Episode 125: How to get a graduate job with Inspiring Interns

January 16, 2022 Podcast

Welcome to the second show of the year, and episode 125  of the UK’s number 1 career podcast, and I’ve got a special episode for you today. Joining me on the show is a company that you are going to want to check out if you are looking for a graduate job, as I speak with Ben Rosen, CEO of Inspiring Interns. Inspiring Interns are a company who can help you find a 3-month paid internship across a range of industries and locations. There is no cost to you, you bring your graduate talent, they sort out the rest. On the show, we explore all aspects of the process, from why you should apply and the power of internships, not only in getting you a graduate role but in helping you find the role that is right for you. We cover the different stages of the process and how you can stand out in each, through to making a great impression when you do start. No matter what companies you are applying to, if you’ve never thought of an internship before, this is an episode you won’t want to miss. Now the only link you need to remember from today is www.graduatejobpodcast.com/inspiringinterns where you can find a full transcript, and links to everything which we discuss, that’s www.graduatejobpodcast.com/inspiringinterns.

MORE SPECIFICALLY IN THIS EPISODE YOU’LL LEARN ABOUT:

  • Who Inspiring Interns are and why you should apply
  • The power of creating a video CV, and how they get results
  • The secrets to impressing in a face-to-face interview
  • Why you shouldn’t overlook the importance of being on time
  • Ben’s insider tips for impressing throughout the application process

SELECTED LINKS INCLUDE:

Transcript 125 – How to get a graduate job with Inspiring Interns

Announcer: Welcome to the Graduate Job Podcast, your home for weekly information and inspiration to help you get the graduate job of your dreams.

James: Hello and welcome to the Graduate Job Podcast, with your host James Curran. The Graduate Job Podcast is your home for all things related to helping you on your journey to finding that amazing job. Each episode I bring together the best minds in the industry, speaking to leading authors, graduate recruiters and career coaches who bring decades of experience into a byte size show. Put simply, this is the show I wish I had when I graduated.

Hello, dear listener, welcome to the second show of the year, and episode 125  of the UK’s number 1 career podcast, and I’ve got a special episode for you today. Joining me on the show is a company that you are going to want to check out if you are looking for a graduate job, as I speak with Ben Rosen, CEO of Inspiring Interns. Inspiring Interns are a company who can help you find a 3-month paid internship across a range of industries and locations. There is no cost to you, you bring your graduate talent, they sort out the rest. On the show, we explore all aspects of the process, from why you should apply and the power of internships, not only in getting you a graduate role but in helping you find the role that is right for you. We cover the different stages of the process and how you can stand out in each, through to making a great impression when you do start. No matter what companies you are applying to, if you’ve never thought of an internship before, this is an episode you won’t want to miss. Now the only link you need to remember from today is www.graduatejobpodcast.com/inspiringinterns where you can find a full transcript, and links to everything which we discuss, that’s www.graduatejobpodcast.com/inspiringinterns.

Before we start, a quick message from me. This episode is going out in the middle of January, where the graduate application process gets very serious, with video interviews and assessment centres coming thick and fast. This is when you need to start taking it seriously, and it’s not the time to start leaving things to chance. If you want to ensure you are in the best possible shape ahead of interviews, assessment centres, group exercises, role plays, whatever it might be, get in touch. I offer one-on-one coaching, I’m also running mock group exercises over the coming months so you can practice those in a group setting, and if you really want to get ready, there is my flagship How to Get a Graduate Job course, which it is never too late, or to too early to sign up to. You wouldn’t have a driving test without having lessons beforehand, so why would you want to take a recorded video interview or go to an assessment centre without getting practice in? You get one shot to impress, so get in touch at www.graduatejobpodcast.com/coaching and see how I can help. You will be glad you did, but be quick though, as I only have a limited number of slots and they are filling up quickly. That’s www.graduatejobpodcast.com/coaching. Right, with that said, let’s jump in to my chat with Ben Rosen from Inspiring Interns.

James: A very warm, welcome to the show today. Ben Rosen, CEO, and founder of Inspiring Interns. Ben, welcome to the Graduate Job Podcast.

Ben Rosen: Thank you very much. It’s good to be here.

James: Today we’re going to dive in and find out more about Inspiring Interns and what you do as a company, and why listeners should be paying close attention to find out how you can help them on the search for graduate jobs of different kinds. So, to maybe kick us off, tell us a little bit more about yourself and also Inspiring Interns.

Ben Rosen: Yeah, sure. My name’s Ben Rosen. I set up Inspiring Interns 13 years ago kind of with the goal of helping companies troll through the growing amount of candidates looking for new graduate opportunities. I mean, from a competitive advantage that we kind of came up with in the beginning was to create a video CV of the person to enable them to create the best version of themselves and to put themselves forward to employers. So, we’ve been going for 13 years and we’ve placed about 11,000 people in an internship in a whole range of areas. It’s all good and we’re growing nicely.

James: Yeah. Lots of happy graduates there over the years. Any particular types of companies that you work with? In terms of internships and also permanent roles?

Ben Rosen: We work with a range of different clients. But I guess about 25% of our roles are in digital advertising, digital media, mobile advertising things in the digital space. But that’s really where my network was, where we began. So, we have grown it from there.

James: Yep. A real growing market that in the whole digital realm, especially the online advertising realm. As a company then, why do you think internships are so important to graduates?

Ben Rosen: Well, the reason why I think they’re important is that they give the graduate an opportunity to experience a role in the workplace. Because before they’re choosing the role they want to do, then they look upon it theoretically. It’s quite difficult to navigate what you’re best at. The best role for you and the best environment for you. You don’t know what it is until you try different environments, different roles to see what you’re best at and see what you like best. It enables you to put your toe in the water, take a three-month internship. If you do well, you could get a job at the end of it. In the same token, if it’s not quite right for you, you could then apply for another internship at the end of that internship. Something more relevant or more suited to your skillset.

James: Yep. You know, the experience you’re going to get as you do them is going to be amazing. It’s gonna look great in your CV and a real thing that’s going to help as well is just finding out what you enjoy. Most importantly, what you don’t enjoy, especially when you’re looking further down the line at your career. So yeah, internships are super, super powerful when you’re applying for grad jobs. In terms of the internships you offer, are they all paid or some of them?

Ben Rosen: All our internships are paid internships. We specialize in getting graduates internships. So, we do have a very small, maybe 1% of the placements we do are people in their first or second year at university. We specialize in getting quite serious internships. So, that’s our sweet spot.

James: Excellent. So, if I’m a graduate who recently finished university, what would you recommend then in terms of, you know, getting in touch or reaching out to yourselves? What’s the process for candidates?

Ben Rosen: Yeah, so what we recommend is they go on the website. They work out what type of role they want to do. First of all, so that’s the most important thing. So, for example, marketing or sales or an analyst or, you know, job types, they pick the job type that you want to do. Then once you’ve done that, you can then work out, you know, what job types exist in different sectors. Now, the reason I say go that way around as opposed to, I want to work in the music industry. Secondly, I want to do marketing, is that somebody in the music industry hiring a marketer doesn’t want somebody who wants to work in the music industry. They want somebody who wants to do marketing predominantly. If you’re great at marketing in the music company, you can also transfer your skills to do marketing in a finance company or in another sector. So, it’s very easy to move sectors. It’s very difficult to move job type. Yeah, it’s more difficult, you know you may not know what you want to do, but you may know that you’re more of a people orientated person. So, you would be using your communication skills, which may be writing in PR, or it may be being an account executive for an advertising agency. Or you might be more numerous and prefer working on your own, which may mean they need you to be more analytical. So yeah, what we try and do is ask them to go to the website, have a look at the different jobs available and job roles. Then think about what they’re best at and then create a profile with us by registering on Inspiring Interns.com. Then creating a video CV, which is almost like a short 30 seconds, a one-minute elevator pitch. Saying what you’re best at and the reasons why, and what you want to do. This saves you a lot of time and it gives you a better opportunity of getting a job. If you do a video CV, we found that you’ve got a three times more chance of landing a job that you want with having a video CV. Also makes the process a lot easier for clients. So, yeah, that’s what we recommend to do.

James: Excellent. You mentioned that a very, very small percent of the internships are for people in first and second years. When people think of internships, they tend to think of the summer. So, you know, starting in say July going through to September. Especially when they were you know, face-to-face. Your internships, I guess, do they run throughout the year?

Ben Rosen: We’re all year round. Our busiest time of year is actually in January. So, we work with companies who are looking to hire people in the next month. We do run a couple of grant schemes for people like Rathbone if you want to do accountancy. But the majority of the time, we’re dealing with people who were looking for a job in the next month.

James: In terms of the geographic spread, is it heavy in London or you?

Ben Rosen: Yeah, we’re predominantly London based. About 80% of our roles are in London. We do though place people in Manchester, in Brighton, in Glasgow and Edinburgh, Bristol. But we just don’t have as big a reach in those places.

James: Anything up in Leeds?

Ben Rosen: Yeah, we do. Actually. We have about five clients in leads. We’ve got advertising agencies.

James: There you go, listeners, make sure you get applying for those ones up in Leeds and come up to the promise. So, you mentioned a video CVs, which I know can be a little daunting for people. Often, getting in front of the camera and doing a little CV. What advice would you give people then? How to stand out when they do a video CV?

Ben Rosen: Just to be themselves. To be honest and to smile and be relevant. So if you say, I’m best at doing sales, give an example. You know, for example, in the summer I had a job in a call center and I was the second-highest biller on the call center or whatever it may be. Or just to give a real example, it doesn’t need to be incredible. It just shows that you backup your statements with some relevant information, some relevant facts.

James: Yep. It’s an impressive stat you said about if you do a video CV, it’s what, three times more likely to get hired by one of your clients?

Ben Rosen: Yeah, that’s true. I think the reason is that you know, video CV really cuts out the first interview because it enables the client to see the candidate. There’s a lot of things with hiring somebody in a job, it’s more of an art than a science. It’s all about getting on with the person, would they fit well into the team? It would give the candidate the opportunity to show himself in the best light, in a casual manner, and to really outline what they want to do, the reason why they want to do it. Smile and share their energy and enthusiasm. So, a really good video CV can increase your chances of getting a job by tenfold. On the same token a bad video CV, doesn’t help you get a job. So, you have to make sure that you’ve got a friend or a member of your family holding your phone up. It’s in a quiet location. If you’re a guy you’re wearing office attire so they can imagine you in their office.

James: Yep. I was on your website and having a look through a few of the video CVs, and they’re impressive. You can see people have really put the time and energy in, and yeah even though it’s a short video CV, you do get a feel of the candidate. You know, their personality, does come through. As you said, it does just replace that initial conversation that you go through in the normal initial interview stage.

Ben Rosen: You know, it can be daunting and I do empathize. What I recommend people to do is when they go on the Inspiring Interns website is pretend they’re an employer and click on view top talent, and then they can view other people’s video CVS and see how they’re positioning themselves and learn from them.

James: Great advice and links to everything that we discussed today can be found over in the show notes www.graduatejobpodcast.com/InspiringInterns is the name of the link today where you can find a link to Inspiring Interns, and just how you can go about applying. So, before we maybe move to the application process in more detail just covering off a few of the things that I know might be on listeners minds. The first of which is, does it cost me anything to work with yourself?

Ben Rosen: No, it’s free.

James: Which is always good to hear if you’ve recently graduated with a large student debt, free works well for you. What type of salary can people expect from the interns or do they vary on a company by company basis?

Ben Rosen: Yeah, it really depends. So, staffing salaries, highest in the city if you want to do finance. So, those roles tend to start around £30k, £35,000. If you’re looking to do marketing for a media company, you’re looking at a starting salary on average, about £25,000. So, starting salaries now, the average starting salary is £24,000.

James: Yep. So, as you’d expect then, if you’re going into the city, you’re going to get the burning the candle at both ends. Yeah. You do get paid more. What is the average length of the internships? Is it three months? Or do they vary?

Ben Rosen: We just use the word internship, but we cast that as a three-month internship, a six-month internship or even a full-time job. So, the goal is the internship leads to a job at the end of it. So, it gives them the opportunity of proving themselves and kind of creating a role for themselves and making themselves indispensable. That may mean like staying 15 minutes later every day, demonstrating a good attitude. Showing that they’re a team player and 70% of our internships turn into full-time jobs historically.

James: I was going to ask you that next which is a really impressive stat. So, it just shows just how well the candidates must be doing that what might start off as a temporary role becomes permanent when they get in there land and impressed. So, that’s really impressive stuff. So, if we move on to the application process, you mentioned applying via the website. Maybe if we talk more holistically though, first, what is it that you look for from graduates?

Ben Rosen: We look for people who follow up. So, you know, I have a team of people who represent our candidates and we don’t ask for candidates to exclusively work with us. But what we do ask is that, if we have a request for an interview, that they come back to us within a day. If they’ve been to an interview to follow up with the interviewer you know, thank them for their time. You know, it’s all about following up. So, the first impressions can be all well and good, but the long-lasting impression lasts with the person who’s followed up politely and with enthusiasm. Because that’s the type of people they want to work with. So, it’s all about attitude. You can train the skill, but you can’t change the attitude and a great attitude can get you a long way. Well, the idea is, you know, to find something you like doing, so if you like doing it, you tend to be good at it. The second point is to find something where you, the people around you are going to learn something from them. So, you’re going to sharpen your own sword and it shows you are continually learning and trying to improve yourself as this is just the beginning.

James: No, that’s great advice. Yeah. Listeners, if you’re not sort of following up and keen, when you get offered a job interview, then, this is the stage of the process where you want to be showing yourself in the best possible light. It doesn’t give someone a great impression of what you’re going to be like if you were to get the job. So, you know, if you’re not keen at this stage, when are you ever going to be keen? So, good advice there Ben.

Ben Rosen: Something else that’s really important. I know it sounds silly but be completely accurate with the grades they got at school and university. I do checks on their school’s A level grades and the university degree. Some of our clients wanted to do check some people’s GCSE results. We found that some people may have changed a C to a B in their GCSE maths. If they have done that, they’re straight out of the process. We won’t work with them. So, we’ve had two occasions where clients wanted to hire candidates. They wouldn’t have minded if they’ve got, for example, a C at GCSE maths, but because they were dishonest about it, they couldn’t hire them. So, it’s very important, don’t worry about if you know, you can’t change what you’ve done in the past. But what you can do is show your attitude, a willingness to work hard and to the best of your ability in the future.

James: Do you find many people lie in terms of their grades? Or is it just a small percentage?

Ben Rosen: Well, we didn’t use to check but its a very small percentage. But it’s a real shame when they have done it. Because it means that we can’t help them get a job.

James: Definitely. I mean, if you’re going to lie, you’re changing it from a C you might as well go away star. If you’re going to lie, go all in, as opposed to just changing it to a B.

Ben Rosen: Yeah, right exactly.

James: But yeah, completely agree. I mean, again, you know, what does it say about you as a candidate in terms of honesty and professionalism, if you’re caught lying at this stage? So look, you didn’t get what you wanted at GCSE or A-level own it, embrace it. You know, I’m sure you use it to your advantage and turn it into a story about how I was so disappointed with my A levels that I really focused at university. Buckled down and managed to get a 2:1, 1st, et cetera, et cetera, whatever it is.

Ben Rosen: Yeah. Show the tenacity that’s needed, you know that force people want to see. People want to see you make mistakes and how you’ve dealt with them because everybody makes mistakes. So, it’s not about making the mistake. It’s about how you deal with it.

James: Completely agree. So yeah, make sure you’re not lying because companies will check, you know, they will check these things. So yeah, you don’t want a fold, once you get a job interview. So, you get the offer and then have to get it rescinded because you’re lying. It’s not a good look at all. So, you have to make sure you’re not doing that business. We mentioned earlier about the video CV. So, is that the initial stage of the process? So, candidates complete a video CV.

Ben Rosen: Yeah. You go on the website and the final bit of registration is creating a video CV. So, you’ll have a helping hand with our team in the office who will send you some info and advice to complete. So, once it’s completed. We’re happy with it, then we publish it and then we start representing you.

James: What would be the next stage then? So, I create a cracking video CV. I’m looking nice and smart in front of the camera and set up properly, nicely lit good stuff. What’s the next stage?

Ben Rosen: Then you go on our website and you apply to the jobs that you wanted to go for. We have a one-click apply button for each one. Then our roles are represented by account managers. These account managers will come back to you and arrange the interviews, give you feedback. So, that’s the process.

James: I know from the graduates I’m coaching through some of the big graduate scheme applications for some of the big companies. It’s a long and drawn-out process with applications going in September, October, and, you know, offers sometimes not be made till March, February, April, May, sometimes. I’m guessing it’s a quicker process for yourselves.

Ben Rosen: Yeah. So, if you applied to a job on the Monday. We can give you feedback on the job on the Wednesday, typically it takes two days because our guys are immediately looking and they need the open vacancy filled as soon as possible.

James: How many rounds of interviews can candidates expect?

Ben Rosen: It really depends. On average its two interviews. Sometimes it’s three. Normally, now it’s a Zoom interview and then a face-to-face meeting is normally the process at the moment.

James: Would there often be an assessment center included at the final stage or just more face-to-face interviews?

Ben Rosen: Quite a few of our finance clients love maths and verbal reasoning tasks. But apart from that it’s mainly just yeah, so they’re some verbal reasoning tests sometimes. But most of the time they’re not, we don’t have assessment centers. When we’re running like a Rathbone graduate scheme, which is a big finance company, they have assessment centers. But all we’re doing is doing the attracting for them. Then we pass it to them and they manage the assessments as well and medium size businesses.

James: What are some of the ways that candidates can stand out once they get to that interview?

Ben Rosen: Just be themselves. Like, don’t be somebody that they want to be. Don’t be somebody that, you know, it’s almost like frustrating when you just graduated and you want to run before you can walk. You start creating a version of yourself that has, you know, it’s in a year’s time, but be in the moment. Listen, while in the interview. Get the interviewer talking, the more they talk, the more they like you and ask a clever question to show you’ve done some research. When I say some research, you’re going for an interview at Google, in the Google maps department, let’s say. So, it’s really important to look all the news around math and the technology on the competitors and the growth of the markets. Come up with a clever question around it showing you’ve done some research.

James: Yep and the flip side, then what are some of the common mistakes that people tend to make at this part of the process?

Ben Rosen: They don’t follow up well enough. They are maybe overenthusiastic, over-promising when clients just want realism. It’s really about just being themselves and talk about if there’s an issue, for example, around a long commute this is going to be a large issue. Then talk about it in a mature way, you know, is there any way that they could start half an hour later and finish half an hour later. For example, but maybe investing at the beginning once you realized the commute is a long way or they’re not prepared for the interview. They’ve not done the research into understanding who’s this guy on LinkedIn. What do people say about him? What’s he done previously to have any shared connections and again, build rapport with the person. Did you find a common interest ground? His hobbies? Paragliding and you’re keen on paragliding? It’s a good time to talk about it. Because it shows you how to look at him. It shows that you’ve done your research and you can have a conversation about something you’re both interested in. Which should make them like you more let’s hope. But it’s not just about likability, it’s about being concise and yeah being yourself.

James: Excellent. That’s great advice there. The research is a key one. You know you need to make sure that you understand the company, you understand what they do. You understand their products, you understand the competitors, as you said. You understand if they’ve been in the news recently you know, all that information you need to make sure you put the time in.

Ben Rosen: A lot of people ask, why do you want to work for us? You know why? Having an answer to that at hand is always good. Because you can always say the reason why I want to work for you, if they ask this question. Because you’re the leader in this space, you know, five years ago, you only did this turnover. Now you’re doing this. I can say I want to be a part of the journey. I want to do my very best to help you achieve your goals.

James: Now that was great advice. What advice would you give candidates when they actually get the job to hit the ground running?

Ben Rosen: Always be slightly early. If you don’t know how to do something, ask a question. When they’ve given you the answer, write it down. If you don’t then understand it, still ask again and explain to them why you don’t understand it. Don’t say yes you understand even a second time, if you still don’t understand it. This will only bite you in the bum in the long run. Look sharp, have a can-do attitude. Ask if there is anything you can do to help? You know, a lot of working in your first term is making your boss look good and freeing them up. Freeing their time up. Because that’s all we’ve got is time and having the opportunity to free them up and enabling them to focus on something that’s slightly more important or something that they’re better at. That’s being a team player and that’s what people want. People say, what is a, whatever it takes person. You only know when they’re working for you or with you. Because they gave the extra miles and nothing’s too much trouble and they’re lovely to work with and polite and always say, please, and thank you. Look at the ways people are writing emails in a business way, you don’t use slang and learn from them the way they format their emails. The font they’re using and make sure you write everything down. You’re organized. So, yeah, I guess it’s just be prepared.

James: Great advice there and yeah, making your boss look good is one to stick with you throughout your career, not just in your first job. You know, it always goes down well, if you can make your boss look good then you’ll always always do well at work. So, brilliant advice there Ben for us to finish the main parts of the interview on and as I mentioned early listeners.

Ben Rosen: Sorry to interrupt, but I did an internship when I graduated 24 years ago. Walt Disney in the finance department. I learned after doing that internship, that finance was not for me. But I did learn a lot of skills about how to write emails, how to present myself better than I did previously. So, it is all a learning curve and it’s about the journey, not about the destination. So, you have to enjoy it and make the most of it.

James: If you learn something that you don’t want to do, that’s just as valuable as learning something that you do want to do. As long as you’re learning from each of the work you do, then you will be, as Ben said, you’ll be going in the right direction on that. Yeah. So, listeners links to everything we discussed today over the show notes www.graduatejobatpodcast.com/InspiringInterns. Now, Ben moving on to the weekly staple questions. I’m interested in your responses here, first question. What one book would you recommend that listeners need to read?

Ben Rosen: It’s called, Who Moved My Cheese by Kenneth Blanchard and Spencer Johnson. It’s about change. It’s a simple little book you could read in about an hour, but it’s all about change and how to move with change because we’re in an ever-changing business space. You constantly have to reinvent yourself. Not get lazy and complacent and I really enjoyed that story. It always resonates with me. When I’m thinking about sheer fear of change, I think it says in there that fear is false expectations appearing real. Yeah, just always think back to that and thinking I need to reinvent myself. So, yeah, that’s what we’re trying to do.

James: Yep. Great book recommendation. I can remember reading it in India actually. On a bus and my friend bought it from a little bookshop on the side of the road. Like you said, he finished it in an hour and was like, wow, this is really good. Then I read it and then passed it onto another friend who will read it. So, we all read it in about three hours and it’s a really good book. Yeah, I still remember Cheese station C. You need to make sure you’re not at Cheese station C. But it’s definitely well worth a read, especially the early stage of your career where you’re going to be faced with lots of change. So, a great book recommendation there and again, that one will be linked-to in the show notes. So, great start there Ben. Next question, what internet resource or websites would you recommend to listeners?

Ben Rosen: There’s been more difficult ones. So, I don’t have one like individual resource. What it would say is that it’s really important to look at the trade press of a certain industry that you’re interested in. A certain role that you’re interested in and each sector and job title will be different for trade press. So, if it’s mobile advertising. There’ll be well, advertising the association website magazine. If it’s something to do with finance and I think maybe, you know, it’s about reading the leading titles, like the Financial Times and reading the business pages of Evening Standard everyday. So, you get to understand what different businesses do. So, I don’t really have one resource. I mean, to find a job, our blog is very useful. To look at our Inspiring Interns blog, when you’re looking for another type of website. There is no one individual one. It just depends what they’re interested in doing.

James: No that’s great advice. So, with the trade press, just being able to talk the language of the industry that you’re going into. Just understanding the terms, understanding, the key players what’s going on. Invaluable no matter what industry you’re applying to, there will be some sort of trade press. So yeah, just have a quick Google and find out what that is. It will stand you in good stead. So, final question today, Ben, what one tip can listeners implement today to help them on their job search?

Ben Rosen: To remember that it’s a numbers game and it’s not about how people take success. But it’s about how they take rejection. Just reminds me of when Kentucky Fried Chicken. The guy Colonel Sanders, he went to 1,300 people, different shops before somebody took on his Kentucky fried chicken, special a recipe, and he didn’t stop until he got there. So, it’s a question of being tenacious. Question of understanding the numbers. So, if you think that you’ve applied to 20 places, actually make sure that you have applied to 20 places. Because sometimes it may feel like you’ve applied to 20 but you only applied to five and take the rejection when you get it as one step closer to getting that job. There’s only a finite amount of times you’re going to get rejected. So, if you take that attitude every time you get rejection, it’s good news because although it’s annoying and it’s frustrating. But it is one step closer to getting the job you want. Don’t dwell on the disappointments, use that as energy to apply to more places. We’re in a very competitive space and it can be very easy to look around you and look through their rose-tinted glasses of everybody doing well. Everything being perfect in everybody else’s work life. Trust me, that is not the case. You know, I still don’t know what I want to do. It’s a learning process. You have to be very tenacious and the rejections, deal with them in the best way you can. Maybe not share it with everybody, you know, if they may find that easy. But make sure you keep applying. If you haven’t got lots of rejection, then you’re not doing your job application well. So, it’s about experiencing rejection, maybe getting feedback from when you’ve been rejected, saying thank you very much. I really appreciate any feedback, could you help me learn how I could improve? There’s not many people that ask that question. Once they give you feedback, then you can learn from that. So, it is sometimes very difficult to get feedback from companies that are hiring for many positions. But you can only ask, I would also make sure you keep your LinkedIn well updated. Whenever you apply to a job, link the person on LinkedIn. When you go to an interview add them on to LinkedIn. Thank them for the interview. Keep that LinkedIn growing because you’ll find that it will be very useful in years to come.

James: A hundred percent. Great advice and rejection is a part of applying for a graduate job. There are no candidates who don’t get rejected for somewhere else. So, it’s been said, if you can learn from it, if you can improve 5% with each job you apply for, that’s a huge improvement over the course of not many applications. So, yeah. Great advice there Ben. Thank you so much for appearing on the Graduate Job Podcast today. What’s the best way that people can get in touch with you and find out more about Inspiring Interns?

Ben Rosen: Yeah, so my name is Ben Rosen, feel happy to have me on LinkedIn. In terms of finding a job the best thing to do is to go on the website register, create a video CV. If there’s any issues, just contact me and I’m Ben@InspiringInterns.com.

James: Thank you so much for appearing on the graduate job podcast today.

Ben Rosen: Thank you. Take care. Bye-bye.

James: Many thanks to Ben for coming on the show and sharing his insight today. Make sure you check out Inspiring Interns, they have a range of amazing opportunities, and it is a win win for you, if you get a 3 month role and do well, odds on they will make you an offer. If it’s not for you, you come away with 3 months of brilliant work experience which will help you as you move forward for your next role. Check out the show notes today for a full transcript which you can download and links to everything we discuss over at graduatejobpodcast.com/inspiringinterns.

Don’t forget no matter where you are on your job search I am here and able to help, whether it is one-off one-on-one coaching to get prepped for an assessment centre, practice mock group exercises, through to my flagship Howtogetagraduatejob.com online course, I have something for you. Getting a graduate job is so much easier if you aren’t struggling by yourself, I’ve helped coach hundreds of people to get the graduate job of their dreams, and I’ll be able to do the same for you, so check out graduatejobpodcast.com/inspiringinterns where you can find links to my coaching, the online course and how you can book on upcoming mock group exercises. Don’t be a stranger and make sure you do get in touch. And also, a final request from me if you’ve enjoyed the show today, please can you like and leave me a review wherever you downloaded it. It helps to keep me high in the rankings and for people to find the show, and I’ll be forever grateful. So that is everything for this week. Join me in 2 weeks on Sunday when I have the brilliant Micheal Tefula back on the show. It’s a goodie. I hope you enjoyed the show today, but more importantly, I hope you use it, and apply it. See you in 2 weeks!