Throughout the great financial services boom, the largest accountancy firms fought tooth and nail for fees and clients; the maxim that ethics was for losers was often worryingly close to the truth. The firms also found it hard fighting for talent to maintain their stream of services. The brightest, while still flocking to finance in their graduate thousands, were tending to view trading floors and banking as a better choice.

That has changed: accounting firms are back in pole position for financially minded graduates. However, they still need to work on their reputations. So, instead of hard-nosed boasting of client coups, the news streaming out of the firms is of softer skills.

PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) boasts that it is the highest-rated professional services firm in the Top 50 Best British Brands. Deloitte trumpets that its employee Isobel Sharp has been named First Woman of Finance in this year’s First Woman Awards. And KPMG points out that it is the only accounting firm among the Working Families’ top 20 employers.

However, there is another way to gain attention. Last week John Whiting left PwC after 37 years. He had become a well-known tax guru, appearing on television at Budget time and in every other media outlet whenever an explanation of the complexities of the tax system was required. But his success was founded on something very simple: he wanted to explain and put himself out to do so. And having made that his simple goal, the clarity of his comments simply followed. Journalists flocked to his door. A few years ago the US chairman of PwC wanted to know who in the accounting world got quoted most often. The firm had spent a fortune with consultants on collating the information. And, presumably, he comfortably expected it to be himself. But it was the self-effacing Mr Whiting and the lesson was that the hardball methods of competing are not always going to produce the most successful results.

As the firms reposition their image and build their skills, the view is that the talent market is now down to “poaching from your competitors unmercifully”. But in the long run the Whiting strategy should never be neglected.

businessfeatures@thetimes.co.uk

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