Interviews in the corporate world can be tough; by the turn of 2010 I had been to my fair share of these after graduating. The applications that I made range into the hundreds, the interview processes probably range up to 8.
For those unfamiliar with the recruitment process as a graduate, let me enlighten you. The recruiters stipulate that they want a graduate with a certain qualification level, normally a 2.1 grade as a minimum. You apply; if successful you carry out a numerical test and a verbal reasoning test online. A telephone interview can be conducted at this point too. Then you go to a group interview. This is normally a room of 30 people who have achieved the minimum grade, passed the online tests, passed the telephone interview and now you’re all going to compete to demonstrate who the loudest person is for the next 4-6 hours. Yes I said it, the loudest person. When I went to the processes as someone who was spot on and brilliant in my theory and conversation, I didn’t get far. When I observed the people who were successful at this stage, I quickly learned and adapted to be obnoxious. Guess what? They loved it!
On passing this stage, you are invited to a one-on-one interview with ‘the big cheese’ and now you have to tell them why you are great for the role. I got to this stage on 3 occasions. I didn’t get any of those roles but the fob-off excuse I got in my feedback telephone calls each time without fail was ‘You’re fantastic, but the market has changed with the recession mate. A, B and C have sales/marketing/financial experience which you don’t’ and this leaves you thinking surely you need to sack someone in your recruitment department as I have gone through all these stages for you to only pick that up now!
[the quest to find a role post-university]
I didn’t get a treat for passing each round and getting a step closer to the prize, the job.
I didn’t get Myleene Klass playing the piano for me at a champagne brunch, or a day at a health spa, or a dancing lesson from the stars of some dancing show on the BBC as a result of getting a step closer each time.
[Lord Alan Sugar - The Apprentice]
I have the greatest respect for Lord Alan Sugar, and I place him as my favourite and most respected businessman in the UK. His show, The Apprentice, is dubbed as the toughest interview process in the land. No! These guys are being chauffeured everywhere they need to go, are being put up in a town house for their troubles, I’m sure they’re being paid by the beeb for their troubles of being at this interview. Then as they pass each week (rounds, it’s all the same) they have a treat such as those mentioned before. Some may argue that the treat is an added incentive of winning and making it to the following week, if the job itself (or the six figure salary/investment) isn’t incentive enough then these people shouldn’t have made it to the show in the first place. Another argument, the treats make good TV. They only broadcast like a two minute montage of the bloody treat! Two minutes of an hour is not going to be missed. The apprentice candidates will have also gained exposure as they have demonstrated their skills on TV, even if they didn’t get the job with Lord Sugar they will have an easier time finding a role elsewhere. Mass exposure, higher chance of interview, you do the math. Graduates, when unsuccessful are left on the heap.
The reasoning behind the heap is that since the recession hit, I have found many jobs to be asking for experienced fresh graduates. Most people I came across at recruitment fairs only had retail experience, yet these recruiters are asking for the very few graduates who somehow have become venture capitalist entrepreneurs whilst simultaneously studying for three years.
Further to this, they ask for what you do or did as an extra-curricular activity. Luckily I have a bit of a sporting background consisting of basketball, football and athletics during school, Karate and then boxing during university. I did dancing shows, singing and acting. So my CV wasn’t purely defined by my studies.
This leaves me thinking, what happens to those very clever individuals who loved nothing more than the subject they studied and books? Those people that could cite Acts of Law, political philosophy, construct arguments for and against various social concepts and systems. What happens to these people? Desperation in abandonment is what happens to these people. Some may have landed jobs in companies in various positions with a view to eventually move internally to what they want to pursue as a career (such as myself), others I met had been travelling from London to Birmingham, Glasgow, Edinburgh just for interviews and still failing…based on experience. I read about others who have taken out billboards to place their CV at London Victoria station, to still not be any better off.
[Kanye West openly and humorously discusses the pit-falls of graduate life in much of his work]
Business isn’t all about entrepreneurship, you need entrepreneurs but you also need practical individuals to do the day to day running of the business operationally. You need the analytical minds that aren’t proven to be analytical through playing rugby or setting up a festival empire on the side. The Apprentice, consisting of treats, and the exposure the candidates receive, the chauffeur service to and from the all-expense paid town house, in comparison to the graduate interview process of horrid early morning train journeys, no extra prospect of employment gained and no treats…The Apprentice is not the toughest interview process by a mile. Everyone blames the government for this lack of graduate roles, but the blame surely lies with those doing the recruiting, for their ever-increasing list of skills and experience that they are demanding from the ‘lost generation’. The universities have to also take the blame for taking on more students with money bags in their eyes, let’s face it, more students more money entering the establishment. As a result the market has become over-saturated with graduates, who were not informed of anything to do with work experience, but were drummed to just learn, analyse, argue and turn out another essay.
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