Episode 115: How Jack got 2 graduate jobs in accounting

May 1, 2021 Podcast

For the 115th episode of the Graduate Job Podcast, I speak with a listener of the show Jack, as he shares his experiences of applying for graduate jobs, specifically in finance and accounting with the Big 4 and a host of other firms. Jack is an alumnus of the How to Get a Graduate Job course, and a current final year student, and he shares his insights of how he juggled the applications with his uni work, the struggles he went through, advice at each stage of the process, including just how long you can expect to have to wait between stages, errors and mistakes that he made along the way, and his advice of what you need to do to get a graduate job. No matter what type of graduate job you are applying to, accounting and finance through to banking or consulting and anything in between, Jack will be sharing insider tips to help you perform and stand out from the crowd. Now the only link you need to remember today, other than www.howtogetagraduatejob.com is www.graduatejobpodcast.com/Jack which has all of the links to everything we discuss today. So without further ado, let’s head across to my chat with Jack.

MORE SPECIFICALLY IN THIS EPISODE YOU’LL LEARN ABOUT:

  • How to impress when you apply to the big 4
  • What you need to do with your initial graduate application
  • Tips to balance juggling applications and academic work
  • What you can expect from a partner interview
  • Why Jack joined the How to Get a Graduate Job course
  • His advice for how you can stand out when you apply for a graduate job

SELECTED LINKS INCLUDE:

Transcript 115 – How Jack got 2 graduate jobs in accounting

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 Curran: 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.

Welcome dear listener to the Graduate Job Podcast, I am thrilled to have you with me today as I have a very special episode for you, it’s the first of a few that I have lined up for you, as today I speak with Jack. Now who is Jack I hear you cry, well Jack is just like you, he is a listener of the show and he is the founder member of the ‘How to Get a Graduate Job’ course which I launched last September. Now if you are new to the show you might not have a clue what I’m chatting about, so let me quickly fill you in. I distilled down all my years of coaching experience of helping people get graduate jobs, of being on both sides of the graduate recruitment fence, from applying for jobs to assessing people applying into one step by step course of 16 hours of video tutorials, how to guides, templates, and a load more, basically, if you need to know it or do it to get a graduate job, it is in this course, which is cunningly called ‘How to get a graduate job’, and you can find at www.howtogetagraduatejob.com. So I launched the course in September and Jack was the very first person of bought it and today, Jack joins me on the show to talk through his experiences of applying for graduate jobs, specifically in finance and accounting with the Big 4 and a host of other firms. It’s a great episode, he’s a current final year student and he shares his insights of how he juggled the applications with his uni work, the struggles he went through, advice at each stage of the process, including just how long you can expect to have to wait between stages, errors and mistakes that he made along the way, and his advice of what you need to do to get a graduate job. No matter what type of graduate job you are applying to, accounting and finance through to banking or consulting and anything in between, Jack will be sharing insider tips to help you perform and stand out from the crowd. Now the only link you need to remember today, other than www.howtogetagraduatejob.com is the www.graduatejobpodcast.com/Jack which has all of the links to everything we discuss today. So without further ado, lets head across to my chat with Jack.

James Curran: I am very pleased to welcome to the show today, listener to the podcast, and alumni from the How To Get a Graduate Job Course. Jack, welcome to the Graduate Job Podcast.

Jack: Cheers, James. Good to be here.

James: Yeah, it’s great to get you on the show today, and we will delve into how you have not one, but you have two offers for massive graduate schemes in your back pocket at the moment that you are currently debating over. Maybe not debating anymore. We’ll go through how you came about to be greedy and get those two offers over the course of the last couple of months. It would be good to get your insights and to share your thoughts with the listeners today.

Jack: Definitely, like I said, glad to be on, and I want to share my kind of story of how I’ve come to get the offers, and hopefully it can be helpful for anyone else listening.

James: Excellent, so let’s kick off then, and do you want to give a brief introduction and background to yourself where you’ve stood and the types of jobs you’ve been applying for?

Jack: Hello, everyone. Really glad to be on here. My name’s Jack, and I study at Reading University. Last academic year, I did a placement, so I had some experience of the application process, how to go about getting a placement internship or graduate job. The placement I was doing at the time gave me some really great experience. However, it wasn’t what I wanted to do for my future career, and for my first graduate job.

Therefore, when I was on my year out, I was thinking about what different graduate jobs I wanted to do, and also how to go about being more successful in the process. Because, when I was in placements, it was a bit of a scattergun approach, and I got a lot of rejections. I’ve finally got the placement that I did, so I basically just wanted to get some extra help and support to make sure I got the graduate job that I really wanted, and was going to have a successful career.

James: What type of graduate jobs have you been applying for?

Jack: As I mentioned, I study economics at University of Reading, so I actually did a economist placement at HMRC. Like I said, it’s a really great experience, and I wanted to take elements of that job into my graduate job, so I took the tax side of it, but I decided I would work in accounting and so on to be able to make use of my interpersonal skills, so I decided to apply for tax accounting graduate jobs. This involves sending applications to the Big 4 and other big accountancy firms in the UK.

James: Excellent, and we’ll talk through the process of the different application stages for the Big 4 and those other big accounting firms that people will know the names of. But, we’ll anonymise them just to protect the guilty and the innocent with those. Before we get into it then, you talked about having applied for internships last year. What made you want to sign up for the course? You were actually the first person to sign up for the course, and you kept on pushing me when I was pushing the date back with the go-live date when it was going to launch. What made you know that you wanted to get that extra help?

Jack: I think the main thing was, obviously first of all, having the placement experience. Not only did that give me the job experience I wanted, but it also got me thinking more and more about my graduate career. I think when you’re at university, it’s very easy to fly through from year to year doing your exams, having the summer off, coming back, it just going so quick, whereas on my placement, I really had the time to think about, actually, what do I want to do. Started thinking about it quite early on when I realized my placement wasn’t necessarily for me long-term. Then, over the summer periods, obviously, COVID happened this year, so it meant that I’ve had a bit more time on the hands, and instantly, my thoughts are I’m feeling it was coming to the end. My placement was right. What’s next? How am I going to go about getting this kind of dream graduate job?

I had the experience from the placement, but I also just thought, “Right, well let’s see what other resources are out there.” I like listening to podcasts. I literally just searched into my kind of usual podcast with either “graduate job” or “graduate” just to see what comes up, and I just started listening to the show, really enjoyed it, and also I listened to an interview with someone you coached last year, and you’d spoken about how you’d help them get a graduate job at the Big 4. I just thought, “Well, I’m going to get in contact with you, James,” and also, when you spoke about the course coming out, I just thought that would be ideal and give me that extra support I needed on top of my kind of experience of the process before to really propel me to the next level to be able to get that right graduate job.

James: Excellent, and yeah, you’ve done well with balancing not only your academics, but also with the companies that you’ve applied to and gone through the process for. We’ll maybe talk about that balance later on. Let’s start at the beginning of the process then, and I guess since you wanted to apply for the big accounting firms, that really narrowed it down for you. Did you think about applying to any non-accountancies, or were you just always laser-focused and you knew that you wanted to apply for the Big 4, as you mentioned, and the other large accounting firms.

Jack: I did narrow it down to, like I say, the tax accounting roles, and that was definitely my main aim because I felt I had, obviously, the right experience, and I’ve done a lot of research in talking to people, and I’ve decided that would be a good area which I would enjoy and develop the skills I wanted. That was very much the focus, but I think as what we’ll talk about later, when you kind of have that dip of not hearing from applications, kind of going through that process, sometimes you do wonder from that sending applications to other kind of jobs. I did put in a few applications for more finance graduate schemes, but the main focus was definitely tax accounting role, and yes, the accounting firms was the main aim.

James: I think that really played into your favour as well once we got into the interview stage and the assessment centre stage. We were just talking offline about the feedback you got from your most recent assessment centre where they broke it down with what you did really, really well, and it was one of the core strengths was that motivation for why tax accounting. When you do really narrow down your focus, whether it’s tax accounting, or the consulting, or marketing, or whatever it is you’re applying for, if you do have a really sharp focus on what you’re applying for, then it really does help you answer the questions of why you want to work in this industry. If it’s the industry that you really want, and they’re only the companies you’re applying for, you can just be really strong, and that really comes across well. “This is the one for me.” Did you find that was the case with the motivation questions?

Jack: 100%. I think, in every interview I’ve done, the career motivation was the strongest point, and I think it also — yeah, just narrowing down that focus just means that you’re not also duplicating work and spending more time. While going for the same roles, they all had similar application processes. They asked you similar questions at the video interview stage, and then again the assessment centres were quite similar as well. That means that you could be a lot more focused, save time, but then it does really pay off because you’re able to then tailor the answers and applications to suit that particular role, and you’re not having to change it all the time. That’s what I found, and I’d apply for basically I was applying to lots of different things. I didn’t actually apply to accounting firms back then, but I was applying to finance, I was applying to government, I was applying for business management, and actually that just meant I was spending a lot more time changing applications, getting ready for different assessments, and because I was spreading myself too thin, I actually ended up with a lot of rejections. That was one of the main reasons for narrowing it down so much.

James: Yeah, and mentally, it just really takes the load off because you don’t have the shiny red ball syndrome of just chasing another application or another graduate scheme that’s open that isn’t really what you want to do, but it’s open, so just bang an application for it. You’re able to just stay really focused, as you mentioned. Let’s maybe then move to the different stages of the application process. Just looking at your tracker that we’ve got tracking all the applications you’ve submitted, and I think you’re at a 100% success rate, didn’t you, with the initial application stage for applying for these types of roles? Do you want to talk listeners through your experiences of that initial application stage and what it was that they wanted?

Jack: Yeah, sure. For the accounting firms, a lot of them don’t require cover letters, and the Big 4 just need an application form. In terms of the CVs, a lot of them did require CVs. I’ve never actually done this with my previous applications, to actually tailor my CV to that particular role. I’ve always just kind of had my bog standard CV, and that would just get sent out to everyone, pretty much. But, this time around, what I did was I looked at the job descriptions for these roles, noted down the skills that they wanted, and if they mentioned any experience, anything like that, I’d make sure I’d play that up, and then skills which I had, either strengths, skills they see, the skills that they wanted, I’d make sure they were clear in my CV for them to see, really. Even if you don’t need it, some people just think it’s tailoring the cover letter, I would actually stress that you need to tailor your CV as well, and make sure I have a different CV for every company. Same experiences, but like I said, just playing up different skills. I did have to do a couple of cover letters, but not as much this time around because, like I said, the firms I was applying for didn’t really require cover letters.

James: Brilliant, and that’s one of the things that we’re really stressing in the course is the need for just why you need to tailor the CV and also just how to go about doing it so that you are giving them exactly what they wanted. The proof was in the pudding there with the fact that you got through every initial application stage, which is really, really well-done. Stats say 75% of the people fail at this stage, so you were doing really well getting through there.

Jack: One more thing to add to that, first of all, I got my CV checked by the university career service, which has helped, but then also, part of the course, I’m not sure if you mentioned, it had webinars with other members, and I remember one of the first ones, we all sent in our most recent cover letters, CVs, and also sent in the job description that it was aimed for, and that was just really helpful to see how you kind of picked out the improvements, how to work in those kind of skills and other things that they mentioned. Some of them say really stressed as a customer service element, so making sure you had that in there, so those webinars, and that one in particular was really helpful for the tailoring of the CVs and the cover letters.

James: Definitely. It’s always useful just to see other people’s CVs and just to — this is the whole part of the course is to share that knowledge and share the experiences from other people, what’s working for them and what you can use and implement in your own application. I’m glad that was useful. I’ve actually forgotten about that myself, so probably should have mentioned that myself. After the initial application stage, we moved onto the online testing phase of the process. As an accounting grad, you must be pretty hot with the numbers side of things already. How did you find them? Was the number side a breeze and the verbal more challenging, or is that just a bit of a generalization?

Jack: No, I definitely found that the verbal side of it more challenging, 100%. But, what I would say the most important thing is just practice what the course recommends, and I think you recommended to me a number of sites where you can pay for the online tests, and I would it really is worth paying to do the test. There are loads of different websites where you can get free versions here and there, but then you can’t necessarily track your progress, and the quality of the free ones isn’t necessarily always as good.

So, I’d really recommend choosing the recommended sites, practice tests, and then that kind of a course. Scores, you can check your scores over a period of time, and I would say, yeah, from September time, just letting off and I was practicing the online tests in terms of the numerical and verbal reasoning, also having a little go at the games-based ones as well. It really is practice. I think, even though I’m quite good at the mathematical side, with maths, practice does make perfect, so that really is just about putting in the time, and before you start applying, and all of a sudden — you know, because as soon as you apply, you get the test pinged back to you, so you need to start practicing for the test before you even start applying, really, just to make sure you’re up to scratch and you’re hitting that benchmark.

I think the majority, I did pass, but there were a couple which I didn’t, and also I did find the games-based assessments pretty hard as well even though I did listen to the episode you did with the developers of those programs.

James: Yeah, I did that one myself and failed it, so it was a tricky one. Did you apply to PwC?

Jack: I did, yeah, but I didn’t pass those games-based assessments. My girlfriend’s got a job at PwC. She’s obviously got a knack for those games-based assessments, but she couldn’t quite tell me what that knack was. I did fail those games-based tests.

James: Then, just looking at your tracker, you failed as well for the Smith and Williamson one. Did that serve as maybe just a reminder of the need to practice?

Jack: Yeah, that was probably about partway through the process. I’ve already applied to quite a few, and passed quite a lot, so I was kind of doing them on a regular basis, but I probably had stopped the practice side of it, and then this one was a really, really short amount of time for the numerical, and also the verbal reasoning, I probably found difficult to do in that short amount of time, so that probably was the kick up the backside and needed to put in the effort and make sure I was still practicing.

James: Because, just looking on the tracker, you’ve got the dates of when you did your application and you can see, in terms of the dates of the initial application and the online testing, there wasn’t one which was more than a week from the first application to needing to do the online test. So, listeners, as Jack said, you don’t get long. It’s a maximum of a week to do the test, so it’s no good if you only start practicing once they tell you you need to do the test. You need to be practicing from August, September onwards so that when you do get asked to do it, you’re good to go, and your skills are where you want them to be. If you’re trying to frantically cram in all that testing into a short period of time, especially if you’re still at university and you’ve got coursework and other things going on, it’s going to be difficult.

Maybe changing topics and thinking about that, you are in your final year at the moment. How did you balance doing these applications, doing the work, getting ready for video interviews whilst you were still at uni — because looking at the dates here, this was mid-November, you were doing the tests, it’s October, November doing the video interviews. How did you find that balance?

Jack: Hard. It’s very hard. I know a lot of people do wait until they graduate to start looking, but to me, that wasn’t really an option because I just wanted to get straight into that graduate role as soon as I finished university. That was one of the lessons that I’d learned from the placement experience is that I didn’t start applying then until like two, three weeks into first term in my second year of university, and by that point, the work was starting, and the deadlines were coming thick and fast, really.

That was one of the reasons I knew, between my placement and my third year, I needed to start thinking about it and get the ball rolling, and obviously kind of got in contact with you, but I think it’s just important to make sure that, as much as you want to enjoy yourself over the summer, you do need to have an eye on it, and at least in September, those three, four weeks for you, then start your course if you are going to apply to in kind of term time and not wait until you finish. You do need to start getting yourself prepared end of August, start of September, in terms of putting out those first, getting the CV, cover letter, thinking about what you’re going to apply to, starting to think about those general kind of interview questions. I think it is about starting early, and the other way I did balance it. I kind of did put my uni work a little bit on the backburner, just kind of getting by, doing what I needed to do, but then use Christmas as a chance to really catch up with that work because, yeah, the recruitment process does tend to go quite by over the Christmas period. I just started time-tabling in when I was going to do it, and also, like I said before, because I was laser-focused on those certain tax accounting vacancies, and then I wasn’t just constantly applying. I went ahead and applied for one thinking, “Right, well this other one’s open. I’m going to do that.” It was a bit more tactical about saying, “Okay, this is open now, we’ll get on the list. This one’s open in a couple of weeks. I’ll kind of stop for a little bit, wait to see what comes back, but also get on my uni work in the meantime.”

James: Listeners, this is going to be different for each individual person. I’ve got a separate episode I’ll link to in the show notes about when is the right time to apply. For some people, the extra pressure and the extra work combined with all of the university work means that, for you, it might work better to apply once you’ve graduated. That’s cool. Do what is right for you. It is a stressful time. The work was piling up, and I know there was some stages where there was a lot of things going on at once, wasn’t it? From the outside-in, it looked like you were balancing a lot of things. Do what’s right for you. Don’t feel pressured if your friends are applying. If you’ve got too much on, then don’t try and do too much because it can be a lot of things going on at once.

Jack: Yeah, certainly different for each person, and if you are struggling with the workloads, you do decide, “What’s the best decision for me to apply at the time?” But, if you’re struggling with the work load, maybe just pick a couple of vacancies which you’re really interested in, and if not, you have to wait until you’ve got more time, or kind of take a year out afterwards. I was just conscious that I’ve done a year out before university, and the placements I was quite keen to get straight into the graduate job. But, it’s definitely different from everyone, and I’ve got lots of friends who apply once they finished, and they’ve still got into really good graduate roles, so it really is down to the individual.

James: Definitely, and that’s really great advice: pick one or two that you really want, and then see it as a dry run. Put applications in and see where they go. You did really well with the online tests, got through the majority then, and then went through to the video interview stage. This is the first time you’ve done video interviews or did you do them as part of your applications for the year in industry.

Jack: I did them as part of applications for my year in industry, but I definitely think I was a lot more streetwise with what to expect and just how to go about the process. My preparation for video interviews before was a bit all over the place, but it definitely felt like I’ve improved this time around.

James: As part of the course, it came with the credits for using the mock video interview tool. How useful did you find that, just doing the mock video interviews for each of the companies, and then just going through them together?

Jack: They’re very helpful. When you’re doing a video interview, you go through the answers, and then once you do it, you almost forget what you said, or what your body language was like, if you’re actually looking at the camera, and that was just really helpful to just go through and decide, “Actually, I think maybe adjusting — or the lighting in the room wasn’t really that good,” moved the laptop higher, made sure that I was always looking dead-centre, down the camera. Also, just in general, with the interview questions, you breaking it down and almost revealing the question behind the question, and how to go about it and give the answers and the skills that the companies want, and once you start to learn that process and think about it a bit more, it means that you’re a lot more likely to be successful.

James: It’s good now that we can watch back from the first time we did it through to the more recent ones, and you can see this huge improvement. You were always really good, but yeah, you can see how you’ve definitely fine-tuned your technique, and as you mentioned, the eye contact and the body language are so important with video interviews, and also just the time management of making sure that you’re finishing within the set time period. You did that really well and you were able to just do really well-structured answers during the STAR methodology for the competency questions.

Jack: Yeah, it’s not a nice experience talking to a camera. It is quite hard to get used to, so I think that’s really where the practice pays off, because you’re getting more comfortable talking to the screen, thinking about the timings of your answers, and you get more confident, whereas when you first do it, it’s a really strange kind of experience. When I was doing video interview questions before, sometimes I’d give 30 second answers, sometimes I’d run out of time, and it’s all about learning, and with a lot of these things, it’s just the practice and the tool that we use was really good, and I got to watch my answers back, and hearing the tips from you did help me improve with the level of my answers, and also the body language, eye contact. Sometimes, you’re saying, “I need to maybe lighten up and smile.” I always forget to show that personal side, but it is important.

James: From the Big 4 and the big accounting companies you were applying for, was it then tend to be competency questions you faced, or strength-based questions, or a mix of both, or more motivation? Do you remember the core themes from the video interview stage?

Jack: Big 4 tend to be what they call a job simulation. That entails written answers to emails, different verbal reasoning, numerical exercises, but then also your video answers are in a response to a certain situation, so some of them, I was asked to introduce myself. You’ll be given some information and asked to come up with ideas or respond to different individuals and display how you go about certain situations. Job simulation’s a bit harder to prepare for, but there’s lots of great stuff you can find online as well, those sorts of processes and what questions you might be asked, and then for some of the other top accounting firms outside of the Big 4 tended to be strengths-based questions, and that was generally five to 10 questions. I think some of them had motivation, so why the firm why the role, but then a lot of them were strengths-based questions, and a good way of deciphering what questions there were. It was just by looking at the job spec, and the strengths that they list on there, all those questions that were based around that. That’s what’s helpful.

James: Looking at the timings for these, the video interviews you completed were basically all in October. Probably a good time now to mention the dip, which I know probably most people on the course have gone through, which definitely came around the late October, November time of the process where you’ve gone quite quickly from the initial application, online testing, to the video interview stage, and then there tended to just be silence. The recruitment process can be slow, during COVID and lockdown. It got slower. Can you maybe give listeners a taste of this period and how it was to go through it?

Jack: It was tricky. Because I was focused on the roles I wanted to do, I applied quite early. As much as that is an advantage because a lot I’ve done were the rolling process, so when things did get reviewed, I did get approved quite quickly compared to others. It also meant that they’re waiting to get enough responses to judge the benchmark and decide who’s a good candidate, and where that line’s going to be drawn. It did take a long time to hear back, and that was really tricky because you start to doubt yourself and think, “Have I really done a good job with these video interviews? What’s going to happen if they all suddenly come back to me and say sorry, and I’m left with not many applications there?”

That was what I mentioned before, I started worrying, and my uni work was mounting up, and I started applying to more finance-based roles, and thinking about other options, to be honest, not necessarily because that was what I wanted to do, but it’s just because you start to get worried about whether these applications are going to be successful or not. It was probably about a three or four-week period where I’ve sent off a lot of applications, did a lot of video interviews, and I’ve just had nothing. It was quite a different time.

James: Yeah, it is the difficult part of the process, and we did some webinars with the course members where that was just a topic of — it was sharing people’s stories of you’re all going through exactly the same process and nobody’s hearing anything. It was the most radio silence from all graduate recruiters in that November period where, as you said, you go quite quickly, and then you just hit a stop. You just don’t hear anything. It’s not a yes, it’s not a no. It’s just radio silence, and sometimes they would say, “We’ll get back to you in a few weeks,” and then they won’t. Some people were just straight away saying, “We’ll get back to you within three months.” For three months, it is a difficult time. But, as you said, you’ve just got to be confident, just stick with the process, and just keep going. As you mentioned, looking at the times here, in that quiet period, when you started then applying to the maybe smaller accounting firms, getting a bit worried, trying to hedge your bets, and just get more applications in, which makes complete sense.

Jack: Yeah, like you said. I think that’s where the support of the webinars really did come in handy because, like I say, you’re not in it alone, in terms of me and my university friends some people got through the process quite quick, some people hadn’t really heard and other people weren’t really applying. Just to have that support of everyone who was in the exact same situation as myself, also not hearing anything as well, it just kind of put me at ease a bit more and enabled me to keep working through confidently through the process. Like you say, it’s so quick through the online application. They send you the test straight away. That’s usually quite automised, and if you hit that benchmark, you get sent a video interview, and I think January, I had to wait about probably five to six weeks for most of them for the video interview to even hear that I was successful or not.

I think from what I remember last time, that is a bit longer than usual, but like you say, things are just delayed this year with COVID and lockdowns. Everyone’s working from home in different situations, so it just means that this year, things did take a bit longer.

James: Yeah, but there was one company that’s just outside of the Big 4, who are quite quick with getting you through the process, and you found that you had made it through to their assessment centre. Maybe talk us through this assessment centre, and what was involved, and how you found it.

Jack: Yeah, sure. They were really good getting me through the processes quite quick, constant communication with when the assessment centre was going to be, what I needed to do to prepare, and for this one, I had to do a pre-work piece, which had to be about 500, 550 words, which was actually quite difficult because it was an informative piece. It was quite hard to limit yourself down to just 500 and 550 words. Obviously, it was online, so I had to present the work, which I had prepared for five minutes. They asked me some questions about that, and then we went on to about an hour-long strengths-based interview. Because it was online, they didn’t do any group work or anything else like that. They just decided to go for the pre-work and interview approach. That was a good experience, but the interview was very, very structured. It’s strengths-based questions, but it didn’t ask me why the firm and it didn’t ask me why a particular role, which I found quite strange, and it’s quite structured strengths-based questions. It was a good experience, but it was also, if anything, I think I found that interview harder than some of the other ones that I’ve done.

James: I was really surprised that they didn’t want any of the motivation aspects at all, which is often one of the things that companies really, really push on, and we’ll maybe get to the next assessment centre where it was maybe the complete opposite in terms of the style compared to this one. But, you did really well, and you got the offer from this firm, when that was, before Christmas.

Jack: Yeah, because the strengths-based interview also structured, I wasn’t really sure how I’d done, to be honest, and I was actually nervous that I may not have done enough, necessarily, so I had to wait because it was just me doing that interview for an hour, and then a number of people had interviews, so I think they have one person a day. I think I had to wait just over a week, and then I received the call that they wanted to offer me the job. First of all, they called me and said, “We want to give you some feedback from your interview,” and then they went through the feedback, and said, “We’d like to offer you the role.” Just the relief to secure the role at a really good firm. I did when researching into them I did really like the company. That was a massive relief and great to get it before Christmas. Credit to them as well for getting me through the process so quickly.

James: Yeah, and it was never a doubt. I was always confident you were going to get this one. You had only positive things to say about the firm. They’re really quick through the process. They’re known for being one of the quicker companies, but you had really great interactions with the people, people you’ve spoken to. Everybody was really positive. You were really excited about the role.

Jack: Definitely, definitely. I think one thing to mention that I haven’t mentioned so far is that using your LinkedIn tip, James, contacting people from your alumni at your university just to politely ask them about their experiences at the firm and their particular role. I’ve used that with pretty much all the firms I apply to. Once I had the offer, I actually got in contact with a few more people to learn about their experiences at the firm and in the role, and it was all very positive, but it’s just invaluable to speak to people who are actually looking through the website and talking about their values, and corporate social responsibility, all this stuff. It’s hard to know what is that actually going to mean to me on a day-to-day basis in this company. Just being able to talk to people on the phone is just invaluable, and everyone that I’ve spoken to at that company gave me a real good feel, and I felt like, at the time, it was going to be a great fit for me.

James: Yeah, definitely. It was all positive, and you’re right, the LinkedIn tip really is a game changer, and listeners, I’ll link in the show notes, which today you can find at graduatejobpodcast.com/jack, the link to where you can get hold of the five tips that you need to be implementing before you start applying for graduate jobs which has details of what you need to be doing on LinkedIn, so check out the show notes over there.

One thing then, Jack, you got this offer, you accepted it, you felt really good fit with the company, then you had another assessment centre come through with another big firm, not one of the Big 4, and we had a good chat about this, about whether you wanted to actually go for the assessment centre. I was trying to say, “Oh yeah, go along see how you get on,” but you were quite adamant that it wasn’t right for you, and a completely right choice. Do you want to maybe talk about this in a bit more detail and your thoughts on why you didn’t actually go for this assessment centre for this company?

Jack: Yeah, both of the companies were top accounting firms just outside the Big 4, and very similar in size and reputation. It was the exact same role that I’d already got, and this was just at the end of my university term. It just ended the week before. Leading up to it, I’d had, obviously, the interview with this other company, and then I’d had some tests and assignments during the last week of term, and then the following Wednesday from that, I’d been invited to this assessment centre.

I think I was just feeling completely burnt out from the application process, juggling university, and like I said as well, I’d also left a lot of work, which I knew I had to catch up with over the Christmas holidays. I felt that it was the right decision not to attend this assessment centre because it wasn’t much in it, and like I said, it was the exact same job, same location. I just felt it was the right decision for me not to do it, and because I knew I did have other assessment centres on the horizon. But, I have to say part of me did regret not doing it because I just felt maybe I should have given it a chance. It’s the assessment centre when you really get to know the company, maybe they would have told me a lot of things I would have liked to have heard, and maybe that would have changed my mind.

But, in the end, this turned out to be the right decision, but it definitely wasn’t an easy decision not to go along, and definitely, in your point as well, in terms of just being more practiced with it. But, the long and the short of it is just I was completely burnt out. I had an offer that was very similar, and I just felt I needed a bit of a break and to catch up with my university works and meant that I would have the time to really put my focus on the assessment centres as I knew I had coming after Christmas.

James: Yeah, and it was the right decision because it wasn’t just you needed to turn up the assessment centre. You had pre-work to do, if you’re going to do pre-work, you need to do it well, so there was going to be work and effort put in, and as you said, you were knackered. It had been the end of a long, stressful term getting all the applications in. We were putting a lot of work with the applications plus all the coursework, and everything going on, you sort of hit the wall. As we talked about earlier, you just need to listen to your body. You need to know what’s right for you. What’s right for you is different to what’s right for other people. 100% the right decision, you were really happy with the offer. As you said, the roles were identical, location was the same, but you had a company that you really, really liked. It was the right thing to do for you.

Then, we moved after Christmas, and at this stage, you’re still waiting to hear from a load of companies who have just been super-slow. You’re talking two months to get back from the video interview or to say, “Yeah, you’ve got through to the next stage, but we don’t know when the next stage is, and we’ll let you know.” This company’s keeping you dragging on like that, but then you got through to the assessment centre for one of the Big 4.

Jack: Yeah, I think my video interview for this particular firm, I think I did in end of October, start of November, and then it took, I think, five, six weeks, and then start of December later and said, “Okay, we’ve got you through to the assessment centre, but we don’t know when that is.” The whole time I was like, “This is going to be the focus, this is going to be after Christmas,” and then I got told on a Friday night, an email coming through on a Friday night at, I think, 5 o’clock, and it said, “We want to come to the assessment centre on Wednesday,” so even though I knew it was coming, it was still a bit of a shock and had a bit of a tight turnaround for the assessment centre itself, but unlike the other two, I didn’t have lots of prework to do, so that meant that that turnaround wasn’t quite as bad, whereas some of the other assessment centres, I did spend a number of days preparing in terms of the work. That was one of the reasons I decided not to do the one before Christmas after I got the offer because that entailed a lot of — a 20-minute presentation which I didn’t really have time to do justice really. It was a shock in terms of when this one did come as they had been keeping me waiting for a long time, but then it did come it was very quick.

James: Yeah, so just looking at the tracker, it was the 19th of October you did the video interview or the job simulation for — what we’re talking, two and a half months from doing it to actually then hearing back?

Jack: Yeah.

James: Listeners, don’t be put off. If you’re not hearing back, it doesn’t mean that it’s a no. These companies are slow, and very slow at the moment. If you’ve not heard back, then you’re still in the process. Jack, you said you found out the Friday, you’ve got it for the Wednesday, so then we kicked into practice mode and just getting ready for this. What was involved with this assessment centre?

Jack: It was a half-day range of activities, involved two group exercises, two individual activities, and an interview with a partner. There was a lot to do — like I say, the activities and the group exercises, you couldn’t prepare for beforehand, really. It was just stuff that was going to be set on the day. I had a think and a look back on the course of how to prepare for group activities and these other things that I had to do, and we’d also, through the webinars, done a practice group activity, so that was really helpful, having some tips in terms of how to approach those, whether to take on certain roles in the group, and if you do take on those roles, what to actually do, and then the interview, yeah, the main bit of preparation, and they’ve provided me lots of information on my interview, what might happen in my interview, also researched online about different questions that I might be asked. But, in the end, it was quite a conversational interview and pretty enjoyable.

James: Exactly how you want it to be. Let’s maybe break down the individual steps a bit more. How did you find the group exercise, especially doing it online? Were people talking over each other, or was everybody alright?

Jack: I’m not sure if I was lucky or if it was just this was what it was like. I was very worried about people talking over each other and how the online kind of process would work. If anything, I think I found it easier online because, first of all, we are given information, but you’re also talking to people, so I split my screen. On one side, I have my information, on the other side, I could still be listening to people talk, so that meant while I was listening to people, I could also be looking through information making notes, thinking, “Yeah, that’s along the right lines or not,” whereas when I’ve done group exercises before, you kind of read the information, and then obviously, just be respectful to everyone else. You’re really looking, making eye contact with what they’re saying, but then you lose track a bit of, “Right, okay, is that information, what they’re saying correct, et cetera?” I found, actually, doing it online would be easier in that sense.

No one in my group was trying to take the lead, necessarily. We all got on really well, and it was okay, and in the first group exercise, I actually did take the lead in the end, but I didn’t straight away. I waited to see if anyone else was going to maybe try and take control or just to see if anyone was going to try and be bossy and try to impose their ideas on everyone, but people just all started talking and it was a bit all over the place. I did just take the lead and not necessarily direct everything, but just bring a bit of structure to the conversation and make sure that we were hitting those points that I wanted, and no one really decided to take time either. I was also taking the time and activities.

One great tip that you’d said is when you’re taking the time, don’t just say, “Five minutes gone, 10 minutes left, et cetera.” Say, “Okay guys, we’ve got five minutes left. Let’s move onto the conclusion, let’s move onto this point.” And actually bring some value to that timekeeper role rather than just stating the obvious of how long is left, move people on recognizing you need to get prepared with the feedback and everything like that. In general, the group exercises were very good. One person in the group’s connection wasn’t that great, and they were a bit quieter, so that was a shame for them, but we were still giving him a chance to talk and listening to them, but luckily my internet and everything was fine. But yeah, group activity’s online I wouldn’t be too worried about it. For me, it was less daunting than being in a room with people, to be honest.

James: That’s really good, and how did you find the individual exercise? Was it as expected or any particular challenges with that one?

Jack: I think it’s difficult just because of the time pressure. One of the activities I had to read a lot of information, and I was helping someone from the company to prepare a magazine about technological innovations for this company’s clients. I had to think of questions to ask different individuals about information I’d been given. In terms of reading the information and then thinking of good effective questions to ask, the time was very tight, and with all of the group activities or individual activities about — it got a bit predictable after a while, but about halfway through or three-quarters of the way through, they would throw a curve ball.

They would say, “Okay, I gave you three options,” but then maybe with three minutes left and say to you, “Okay, well there’s now a fourth option. Please look at this one as well and then tell us,” and I was on my first individual activity. I nearly pretty much ran out of time because there were three sections I had to read, come up with questions for each, so for like 12 minutes, I thought, “Okay, four minutes for each section,” and then they threw the curve balls at like four minutes left, and I was like, “Oh god, I’ve now got another set of questions, and I don’t think I have enough time.” I think it is important to always leave a bit of contingency and be prepared for a shock, and then if there isn’t, you’re completely fine. But, in the last individual task I did, I was ready and prepared for a curve ball thrown at me, which helped. Always go into it expecting the unexpected, or for them to try and make it a bit more difficult for you, I guess.

James: Brilliant advice, and expect the unexpected, definitely, and it’s expect to be under time pressure, expect to have too much to do in a small amount of time. That’s intentional, right. They do that to see how you react under pressure. Are you calm, adaptable, and flexible, and just you can just roll with it, or do you panic and stop thinking clearly? You have too much to do? Expect to have too much to do, and as Jack said, expect curve balls to be thrown in the process. It sounds like, Jack, that you handled that really well.

Jack: Yeah, one thing I’d say, like you said, it’s just to stay calm, and at the end of my activities I had to feedback, and I think the both of them, I was thinking, “Oh god, I haven’t really had enough of a chance to really assess all this information and make a really good well-informed decision,” but almost like I’ve been thinking about it, almost split second and I say, “Right, feedback,” I’ve just thought, “Right, I’m just going to go with this option, and I’m just going to stick with it,” tell them why and then also kind of tell them some of the drawbacks but not be confused and tell them. So if you have to make a decision, go with one, defend it, let them know you’re aware of the certain drawbacks, and just still say why you chose to go with that. I think that really helps, being confident with the decisions that I made in those individual tasks rather than being a bit worried, because in my mind, I was thinking I wasn’t sure, but I was just going with the firm decision, which I think helped.

James: That’s brilliant advice, because that’s what they’re looking for. They’re looking for confidence. They’re looking for you to be able to communicate clearly. They’re looking for you to be able to think under pressure. They’re not looking for the definitive answer. That’s not what this is about. It’s about putting you under pressure and seeing how you react. Really, really good advice there, Jack. Just conscious of time. Let’s move onto the final partner interview. You mentioned that this was really different to the one you’d had earlier from the non-Big 4 firm, which was very structured. This one was a lot more fluid, and to be honest, it sounds like it was the perfect interview that you performed. Do you want to maybe take us through this one in a bit more detail?

Jack: Yeah, so compared to the non-Big 4 interview, like you say, it was much more conversational, and the partner just led the interview where he wanted to go and just what he wanted to find out more about me. It was all started with him telling me a bit about himself, his background, how long he’s worked at that company, what made him choose to work in that company, some interesting kind of projects he’s worked on, and he just said, “That’s about me. Tell me about yourself.” I think it’s very important going into an interview to have a good answer for that tell me about yourself question, and then from there, I made sure that I got in my experience, my skills, and also bring in a bit of a personal side to it. Don’t just go down the completely formal route, do bring a bit of what you like to do in your spare time.

Then, he just delved a bit deeper into that. He wanted to know a bit more about my work experience, just asking me what I thought of that. Then, the main part of the interview was he wanted to know what I thought my strengths were. It was quite open-ended. He said, “What are your main strengths, and when do you think you’ve demonstrated these,” so went through what I thought my strengths were, how I thought that would help me in the role, and it’s examples. Then, he was also as interested in what I thought my weaknesses were and what I was doing to develop those weaknesses and how the company can actually help me develop those kind of weaknesses, and then on top of that, there were a couple of strengths-based questions and then also why do you want to work for the firm, and why do you want to work in that particular role. It was very conversational, and we even ended up having a chat about more personal stuff like football, so I think it’s just important as well as the answers just to build up that rapport with the person that’s interviewing you.

James: Definitely, and talking about strengths was definitely one of your strengths. We cover it a lot in detail in the course in the initial first part of the course, and I know you’re going to maybe talk about this later, but they’re usually impressed with the knowledge that you’ve gained about yourself and your strengths.

Jack: Yeah, we’ll talk about when I recommend what book I’d say to the listeners to read, but there’s a book called StrengthsFinder, and that asks you a series of questionnaires and determines what your biggest strengths and biggest weaknesses are. Also, just thinking more generally about what my strengths and that’s what actually led me to apply for the tax accounting roles because before I started applying, I thought, “What strengths do I have, what do I enjoy doing?” and then I came to matching that up with the strengths that they said they wanted on the tax accounting kind of job description. I was very aware of the strengths that I had and the strengths that they wanted, which really did help in the application process, and just know how they want you to apply those strengths in certain situations. Obviously, Big 4, they want you to have good communication and interpersonal skills. Need to apply that to say good working relationships with clients, good maths and mathematics skills, being able to work out and analyse information, so it’s just knowing your strengths, or weaknesses, and matching that up, and just going from there, really. But, yeah definitely did help because it was very open-ended and not — a lot of the interview questions are hard. You couldn’t necessarily prepare for beforehand through the usual competency strengths-based structure. It was really just wanting to know about you, so supporting that you’re able to determine your strengths and weaknesses.

James: Definitely, and the interview went really well, you walked away confident, and then a nice touch the next day for the partner.

Jack: I did feel confident about the interview. I was thinking, “Have I done enough in the group and individual activities?” but the next day, the partner who gave me a call to offer me the job and it was just absolutely fantastic. It was a bit of a surprise because when I finished the assessment centre, the HR team told me it could be a week to a week and a half for me to hear. When I saw that it was just obviously an unknown number, I was thinking, “Who’s this calling me?” and I didn’t really know, and then when I picked up, I was just in shock. It’s quite fantastic to have that personalized touch, and I think it did really pay that, like I said, not only did I give good interview answers, but I built up really good rapport and relationship with the person who was interviewing me that they actually wanted to give me the call.

James: Never in doubt. Congratulations Jack! 2 offers there, and have you — which one are you going for?

Jack: I’m going for the Big 4. It’s the choice, definitely. I enjoyed the day. Lots of activities, but also interaction with the partner. I had a networking lunch, really got to find out about the role in the company, and then also in the group and the individual activities, the people, that were assessing me are going to be in the team and location that I’m going to be working in, and I got to speak to them, and it’s been really nice. I’ve got a really good feel for it, so I’ll be taking an offer from the Big 4.

James: Excellent, congratulations. Have you given the bad news yet to the other firm?

Jack: I haven’t yet, no. The partner at the Big 4 firm’s given me a ring, but I haven’t had all the contracts and documentation through yet, but once I get that, I’ll be in contact with other firm.

James: That sounds good. Job well done, and congratulations. You put the work in, you did really well, you invested in yourself, you did everything I could have asked, and it’s paid rich dividends, so congratulations. You deserve every success.

Jack: 100%, yeah thank you very much. I would just say I did have experience in sense of the placements and I did know where I wanted to go, but just the help of the course, and of you James, really took me from a good candidate to really one of those top candidates, and I may have been able to get to that level by myself, but I’m not sure, and I think definitely the money invested in the course and time with you really did help me to get that Big 4 offer. I’m not sure I would have got it without the help and support of the course, and the webinars, and everything else that came with it.

James: Brilliant. I’m glad that’s — that’s why I put the time in, and that’s what makes it all worthwhile, so thank you, Jack. Thank you for that, kind words, and thank you for coming on the show. Much appreciated. Let’s move on then to the weekly staple questions. We’ve sort of teased these a little bit and given a bit of an advanced warning of what some of them might be. First question then, what one book would you recommend to listeners that they should read?

Jack: I mentioned it already, but it’d definitely be the StrengthsFinder book. That comes with a code to an online platform where you answer lots of questions about the ways in which you like to work, and also just generally how you operate, and then it comes back with your top strengths, describing what those strengths are, and also how to build on them. That was really helpful just to get my mind thinking about my strengths, and then from there, I was able to really think about the vacancies I wanted to go for, and also just more generally think about what some of my other strengths were also. That was really helpful, and I’d recommend that.

James: Brilliant, yeah, and it did impress people through the process. If you do, you have shown that you’ve put the work and thought in. Links to StrengthsFinder. You can find it in the show notes at graduatejobpodcast.com/jack. Then, next Jack, what one website or internet resource would you point listeners towards?

Jack: I think the one which I’ve probably found most helpful happened alongside the course. Obviously, the course provides you a lot of the information you need on how to be successful in every stage of the application process, but I think the one website where I was able to get the biggest insight into interview questions and helped me the most with those video interviews was probably Glassdoor, so I would say before any video interview, make sure you check Glassdoor because a lot of people do put the questions on there, and obviously that’s invaluable if you know what the questions are going to be before your video interview process.

James: Definitely, Glassdoor’s a great site, and it’s well worth signing up so you can find out the questions, forewarned is forearmed, which is why, in the course, we make sure people are sharing the questions that they’re getting from the different video interviews just so we can help each other through the process. Final question then today, Jack. What one tip would you give listeners that they can implement today to help them on their job search?

Jack: My one tip would be we also touched on this a little bit earlier on would be narrow down your search, and in terms of that, just make sure you’re applying for similar roles because not only will that save you time and stress, but it’ll also mean that you’re also more likely to be successful because you’re going through all similar roles have the same application processes, they want similar skills, so that means you’re able to really build on and improve every application that you do, and I think just narrowing it down a little bit to the role or the set of companies in a particular industry will really help you be successful.

James: Definitely. Great advice and a great place for us to finish the interview today. Jack, thank you so much for your time today, and all the best with your new role in the Big 4.

Jack: Cheers, James. Thank you very much.

James: There wego, many thanks again to Jack for sharing allhis insight andexperience through the application process, and good luck with those final exams which he will be taking about now. Jack is a great guy, but I’m sure listeners he is no different to you, you are the sort of person, just like Jack, who chooses to listen to podcasts about getting a graduate job. You have plenty of choice out there for your time and you choose to listen to me, and not only that, make it to the end of a 1-hour show, that says something about you, that you are the type of person who is dedicated and committed, just like Jack was, and wants to be at their best as they look for a graduate job. It’s a competitive market out there, you know that already, and if you want the best help, if you want 16 hours of video tutorial content, private members webinars, practice group exercises, practice video interviews, to be part of a group of people sharing insight, knowledge, and the questions they are facing at each stage of the process, then just like Jack you need to sign up to my course howtogetagraduatejob.com, as you can tell, he is happy he did, and you will be too. Check out the shownotes at www.graduatejobpodcast.com/jack where I link to the course, the free Linkedin guide which Jack mentioned in the show and also details of how you can book a 30-minute coaching call with me where we can see how I can help you get a graduate job. That’s www.graduatejobpodcast.com/Jack. Other course members have been as successful as Jack, and stay tuned as they will be coming on the show to share their stories very soon as well. Right, that is about all from today, I hope you enjoyed the show and I hope to be welcoming you as a new member of the How to Get a Graduate Job course very soon. Speak to you next time.