KPMG’s radical new approach to recruiting school leavers into their organisation and into accountancy could ring the changes for how other UK businesses and professions bring in fresh talent, KPMG head of audit Oliver Tant predicted last week.

The Big Four accountancy firm last week unveiled its plans to recruit 75 school leavers into a six-year ’work, learn and earn’ programme that will incorporate working at KPMG, alongside earning a four-year degree from Durham University and achieving chartered accountant credentials. The students will earn a £20k salary in their first year and earn around £45k in the sixth year.

In addition, KPMG will cover costs of tuition, professional certification and university accommodation. The application process will begin at the end of February. Entry to the programme will start from September.

The new initiative offers “a real alternative” to the full-time university model, Tant said at the launch in London. He added: “We believe this will become a blueprint for other professions.”

It also will give KPMG an infusion of greater professional experience earlier, he said. By the time a traditional graduate recruit has three years at KPMG, the school leaver recruit will have six years with the organisation, Tant pointed out: “By the time these 18-year-olds have their qualifications, they will not only be qualified as graduates but more experienced than graduates.”

As a result, the School Leavers Programme will lead to KPMG cutting back on its traditional graduate recruitment drive and the numbers of graduates recruited. From this year’s initial intake of 75 participants, KPMG anticipates that the number will grow to 400 in future years. Conversations with potential recruits have begun with students currently in years 12 and 13 but “we want to be talking with people much earlier than that as well”, said programme operational lead Simon Haydn-Jones.

The concept was an audit department initiative but KPMG’s recruitment department has had a significant role in developing and executing how the school leavers will be recruited. “Rather than get in the way, we’re greasing the skids,” Iain McLaughlin, head of recruitment, told Recruiter.