Writing a graduate scheme application

How the process actually works

A typical graduate scheme runs: online application, psychometric tests, a recorded video interview, an assessment centre, and sometimes a final interview. Each stage exists to reduce the number, and most applicants are removed at the first two.

The volumes are the important context. A scheme taking thirty graduates may receive several thousand applications, which means the early screening is fast and mechanical rather than considered.

Many schemes recruit on a rolling basis and close when they are full, sometimes months before the advertised deadline. Applying in September to a scheme with a January deadline is a materially different proposition from applying in December.

Assume nothing carries over between employers. Each application is read cold by someone who has not seen your CV.

Competency answers

Most application forms ask for examples against named competencies — teamwork, resilience, commercial awareness, problem solving, leadership. They are asking for evidence, and the failure mode is answering with claims instead.

'I am a strong team player' is a claim. 'I coordinated a five-person group project where two members had dropped out by week six; I redistributed the work against the marking criteria and we submitted on time with a 68' is evidence.

STAR is the standard structure and it works: situation briefly, task, action in detail, result with a number where possible. Most of the word count belongs in Action, because that is where what you did lives.

Say 'I', not 'we'. Team examples are fine and the assessor needs to know what you specifically did. An answer entirely in the first person plural tells them nothing about you.

End with the result and quantify it wherever you can. Numbers make an answer concrete and are what a reader remembers.

Choosing your examples

Draw from the widest range you have: academic work, part-time jobs, societies, volunteering, sport, caring responsibilities, side projects. Employers do not require the example to be corporate.

Use a different example for each competency. Four answers drawn from the same group project reads as a thin experience base, whatever the answers say.

Recent is better than impressive. Something from the last two years carries more weight than a school achievement, because it speaks to who you are now.

Build a bank before you start applying: eight to ten situations, each written out once in STAR form. Then each application is selection and tailoring rather than invention, which is what makes applying to fifteen schemes feasible.

The 'why this company' answer

This is the answer that distinguishes applications, because it is the only one that cannot be reused, and it is the one most often written generically.

Generic answers name the company's size, reputation or values in language taken from its own website. Assessors read hundreds of these and they signal that the applicant applied to twenty firms with the same paragraph.

A strong answer names something specific and connects it to you: a piece of work the firm did, a division you want to be in and why, a change in their market that interests you, a person you spoke to at an event and what they said.

Ten minutes of research is enough — the annual report's strategy section, recent news, and the graduate site's description of the actual rotations. Reading the strategy section puts you ahead of most applicants.

The mirror question, 'why this role', needs the same treatment: what specifically about the work, not what the job would do for your career.

Online tests

Numerical, verbal and situational judgement tests are the usual set, and they are usually the largest single cut.

Video interviews

Usually recorded rather than live: a question appears, you have thirty seconds to think and two minutes to answer, often with one retake or none.

Prepare the standard questions in advance — why us, why this role, a competency example, a current issue in the sector — and rehearse aloud with a timer. Two minutes is shorter than it sounds.

Practical points that affect the impression more than they should: look at the camera rather than at your own image, sit against a plain background, check the lighting is in front of you rather than behind, and test the microphone.

Keep notes out of shot with bullet points, not scripts. Reading is obvious on camera and it removes the natural delivery the format is assessing.

Assessment centres

Typically a group exercise, an individual case or presentation, an interview, and sometimes a written task, across half a day or a full day.

In the group exercise, the assessors are watching how you work with others rather than whether your side wins. Contributing usefully, bringing in a quiet participant, keeping the group to time and building on someone else's point all score. Dominating scores badly, and so does saying nothing.

In the case exercise, structure is what is assessed. State your approach before diving in, work through it visibly, state assumptions, and reach a recommendation even if the data is incomplete.

You are being assessed all day, including over lunch and while chatting to current graduates. That is not a trick; it is how the day works.

Ask the current graduates real questions. They usually feed back informally, and it is the best information you will get about whether you want the job.

Timing and volume

Apply early in the cycle. Rolling recruitment means the same application is stronger in October than in January, and some schemes fill by December.

Apply to a realistic number — most careers services suggest eight to fifteen well-tailored applications rather than forty generic ones. Quality visibly differs and the tailoring is the part that gets through.

Keep a tracker: firm, role, deadline, stage, date applied, outcome. Applications overlap and stages arrive with short notice.

Expect rejection at volume. A one-in-ten success rate to assessment centre is normal, and it is not information about you.

After a rejection

Ask for feedback, briefly and politely. Most firms will not give it at application stage because of volume, and many will after an assessment centre, where it is specific and worth having.

Where you were rejected after tests, that is the most actionable outcome: test performance improves with practice more than any other stage, and knowing that is where you failed tells you what to do before the next cycle.

Where you reached an assessment centre and did not get an offer, you are close. Firms frequently invite unsuccessful assessment-centre candidates to apply again the following year, and some fast-track them.

Do not read a rejection as information about your ability. At the volumes involved, a strong application can fail because the firm filled its places three weeks earlier, and the same application succeeds elsewhere.

Common reasons for rejection

Six, and the first three are entirely within your control.

• Generic 'why this company' answers.
• Competency answers made of claims rather than situations.
• Answers written in 'we' so the assessor cannot see what you did.
• No preparation for the tests, which are the largest single cut.
• Applying late in a rolling cycle.
• Not meeting a stated eligibility requirement, which is checked automatically.