LinkedIn’s top five jobs for graduates – and how much they pay

Deloitte increased its graduate intake from 1355 to 1421, PwC cut its intake from 1530 to 1130, and EY Australia took on 797 graduates, down from 1052 in 2022.

Across the top 100 accounting firms, the number of new graduates in 2023 (5830) was 7.6 per cent lower than the year before (6310). But accountants were still in LinkedIn’s top five jobs for grads in 2023, based on annual growth in hiring activity on its platform.

The other occupations in the top five jobs for grads were software engineers, entry-level legal roles, registered nurses and occupational therapists.

According to LinkedIn, these roles experienced the largest increases in hiring activity among bachelor’s degree holders in Australia between March and August 2023, when compared with the equivalent time period in 2022.

‘The best training ground’

KPMG Australia’s national managing partner of audit and assurance, Julian McPherson, said audit and accounting roles offered graduates a level of access and insight into other businesses that they would struggle to find in other occupations, “because you’re seeing the inner functioning of the companies that you work with”.

“It is the best training ground to start your career, whether you end up as an audit partner or end up going into corporate life,” Mr McPherson said.

He told The Australian Financial Review that audit and accounting roles also enabled graduates to develop a range of transferrable skills, including project management, problem-solving, decision-making and effective communication.

Other selling points include the ability to work with modern technologies such as artificial intelligence, the opportunity to do “genuinely purposeful work”, and the chance to work overseas, Mr McPherson added.

Ms Bush said the prospect of doing a secondment overseas excited her. As did the possibility of one day connecting her professional interest in accounting to her personal interest in sport. “That’s one of [my] goals,” she said.

Audit graduates at the big four typically earn about $65,000 a year when they join. This compares with average starting salaries of $72,000 for graduate software engineers, $73,000 for graduate lawyers, $75,000 for graduate registered nurses and $78,000 for graduate occupational therapists, according to GradConnection.

LinkedIn career expert Cayla Dengate said graduates looking for a role should reach out to former teachers and classmates and publicise their job search, “as the wonderful thing is that people want to support grads [and] help you get that first look-in”.

“As a graduate, you have a really valuable perspective that senior leaders want to hear from,” Ms Dengate said.

“Often it’s the recent graduate who’s got the fresh knowledge and a really different take on how a company should be doing things. So, feel confident in your observations.”