Company details

Zaventem, Belgium

HEADCOUNT

10000+

ORG TYPE

Corporate

SECTOR

Professional Services

WEBSITE

https://www.bdo.global/

About the company

BDO is a global network of independent public accounting, tax and advisory firms coordinated under the BDO brand. The company serves businesses and organisations ranging from fast-growing mid-market firms to large multinationals, with teams covering audit and assurance, tax, deals, risk and outsourcing, and consulting services. Day-to-day client delivery is handled by local member firms, while the global organisation sets shared operating principles and quality standards across the network. BDO also publishes global thought leadership and network updates alongside member-firm news.

Locations and presence

BDO’s global organisation spans 169 countries and territories with 860+ offices and more than 90,000 people (as stated for 30 September 2025). Working patterns vary by member firm, but major member-firm careers sites describe a mix of office, client-site and some remote work depending on team needs and role requirements.

Palpable Score

74.7

/ 100

BDO offers plenty of entry routes through its member firms, including internships, industrial placements, graduate programmes and school-leaver pathways, so early-career access is real and repeatable. The hiring process is well-explained in some major markets, with clear stages, adjustments support, and practical candidate guidance, but the global network structure means consistency is harder to verify across countries. Outcomes evidence is mixed: some member firms publish meaningful progression signals (like large annual promotion cycles), while the global organisation does not publish early-career retention or promotion-rate metrics.

Pillar 1: Early-career access

Score

16.7

/ 20

The company’s UK member firm runs recurring early-career hiring across graduates, school leavers, work experience, and placements and internships, with programme-based intakes posted by service line and region.
BDO’s US member firm keeps a dedicated entry-level and internships funnel, including campus-facing programmes and internship listings across multiple business areas.
The company’s member-firm footprint includes multiple countries publishing student and graduate entry pages, which makes early-career access visible beyond one geography, even though each member firm owns its own hiring.

Pillar 2: Hiring fairness and transparency

Score

14.0

/ 20

The company’s UK member firm publishes a step-by-step early-career process that spells out online assessments, video interview, virtual assessment centre activities, and a final in-person interview for many programmes.
BDO provides candidate-facing guidance on acceptable AI use in applications and assessments, and some early-career job ads explicitly state that screening is reviewed by a person rather than AI.
The company offers reasonable adjustments for assessments (including options like extended time or scoring adjustments) but does not publish a global, standardised hiring timeline or feedback commitment across member firms.

Pillar 3: Learning and support

Score

15.7

/ 20

The company’s UK member firm builds learning into early-career roles through paid study leave, qualification pathways, and stated coaching and mentoring on the graduate route.
BDO member firms in other markets publicly list structured support items for graduates such as paid study leave, mentoring, external study support, and professional membership fee coverage.
The company does not provide a global, comparable view of onboarding, mentorship assignment, or learning standards across the full network, so support quality outside the most visible member firms is difficult to verify.

Pillar 4: Pay fairness and stability

Score

14.3

/ 20

The company’s UK member firm publishes salaries on some early-career postings, including clear annual pay figures for industrial placements and salary figures for at least some graduate roles.
BDO uses funded professional training and paid study leave as part of early-career value in multiple member firms, which reduces out-of-pocket costs early in a career.
The company does not publish consistent pay ranges at a global level and salary transparency varies materially by member firm and country, which caps confidence in pay fairness across the network.

Pillar 5: Early-career outcomes

Score

14.0

/ 20

The company’s UK member firm explicitly positions industrial placements as a potential route into a graduate offer, which is a concrete early-career outcome pathway.
BDO’s UK member firm publishes large-scale annual promotion numbers, which signals active progression and internal movement at meaningful scale.
The company does not publish global early-career outcomes like retention, qualification completion rates by cohort, or time-to-promotion benchmarks, limiting how confidently candidates can judge typical outcomes across countries.

Useful links & resources

BDO Global locations (find your local member firm)BDO UK Early careers (students)BDO US Internships