Graduates should stop relying on chatbots to write their CVs and apply the “old-fashioned” way, if they want to get a job in professional services, the boss of Grant Thornton UK has said.
Malcolm Gomersall, chief executive of the accounting giant, said an increase in AI-written applications was making it harder to assess candidates, especially for more junior roles.
He said: “We’re getting many more applicants per role because it’s possible to use tech to generate hundreds of applications really quickly.
“Factually, it is possible to use AI to make a CV look perfect. You have to spend a lot of time… working out whether you’re recruiting the skills that are on the CV that AI has generated and whether you’re really recruiting the skills that you want.”
As a result, the firm has tightened its controls when recruiting. It is closing job ads earlier and capping the volume of applicants. Grant Thornton itself uses a “part AI and part human” process to filter out “what is AI and what is real in terms of CVs”, Gomersall said.
This helped reduce the number of applicants from about 60 per graduate role to about 39. The firm does not entirely discourage the use of AI during the hiring process, but provides guidance on how to use it “responsibly”.
Gomersall added: “I would encourage [graduates] to do the old-fashioned thing and actually apply to a smaller number of roles that you really care about.”
His comments come amid growing worries over the shrinking number of graduate jobs in traditional white-collar sectors such as accounting, consulting and law.
Many of the biggest firms in these sectors have cut back on graduate hiring, blaming a combination of AI and, in some cases, a slowdown in demand for consulting services.
According to the Institute of Student Employers (ISE), a non-profit body, there were 8 per cent fewer graduate jobs available in 2025 than the prior year. A further 7 per cent drop is expected this year.
Malcolm Gomersall, chief executive of Grant Thornton
However, Grant Thornton, which employs more than 200 partners and 5,000 people in Britain and 76,000 people across the world, would not significantly change its graduate intake this year, Gomersall said.
Based in London, Grant Thornton UK is Britain’s sixth-largest advisory firm, behind BDO and the “Big Four” of Deloitte, PwC, EY and KPMG. It turned over £724 million in 2024. Last year it was bought by private equity giant Cinven in a deal reported to value it at up to £1.5 billion.
Last week it announced a £500 million investment in technology in a bid to make its advisory services faster and more efficient.
This will see the structure of the firm changed from the “pyramid” model commonly used across the industry, where a small number of senior partners oversee large numbers of more junior staff, to what Gomersall called “more of an obelisk” shape.
It will involve junior staff spending more time with a larger number of partners in the hope they will develop higher-value skills more quickly.
Gomersall said: “In the early years of your career, the bit you really learn from is when you spend time with partners and managers who are supervising your work.
“And then there’s a lot of time tapping away on your laptop, analysing things, that will become significantly less of the role. It’s going to be much more of the exciting bit.”
He added: “I think our trainees are spending too much time in Excel, which is a wonderful tool, but not enough time talking to human beings. And this is about unlocking talking to human beings.”
To fuel this transition Grant Thornton said in November it would hire 160 new partners in the next two years. It has also begun recruiting more graduates with coding, data science and other digital skills as well as those entering from more traditional backgrounds.