Courtesy of Charlie Leake, Graduate Recruitment & Development Manager at Arriva:
ALWAYS ask a question at the end. I’ve done so many interviews where the candidate has not asked any questions. Whilst this won’t necessarily make or break the decision as to whether you succeed at the interview, a few well thought-out questions can really help a recruiter see that you are truly interested in the job
Courtesy of Charlie Leake, Graduate Recruitment & Development Manager at Arriva:
Take time to think before you answer. Don’t just rush into the first answer that pops into your head. I’d much rather a candidate takes time to answer the question and give me a good answer. It’s also ok if the candidate wants to change their answer to a different example, half-way through giving an example. Oh yes, and don’t try to blag it if you don’t know the answer – nine times out of ten, we’ll see straight through your blag
Courtesy of Charlie Leake, Graduate Recruitment & Development Manager at Arriva:
If possible, go and check out your place of work. I know that this isn’t always possible, but if you’re going to work for somewhere that has, let’s say a retail outlet…go and visit that retail outlet. You’ll be surprised how many interviewees do not
Courtesy of Charlie Leake, Graduate Recruitment & Development Manager at Arriva:
Research, research, research. There’s no excuse for not knowing what the organisation does, what industry it works in and what its competitive advantage is. You can make a really good impression by showing to have done some research. Even if it means taking a few notes in with you to the interview
Courtesy of Charlie Leake, Graduate Recruitment & Development Manager at Arriva:
Work on making a good first impression. This means that interviewees need to take the time to be their best, i.e. be professional. First impressions are really powerful, no matter how well trained the recruiter is, they’ll not be able to ignore really obvious mistakes like poor personal presentation, arriving late to the interview or appearing to be ill-prepared. All really basic things so get them right
You can never have enough feedback from employers about what they’re looking for from you. So I’m delighted to be able to share with you the latest news from one of the major graduate recruiters out there about what they need to see from you. How much of this do you need to start doing better?
You will always be in competition with others for jobs. Whether that’s one person, 100 people or a thousand people. A good percentage of the people you’re up against will continue to make the mistakes in their applications referred to in the latter part of this post in another blog I keep an eye on. You’ll find further evidence of the impact of Continue reading
I’m presently flexing my former graduate recruitment muscles by helping out on some pre-screening of applicants to our new graduate internship programme. Not only does it have a comforting familiarity about it it’s also reminding me of some fundamental reasons graduates fail to get to the interview stages.
Around 100 final year applicants from universities across the UK applied for one of the intern roles. There were some specific instructions Continue reading
It’s late on Friday so I’ll keep it brief. Here’s a quote from the Graduate recruitment manager at Centrica pointing out where a lot of applicants have gone wrong answering a team work related application question:
“We would strongly recommend that [a candidate] need[s] to spend some time to think of some great examples that they have been involved in and ensure that they Continue reading
I’m very happy to be able to announce the full line up for January 27th’s series of graduate employability workshops. Having them on one day and in one venue (the university campus) should allow you to maximise the value of the time you take to attend. Here’s the line up. Continue reading
