1. Online test at a university hall organised by a local HR consultancy (DragNet). Your test result is shown immediately (Pass or Fail). If you pass, you proceed to write an essay from a choice of 2 topics e.g. Where do you see yourself in 5 years? 2. Assessment Centre: The AC for audit is different from the one held for advisory. I applied to Forensic Accounting (Advisory). It lasted a whole day and included Group Exercise (a case study of an hypothetical client about to undertake a joint venture in Agriculture blah blah blah), a candidate-to-panel (of four) interview and an in-tray exercise where you pick a topic and you're given 5 minutes to prepare and then present. Try to use visual-aid with your presentation so you're not just droning on and on. Nothing fancy... there was a whiteboard and marker where I made graphic representations. My topic was on Agriculture again. Also, try to be heard without coming across as domineering. 3. Interview with a Manager: This was during Ramadan and my interviewer was muslim and looked very serious. It was intimidating at first but I calmed my nerves and just chatted. It helped that I had researched him on linkedIn and thus felt like I knew him. That surprised him. I had a somewhat positive outcome from this stage of the recruitment. Somewhat because the manager's feedback was that I was more suited for IARCS than Forensic Accounting and so my next (and final) interview was going to be with an IARCS partner. This sort of put me off but I still wanted the job cos I felt I could cross once employed. 4) Partner-level Interview: I was kept waiting for 3 hours after which the IARCS partner interviewed me for less than 10 minutes (they're very busy people). She seemed warm and apologised for the wait. I had a feeling she already made up her mind in the first few seconds of meeting me.

Quite a quick process from application to offer. Completed the standard online assessments and was invited for interviews shortly after. The launchpad (assessment centre) was a bit overwhelming but everyone was so chill and there was a lot of time to talk to other candidates and current KPMG employees. I had my offer two working days later.