Accountancy firm Grant Thornton is creating a dedicated in-house recruitment team.

The 14-strong unit will cover graduate, school leaver and summer intern recruitment, a total of 300 hires a year.

These were previously the responsibility of the firm’s HR function, with only two of the 20-strong team engaged in graduate recruitment full time.

Grant Thornton receives around 5,000 graduate applications a year.

Maria Floud, the company’s senior graduate recruitment manager, will head the new team. She told Recruiter that a dedicated “national trainee recruitment team” was crucial if recruitment at Grant Thornton was to become world class.

“If you are spread too thinly, you just can’t do it,” said Floud.

A key reason for the new team was to improve Grant Thornton’s brand, and boost its presence at universities where it is competes with other accountancy firms for the best talent.

“In term of our brand, how many people know about us at university? We have got some of the toughest competition. The ’big four’ have invested a lot of time and resource [in their graduate recruitment],” said Floud.

Floud said the new team would also enhance the function service to the business. “The key thing is to provide the business with a distinctive service internally.”

Rather than focusing on technical skills when hiring new staff for the team, Floud said the emphasis would be on hiring “entrepreneurial and business focused” individuals.

She said she wanted the new team to be up to speed by October.