The Chartered Accountants Australia and New Zealand (ANZ) Achiever Program helps match your organisation with penultimate and final year tertiary students looking to pursue a career in accounting and gain work experience.

Internships provide a valuable experience for both students and employers. As an employer, this is a terrific opportunity for you to evaluate the upcoming talent and expose those entering the workforce to your company’s brand. We know that recruiting for and running a work experience program requires time, cost and considerable effort.*

For this reason, we've designed a program to do some of the groundwork for you. Chartered Accountants ANZ in partnership with Readygrad, an expert in intern management and graduate recruitment programs, will identify well-rounded, quality students and connect them with employers like yourself offering paid** work experience.

Please read the Employer Guidelines to ensure you understand the terms of participating in the program.

The benefits of the program

• Save time and resources –by allowing us to assist with talent sourcing for a paid** internship placement
• Identify and engage with promising talent
• Build your employer brand with highly engaged students
• Establish a pipeline for your graduate program
• Students can bring a fresh perspective and eagerness to learn and contribute to an organisation
• Receive resources to help guide you through the program

In 2023, over 350 students were successfully placed with 210 employers across Australia and New Zealand. 

How does the process work?

Applicants will undertake an online assessment testing their verbal, numerical and abstract reasoning skills with benchmarks based on a norm group of thousands of assessments.

Additional insights will be provided through a one-way video interview assessing key professional skills such as problem solving, motivation and teamwork. These students are then matched to your organisation based on your specified selection criteria.

Timing, duration and cost

The winter placements will run between July and August 2024. Placements run from 3 to 12 weeks.

To ensure the viability and maintain our high-quality standard of the program, we will be implementing a modest fee of $990 in your local currency for each first successful placement made in your organisation.  If you wish to welcome additional interns in the same cohort, a fee of $350 in your local currency will be payable for each extra placement secured, subject to availability and providing equity to all our employer partners. Read more in the FAQs (PDF).

Building a relationship with promising talent ahead of the internship intake period could save you time and effort in the long run. After a positive work experience placement, students may commit to your organisation before they graduate. Across Summer 2021 and Winter 2022, more than 70% of students that undertook the program continued casual, part-time, or full-time work. *** 

"Ryan brought to work each day a desire to engage with his peers and clients and learn from his experiences. He would ask intelligent questions on assignments so that he could link the 'why' with the 'how'."

Key dates

Employer registrations

• Monday 5 February to Sunday 10 March 2024.

Student applications

• Monday 4 March to Sunday 24 March 2024.

Feedback from employers that participated in the 2022 Achiever Program

• It was a wonderful experience participating in the 2022 Achiever Program Winter cohort. It is a great opportunity for students as well as employers. Students can really benefit from this program to gain real-life experience, kick start their career, and to discover what career direction they want to choose. It is also a great opportunity for students / graduates to network with professional CAs and find a mentor for CA program. We really liked our "Achiever Student" and offered her a full time position. We highly recommend this program and are interested to participate in the upcoming program as well – Meena Shresthe, KAS Accounting Solutions, Northern Territory
• We found the process with CAANZ seamless and enabled our team access to a bigger range of potential future employees. We have enjoyed the input of our achiever students, who have moved into full time graduate roles with us following completion of their studies – Nick Bell, RSD Audit, Victoria

* majerrecruitment.com.au/blog/australian-recruitment-statistics Published 28/2/2018. Revised 7/4/2021
** The salary for student placements is at the discretion of employers and does vary from firm to firm
*** Data collected from 127 employers who participated in the Summer 2021 and Winter 2022 Achiever Programs responding to the question: Did your organisation place any of your Achiever students in an ongoing position, following their completion of the Achiever Program?

© 2023 Chartered Accountants Australia and New Zealand ABN 50 084 642 571. All rights reserved.

Do you have more questions?

Please email us at [email protected]

Feedback from employers that participated in the 2021 Achiever Program

• The CA Achiever Program had a seamless process. It was beneficial for organisations as well as students; allow firms to have the CA connection and gives students the opportunity to gain work experience while still studying. – James Watson, Manager, Business and Personal Advisory at WLF
• The process was easy, and all the hard work was taken care of; overall satisfied with the process. We have always experienced excellent Achiever candidate placements that makes us feel positive. – Marie Nickalls, Group Finance Manager at Shortland Chartered Accountants
• It was a good program that allowed us the opportunity to onboard a great intern who we are now looking at offering a permanent role. – Karolina Andrzejczy, Practice Manager, Business Advisory Services at Lifetime
• We've had good candidates come through by the Achiever Program who were offered further employment after their internship – 2 out of 5 were hired. Great support to our broader talent acquisition processes. – Barb Griffen, National HR Director at Cor Cordis 

* majerrecruitment.com.au/blog/australian-recruitment-statistics Published 28/2/2018. Revised 7/4/2021
** The salary for student placements is at the discretion of employers and does vary from firm to firm
*** Data collected from 57 employers who participated in the 2019 Achiever Program responding to the question – Did you place any of your candidates in an ongoing position following the completion of their Achiever Placement © 2021 Chartered Accountants Australia and New Zealand ABN 50 084 642 571. All rights reserved.

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