Life at Fordham

Getting the right start in your career can make all the difference.

We’re proud of the fact that many of our graduates go on to have long careers at Fordham and work their way up to Partner. Our people are what makes our business a success, so we are committed to providing a flexible working environment that cultivates high performance and offers you support every step of the way.

Fordham is one of the fastest-growing chartered accounting firms in Australia. We help our clients with specialist accounting advice and as a specialist part of Perpetual, we offer the opportunity to work in a business advisory firm with the backing of a trusted diversified financial services company.

As a Fordham Graduate Accountant, you will be exposed to a variety of work and be involved in our clients' business journey, from start to finish. Fordham will also support you through the Chartered Accountants Program with training, workshops and study leave, plus rewarding you on completion of the program with a $5,000 salary increase.

Most chartered accounting firms steer their people into specialist teams where they are stuck all their working lives. Not at Fordham. From Day 1, you’ll be working closely with our senior advisors on real projects for our clients. Throughout our structured graduate program you’ll develop the broad skill set you’ll need to advise our clients on every facet of their businesses.

Leading Expertise

We work with the leaders of some of Australia’s largest and most dynamic private businesses, established wealthy, NFP’s and large corporate trusts. They need advisors who have the expertise and all-round knowledge to match theirs.

That’s why we make sure our graduates have a solid understanding of business, taxation and accounting fundamentals. Add to this, CA support and qualifications, great career building, soft skills training and a team structure that provides mentoring and coaching and you can see why our graduates become Australia’s leading advisors.

Thrive

We’re are serious about supporting the growth of our staff. We offer flexible work arrangements to enable success, understanding that flexibility means different things to different people.

Diversity and Inclusion

We believe diverse teams leads to greater outcomes and that diversity of thought and diversity of opinion is an important driver of performance. We’re building a sustainable workplace environment that is open, accepting of individual differences and where all of our people have the opportunity to realise their full potential.

Interested in finding out more?

To be eligible, you will need to:

Be an Australian or New Zealand Citizen or an Australian Permanent Resident at the time of submitting your application
Have completed your undergraduate or postgraduate degree within the last three years of the program start date
Be willing to relocate to the location of the role you are applying to
Have a credit or above GPA

Be eligible or become eligible to undertake your CA if applying to the Fordham Accounting Business.

Graduate

Vacationer

Experienced professionals

Why work at Fordham?

Business-owner focus

It’s much more interesting to work with the person making the decisions, than someone lower down the chain. It’s challenging and demanding but it’s always rewarding.

Client contact early

Most graduates don’t want to be stuck in a back room, punching numbers. They want to get out and meet clients and help them make their business better. Our clients are some of Australia’s leading private businesses, so there’s nowhere better to do this than Fordham.

Broad experience

If you join a massive accounting firm, with equally large clients, you’ll probably end up being an expert in one, tiny, niche area of accounting. Let’s hope it’s an interesting one! At Fordham you gain a wide range of expertise in the business, accounting, tax and investment decisions our clients need.

The people

The culture of a company is created by the people who work there. We think our open, approachable and confident style attracts great people and makes Fordham a great place to work. You’ll have to meet us and make up your own mind.

Challenge

Everyone who joins Fordham is given the opportunity to realise their potential. Whatever your strengths (and weaknesses) we will help you continue learning and developing throughout your career. That’s why so many of our partners started as graduates.

Fordham and its clients

Why develop your career at Fordham? It’s a killer combination of clients, colleagues and a unique service offering.

Training and development

At Fordham, training and development isn’t just something given to those on a structured graduate program. Everyone can participate. All of our people have a training and development plan tailored to their needs.

These are some of the specific training programs and benefits we run.

Buddy system

On your first day at Fordham you get a buddy. Their role is to make your early days easy and to help you integrate into the firm. These buddy relationships often continue for many years.

CA program support

We know that completing your CA while working full-time isn’t easy. That’s why we do everything we can to help our people pass – and we think our enviable pass rate shows it works! This support includes:

Payment of CA ANZ enrolment fee and support material for each module
Paid study leave for each module
Mock exams
In-house workshops run by our experts

Centres of excellence

Does economics light your fire? What about tax, or the motor industry? You’re in luck! We have a Centre of Excellence for each. In these specialised knowledge forums we flesh out issues and create solutions for our clients. They also ensure that knowledge is shared and everyone at Fordham has a broad-base of knowledge to draw on when they advise our clients.

Mentoring

We believe that mentoring is a two-way relationship and both mentor and mentee can learn a lot from each other. Our mentoring program matches junior staff with more senior employees, giving them a chance to discuss personal or professional issues with someone outside their direct reporting line.

Technical training

We run a comprehensive technical training program on both a firm-wide and individual basis. This includes regular updates on key areas where industry experts (either internal or external) update our teams on the latest thinking or regulatory changes.

Applications for the next intake are open

To apply click on the link below:

2024 Fordham Graduate Application Form 2023 Fordham vacationer application form

An employer of choice for gender equality

Fordham and Perpetual has been recognised by The Workplace Gender Equality Agency (WGEA) for being an employer who is committed to promoting gender equality in Australian workplaces.