The firm wants experts who also have strong interpersonal skills, or at least the ability to develop these skills.

"We look for people who have both expertise in their field, but...have also led, learned and participated in teams," he said.

"We provide people with an opportunity to have both formal training and on-the-job apprenticeship. Soft skills can absolutely be developed and assessed. We do it every day through feedback and coaching."

Speaking at a Digital Economy Skills round table, co-hosted by The Australian Financial Review and Deakin Co early this month, he said that part of the push from clients for more real-world experience was that clients were developing their own advisory skills.

"The organisations are actually building these capabilities in house, and so they should. The ability to harness data, and then draw insights from that data is a fundamental core skill set that most organisations should have," he said.

Stefanie Bradley, national leader, People & Change at KPMG, at the roundtable. supplied

Another participant at the roundtable, Stefanie Bradley, the national leader for People & Change at big four accounting and consulting firm KPMG, said that its consultants were building broader skills by looking outside the firm.

Build broader skills


"What we've seen is that there are two components [to skills development] that are quite exciting. One is that people want to learn outside of KPMG as well, and [we are] creating opportunities for them to take career breaks, or to have flexible work arrangements," Ms Bradley said.

"I have one [member] of my team who is a passionate sports commentator. And he does that one day a week. And from doing that, he has got an incredible ability to know what is happening quickly ... in the room."

She also highlighted another team member who is on a flexible work arrangement while she studied biology.

"This is a course not directly related to 'people consulting', however she is studying the complexity of biological systems and using these skills to help our clients navigate complex environments," she said.

Clients see the value of these extra-curricular jobs "and that's really new, and exciting for us".

"And we really encourage our people to go and have career breaks as well, overseas, with industry and also in the community ... and create the opportunity for them to come back," she said.

The second component was to develop younger staff members so they became more vocal within the firm and with clients.

"We [were] quite a hierarchical firm for a long time ... Those days have [long] gone, and what we are looking for is opportunities for all of our employees, no matter label they are, to contribute to the firm," she said.

edmundtadros@afr.com.au