City firms struggle to pick the best as A-Level results rise
CITY firms face increasing difficulties selecting the most promising students to enter their graduate programmes, as more A-level students landed ‘A’ grades yesterday than ever before.
Over one in four exam entries were rewarded with the top grade, ahead of plans by education authorities to introduce a new A* grade next year to mark out the very top candidates.
“It is even harder for City firms to differentiate between applicants when results are improving all the time,” said Sylvia Perrins, the chief executive of the National Skills Academy Financial Services. “It’s not enough any more to have good A-levels. Employers will choose those who stand out from the crowd by demonstrating financial literacy and teamwork skills, as well as work experience.”
Stevan Rolls, the head of human resources at accountancy firm Deloitte, which takes on around 1,000 graduates per year in the UK, said: “The issue here is that most City organisations are very difficult to get into and are looking for the very highest levels of graduate achievement.
“Differentiating between candidates is obviously getting harder as students standards improve, so it is a natural and necessary consequence of any qualification to continually recalibrate standards.”
Jenny Fox, head of careers at the Financial Services Skills Council, added that having a larger pool of potential applicants could encourage graduate employers to begin assessing skill levels much earlier on in the application process.