Transcript of the interview with Claire Strik

National Graduate Recruitment Manager for KPMG Australia

Claire Strik is a national graduate recruitment manager for KPMG Australia. Here she speaks about KPMG's policies relating to employees with disabilities, disclosure, work place adjustments, flexible working options and how graduates can best create a positive impression when applying for a position.

Claire: KPMG is committed to being an equal employment opportunity employer so we promote and train all our people including all of our interviewers for recruitment in the requirements of the legislation. We don't have specific programs as such but we happily work with individuals to determine their needs for the work place and next year we are going to be participating in a program called 'Stepping in to Accounting' and we hope that we will have students in our Melbourne audit practice coming in from that program.

What questions does KPMG ask when they are informed that a potential employee has a particular disability.

Claire: There is really only one question that we ask and that is around whether the individual has any specific requirements or modifications required in the work place, that's all we really need to know.

When would you expect an applicant to disclose their disability to you?

Claire: Well that's really at the applicants discretion and we would only expect them to disclose that if they needed a work place adjustment.

So in what ways might KPMG be able to cater to the needs of the employees with disabilities?

Claire: We are able to accommodate with work place modifications as required and we do also have a full range of flexible working options that are available for our staff. In terms of flexible working options policy you know we do have options for people to change their working days, to change their working hours and I guess change what ever it is that is required to make it possible for them to do their work in the work place. So it's really around very individual needs that we can to modify those for.

So what advice do you have for graduates with disabilities when applying in positions? How do you think they can best market themselves to KMPG or to create a positive impression?

Claire: Well in all our graduate we are seeking those who display both values of KPMG and the skills and behaviors that we look for in all of our people and they are things such as team work, verbal and written communication skills, responsibility, drive and resilience. All graduates can demonstrate these in different ways through telling us about their experience, whether they be in relation to their school, university, work or their personal life and what we are looking for is graduate to be confident in themselves and we appreciate that can be difficult for some students who have a disability but I guess just thinking of example of ways they can demonstrate that before coming to interview would be fantastic and I guess the issue we have had three of our audit senior managers participating in the Willing and Able Mentoring program organized by the Australia employers network of disability so that we could offer to students.

So do you recommend that students get some experience in the work place through these programs?

Claire: Absolutely, I think again you know for all of the people, all of the graduates that we recruit, any work experience is beneficial in developing both confidence and skills and behavior so we recommend you know all students try and get work experience of some sort through different program. The website to go to is www.kpmg.com.au (opens an external site) and then go to the 'careers section' and there is special area for 'graduates and students' hopefully the students will be able to find information there but if they can't find what they are looking for, there is a 'contact us' button and they can send emails through will come through to me and I can answer and queries they have.