruitment director at Deloitte China, talks to Silu about what the consulting and accounting giant looks for in its potential grad-level recruits...
How do you typically filter candidates?
We have a standard set of ten factors that are most important to us and against which all candidates will be assessed. These are honesty, communication skills, degree of 'preparedness', active learning ability, problem solving, team work, positive behavior, adaptability, managing emotions and leadership.
What do you particularly expect from oversea graduates?
About 30% of our work is on an international level, and involves liaising with global clients. Returnees have an advantage in terms of their degree of international exposure, so we welcome applications from them.
Since they have typically spent one year or more in a foreign country, we expect them to show how they have developed themselves in the highly diversified environment in which they studied, and how sensitive they are to different cultures as a result. For example, we probe them to establish if they can view a problem from a different angle or have an overall understanding of the global business environment. Independent judgment is also very important.
Candidates are also expected to have excellent communication skills, and here again returnees should be at an advantage, as an important part of their overseas education is to deliver presentations in class and to engage in group discussions.
How many selection stages do graduates typically face before receiving an offer?
Four. First, have the resume selection stage, in which applicants' academic background and performance, internship experience, involvement in students’ associations and fluency in English will all be assessed.
Those who pass this screening stage will then take a written test on their language ability, numerical logic and career preference. The third round is a case study and group discussion. Eight people in each group will discuss a business case and its possible solutions. Those who make it through that will then go to interview stage, and the final decision will be made after an interview with the partners.
Any preference for particular student majors?
Mostly, we prefer students with business-related majors - such as accounting, finance, taxation, economic, law, management, plus computer science and information systems.
Do you have any target universities?
Yes - in principle we want the top students from the top universities. In practice, there are 13 universities in the UK which are our main targets: University of Warwick, London School of Economics, Imperial College London, University College London, Manchester Business School, City University London, University of Nottingham, King's College London, University of Cambridge, Lancaster University, University of Liverpool, University of Leeds, and University of Glasgow.
How important is an internship or work experience?
Those who have such an experience will, of course, have some advantage. But we understand that for some masters students, especially those in the UK, term time is quite a short, intense experience, which doesn’t allow much spare time to find an internship. So it’s not a compulsory requirement.
What proportion of your graduate intake is haigui?
20% of our graduate program every year are returnees.
And which departments do they mostly join?
Most graduate hires prefer a job in consulting rather than audit, which makes it much tougher to land a job in the consulting division than on the auditing side - competition for consulting new starter roles is very fierce.
But not everyone is suited to the work of a consultant, and in many cases, students don’t actually know what the audit side does, so things change once they join and become more familiar with the work we do.
What advice would you give to Chinese students applying to Deloitte?
It’s better to have a clear career plan before the applying for a graduate job randomly. We ask them to choose which division they want most in the first place when filing their online application. Then their resumes will be handled by different people based on their choices. So figuring out what they want to do and what fits them first will help us to assess them more effectively. Good luck!
We have a standard set of ten factors that are most important to us and against which all candidates will be assessed. These are honesty, communication skills, degree of 'preparedness', active learning ability, problem solving, team work, positive behavior, adaptability, managing emotions and leadership.
What do you particularly expect from oversea graduates?
About 30% of our work is on an international level, and involves liaising with global clients. Returnees have an advantage in terms of their degree of international exposure, so we welcome applications from them.
Since they have typically spent one year or more in a foreign country, we expect them to show how they have developed themselves in the highly diversified environment in which they studied, and how sensitive they are to different cultures as a result. For example, we probe them to establish if they can view a problem from a different angle or have an overall understanding of the global business environment. Independent judgment is also very important.
Candidates are also expected to have excellent communication skills, and here again returnees should be at an advantage, as an important part of their overseas education is to deliver presentations in class and to engage in group discussions.
How many selection stages do graduates typically face before receiving an offer?
Four. First, have the resume selection stage, in which applicants' academic background and performance, internship experience, involvement in students’ associations and fluency in English will all be assessed.
Those who pass this screening stage will then take a written test on their language ability, numerical logic and career preference. The third round is a case study and group discussion. Eight people in each group will discuss a business case and its possible solutions. Those who make it through that will then go to interview stage, and the final decision will be made after an interview with the partners.
Any preference for particular student majors?
Mostly, we prefer students with business-related majors - such as accounting, finance, taxation, economic, law, management, plus computer science and information systems.
Do you have any target universities?
Yes - in principle we want the top students from the top universities. In practice, there are 13 universities in the UK which are our main targets: University of Warwick, London School of Economics, Imperial College London, University College London, Manchester Business School, City University London, University of Nottingham, King's College London, University of Cambridge, Lancaster University, University of Liverpool, University of Leeds, and University of Glasgow.
How important is an internship or work experience?
Those who have such an experience will, of course, have some advantage. But we understand that for some masters students, especially those in the UK, term time is quite a short, intense experience, which doesn’t allow much spare time to find an internship. So it’s not a compulsory requirement.
What proportion of your graduate intake is haigui?
20% of our graduate program every year are returnees.
And which departments do they mostly join?
Most graduate hires prefer a job in consulting rather than audit, which makes it much tougher to land a job in the consulting division than on the auditing side - competition for consulting new starter roles is very fierce.
But not everyone is suited to the work of a consultant, and in many cases, students don’t actually know what the audit side does, so things change once they join and become more familiar with the work we do.
What advice would you give to Chinese students applying to Deloitte?
It’s better to have a clear career plan before the applying for a graduate job randomly. We ask them to choose which division they want most in the first place when filing their online application. Then their resumes will be handled by different people based on their choices. So figuring out what they want to do and what fits them first will help us to assess them more effectively. Good luck!
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