Not Ideal Timing KPMG

We took another look at BusinessWeek’s Top Places to Launch a Career list because: 1) lists out of business magazines, no matter how trite and meaningless, have a way of sucking us in and B) we figured there may be more information that you would find interesting.
As we mentioned last week, Deloitte knocked E&Y off the mountain by having the best stats in some key categories like salary, three-year retention rate, and lowest drop in entry level hiring.
Here are a few more stats we discovered in BW’s list:
• Only 2% of Deloitte’s new associates received a performance bonus, and the average bonus was $296. This compares to 35% for E&Y, 27% for P. Dubya, 68% for KPMG, and 85% for GT. The respective average bonus was $5,141; $4,900; $3,700; $1,552.
Continued, after the jump

• E&Y really loves their new associates so much that they spent, on average, $18,500 on training for each one. The next hightest was KPMG at $7,689. We double-checked the E&Y number, thanks.
• We mentioned the three year retention rates for the firms last week and Guest 3 noted how this is um, not good. Interestingly enough, the five year retention rate is worse, with all the firms hovering around 34%, except for GT whose five year retention rate was 28%
• PwC had the youngest partner at 30 years with eight years seniority while E&Y and GT both had partners with seniority of seven years with seven years. Deloitte’s youngest was 31 with ten years and KPMG’s was 32 with 9 years.
Unfortunately, the list does not contain happy hour to new hire or hottie to nottie ratios but we figure these fairly close too. So of you’re a recruit this probably leaves you just as confused as before.
Discuss the stats in the comments and try to guide our college friends in the right direction. Recruits, if you’ve got your mind made up, let us know which firm and why. You’re going to have to sell it though.