The IT Graduate Recruitment Process:
IT Jobs for Graduates has launched their first webcast to guide students through the graduate recruitment process. We have teamed up with leading recruitment specialists at KPMG and Fidessa to offer valuable insight on how to succeed through the recruitment process and also what happens behind the scenes when you leave the interview room. Hear first hand advice from people in the know, grab a pen and pad, press play and get a leading edge today!
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Transcript for "The IT Recruitment Process" Webcast
Ross Mac Donald:
Hi, my name is Ross, I work for a web site that is specialised in advertising IT graduate vacancies within Technology, we’re part of a larger team of web sites dealing specifically with the advertising of IT vacancies. The web site I work for specifically is www.itjobsforgraduates.com.
Chloe Ross:
I’m Chloe Ross, I’m a graduate Recruitment Officer, as part of a wider team that recruits a thousand graduates. I work for a company called KPMG. We’re an audit tax and advisory company. We have 22 offices throughout the UK. Employing over 10,000 staff. We’ve recently merged to become KPMG Europe with Germany, Switzerland and now Spain. We have 29 jobs in IT, within KPMG. These are nation-wide and the kind of jobs these are; we do IT advisory so you can go straight into IT advisory, or we also have IT advisory with an ACA qualification. The ACA qualification is the accounting qualification that you can do along side your IT advisory training contract. The Training contracts lasts for 3 years.
Wayne Coomey:
Hi, My name is Wayne Coomey, I’m head of human resources for Fidessa, I look after the Europe side of the company. Fidessa is a world-leading provider of trading systems, market data, and connectivity to the participants of the financial markets globally. We have offices in London, Woking, Belfast, New York, Toronto, Hong Kong and Japan. We have 40 graduate positions. We take on 40 IT graduates positions annually, and they are within Service Delivery, Support, Consultancy, and Development.
Are there any common mistakes you see graduates making in interviews that you would advise them against?
Chloe Ross:
Yep, there are two common mistakes that graduates make during their interviews. We assess against two competencies. One’s called “business focus” and the second one’s called “career motivation”. Within your business focus, one of the mistakes graduates do is they don’t do their research on what’s going on in the wider business world. Although you may apply for KPMG, we want to know that you’re aware of what’s going on. So some top tips are to really keep an eye on what’s going on, log on to a website every day and have a look, like the BBC News website. Keep up to date with your Financial Times. The second one career motivation, we really want to know that you’re motivated to do the career you say you are. So we want to know why you want to apply for KPMG, so really doing your research around KPMG on what we do and looking into the position you’ve applied for, and knowing what you’re going to be doing in your first year, will be a real asset to you.
Wayne Coomey:
Yeah, no I agree, I think one of the biggest mistake that people make, especially IT graduates when they come for an interview is that they haven’t done their homework on the position or the company that they are coming to apply for. And I think that’s crucial, you know, they may be going for a number of graduate positions with a number of different companies, so having that background knowledge about products the company. And even getting hold of their contacts or their network people and finding out more about the people who work there, they could even perhaps phone up someone from HR and get some knowledge. Coming with a list of questions. People think: “I won’t bother”. But actually, the questions are really important because people, especially graduates who are new to the job market, get very nervous in an interview situation and may in their own mind before hand, have some questions. But actually having them written down, and then just checking them off as they go before the interview is finished.
So what happens next once a candidate has left their interview?
Wayne Coomey:
With us, they are interviewed by the HR Team. And then, they have two technical interviews by technical managers or directors, of the departments that we are looking to recruit graduates for. Following this, there is a get together of those individuals, and they compare their different interviews and their ratings that they scored the graduates against the positions. And then we communicate back to all individuals, not just graduates, but all positions and within 3-5 days with hopefully a job offer.
Chloe Ross:
At KPMG, for your first round interview, you do an interview with the manager from the business and field, second round interview you’ll do a partner interview and presentation. And after those interviews have taken place the partner or the manager will go away and score you against the competencies. Work competencies are listed on our website so you know these before you go into your interview. The manager is then given 3 working days in which to submit the notes to the graduate recruitment team. We will then pick these up in graduate recruitment and we will then email you to let you know the outcome. So if you are successful we then invite you through to the next stage and if you are not successful we will actually give you feedback on the areas you went wrong on in your interview.
Should a candidate ask about the salary in the interview and what increase should they expect within 3 years?
Wayne Coomey:
My advice is don’t ask, we benchmark our graduates and graduate salaries, in fact all salaries three times a year against the market. We may ask the graduate what salary level they may be expecting. And then we would correct that if it was outside of the bands that we would look to pay. Saying that, graduates are reviewed every 6 months and their salary increases in level with their performance, so it’s very much performance driven.
Ross MacDonald:
Well, we’ve advertised on IT jobs for graduates and starting salaries tend to begin at around about £18,000-£22,000. Now, in terms of when you’re actually attending an interview, I would agree with Wayne that it’s not the right thing to do in order to ask what salary they pay because in a very competitive market, graduate recruiting, all the different companies are constantly comparing and contrasting what they’re spending on graduates. It’s probably not a good idea, but you will be bang on market rate, in terms of just entering into a career. But, generally speaking the highest paying sectors tend to be Finance, Consultancies, Energy companies, Software houses places like that. So if you’re actually looking to get a decent starting entry level salary aim for one of those sort of sectors and you should be doing yourself justice.
Chloe Ross:
I would echo that as well, I wouldn’t advise to ask it at your interview. KPMG are actually don’t tell you what our salaries are until we’ve actually made an offer, and again our salaries are reviewed throughout the year. So if you are successful and are made an offer you will find out what the salary is.
When should graduates expect a promotion and factors would influence it?
Chloe Ross:
Throughout the KPMG training contract, each year you are expected to move up a grade, so you would start as an E1 and move to an E2 and E3 throughout your training contract. Once you’ve finished your training contract you will then be expect to move into an assistant manager position, which is a D4 position. This is obviously reviewed against an appraisal system, so we have appraisals yearly and you will be assessed against your performance. We actually use that same competencies that we recruit you on those appraisals. And then if you are taking a professional qualification, you would have to pass your professional qualification to be in line for promotion.
Wayne Coomey:
Yeah no absolutely, promotion and career progression is absolutely fundamental I think for graduates coming in. We have a structured mentoring programme and training programme on boarding programme for the first 18 months for graduates, and following that, we have at their appraisal time their next career move is highlighted and they work towards those. So we have a consistent flow of graduates and employees working through the organisation.
Is IT a good career despite the issues of offshoring?
Chole Ross:
The jobs that we offer in KPMG within IT is actually advising clients, so identifying risks and helping clients to overcome their problems. So the jobs vary from being involved in project management, to project analysis, IT governance, so there’s definitely a lot of opportunities within the UK.
Wayne Coomey:
Yeah and I follow that again, we have no intentions to offshore, we haven’t offshored in the past and that’s certainly not on the agenda to offshore any of our developments or services for better offers. I think there’s a very good pool of candidates within the EU, so we can’t se any need to offshore.
IT Jobs for Graduates:
So is this to say that there’ll always be opportunity for graduates within the UK?
Wayne Coomey:
Absolutely yeah, we take on up to 40 graduates a year all in the UK.
Can non-IT qualified graduates enter the IT industry and should they go about this?
Wayne Coomey:
Once again I think it comes back to investigation into the organisation through their website and seeing what different departments offer. A good way into Fidessa is through the support area which is non-technical and we take on a number of graduates through that area and once they get to grips with the technology, they must have an interest in the technology, then they can transfer within the company to other areas where there’ll be client facing or to a project manager or other. So there are, but it takes some investigation, on the individuals’ part.
Chloe Ross:
We offer our IT positions to anybody so long as they have a 2.1 degree they can have a degree in anything and they don’t have to have relevant work experience. What we do ask is that you show you have the motivation to work in this industry so that’s where we go back to we go back to what I said earlier your career motivation, it’s really important that you can show us that you’re motivated for a career in this area.
How do you advice graduates to go about gaining industry experience?
Chloe Ross:
At KPMG we actually assess against competencies so we’re not looking for you to have any work experience and you don’t need any work experience, so for KPMG we’re happy for you to apply without the experience and you can pick that up once you join us. But if you do wish to gain some experience to help you, particularly when answering questions around competency then definitely internships are a good way to get some experience, KPMG offers some internships as well, so keep an eye out and see what companies do that would really help you.
Wayne Coomey:
yeah I follow suit again, but we also offer short-term placement for individuals when they’re in their gap year. And once again, I think it is down to the individual to look at websites, use their networks and contacts, even their parents or friends to get in even if it’s just 4 weeks shadowing or a job placement. Companies are out there and they are absolutely willing to take the hit and take somebody on, because you never know potential that individual might be down the road be the next CEO.
Ross MacDonald:
Yeah, it has been the case with companies that I deal with that having an internship or industrial placement under your belt will stand you in good stead but if, again echoing what’s been said already, if you have the desire and drive to work within IT it’s not really going to influence the decision too much for the actual recruiters.
Words of wisdom?
Wayne Coomey:
I think my best word of wisdom is “prepare”. Take the time before the interview as I said before to look at the website, know what the company does, bring along as well structured CV and don’t give up. You know because a lot of companies are looking for specific from their graduates and some aren’t so you know, keep going and you’ll get the job that you want.
Chloe Ross:
I’ve the same advice it’s definitely preparation from both sides. Making sure that it’s definitely the right job for you and the right company for you. But at the same time, we’re not trying to trick you, were giving you a platform to show what you can do, we’ll give you all the answers on our website, we tell you what competencies we’re looking for, so really prepare and show your enthusiasm and motivation.
Ross MacDonald:
I’d say that my words of wisdom would be to ensure that when you’re actually filling out your application form that you get your personality through in that application. With some companies experiencing thousands and thousands of applications for a handful of positions it’s critical that your application is jumping out of the computer screen at the person who’s actually assessing your application CV and don’t flood it with lots of useless stats keep it concise but get your personality through and that would be my main pearls of wisdom.
Wayne Coomey:
And lastly, I think interviewing is a two-way thing so you remember that you’re actually interviewing the company as well as the company interviewing you so don’t accept the first job if it’s not right for you, it has to be right for you as well as the company.
Ross MacDonald:
Really question the person who’s interviewing you too to ascertain that this is the right career choice for yourself.
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Source: http://www.itjobsforgraduates.com/browse/Graduate-Webcast