Episode 116: How Callum got a graduate job with P&G

June 21, 2021 Podcast

For the 116th episode of the Graduate Job Podcast, I speak with a listener of the show Callum, as he shares his experiences of getting a graduate job with top graduate employer P&G. Callum is an alumnus of the How to Get a Graduate Job course, and he shares his insights of applying for graduate schemes with FMCGs, consulting companies, and engineering firms, the struggles he went through, advice at each stage of the process, and errors and mistakes that he made along the way. No matter what type of graduate job you are applying to, Callum will be sharing insider tips to help you perform and stand out from the crowd. Now the only link you need to remember today is www.graduatejobpodcast.com/Callum which has all of the links to everything we discuss today, including the details and dates of when the How to Get a Graduate Job course will reopen. So without further ado, let’s head across to my chat with Callum.

MORE SPECIFICALLY IN THIS EPISODE YOU’LL LEARN ABOUT:

  • What you need to do to impress when you apply to Proctor and Gamble
  • What P&G look for from graduates
  • Questions you will face in the assessment centre for a graduate job at P&G
  • How to impress when you apply for consulting roles with the big 4
  • The importance of focus with your graduate job applications
  • Why Callum joined the How to Get a Graduate Job course, and why he thinks you should too
  • His advice for how you can stand out when you apply for a graduate job

SELECTED LINKS INCLUDE:

Transcript 116 – How Callum got a graduate job with P&G

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.

James: Hello, welcome to the show today, I’m very excited to have you with me for a very special episode, as following hot on the heels of my last episode with Jack who was a listener of the show and member of the How to Get a Graduate Job Course, I am today joined by fellow course alumni member Callum, as he shares how he managed to get on the graduate scheme with top graduate employer Proctor and Gamble. Callum is just like you, a listener to the show who decided to sign up for the first launch of my course last September, and in today’s episode, he shares his journey from graduating at Manchester uni through to bagging a place on the much sort after P&G graduate scheme. He shares his first-hand experience of going through each of the stages of the application process for a variety of FMCG’s, consulting companies, and engineering firms, spilling the beans on what you can expect at each stage, from the online application, video interviews through to the assessment centre. He shares what went well, mistakes he made, what you need to do to stand out from the crowd, and why he recommends that you sign up for the How to Get a Graduate Job course. It’s an inspiring episode today, getting a graduate job can be hard, but Callum shows you how it is possible, and how if he can do it, you can too. Now the links to the show notes today including a transcript you can download can be found at www.graduatejobpodcast.com/callum, which is CALLUM. Make sure you listen to the end of the episode as I share the date for the relaunch of the How to Get a Graduate Job course, where it will be coming to you with lots of extra bonuses and extra coaching time with me, so if you are serious and want to turbocharge your search for a graduate job and want to get it first time around, then make sure you stick around to hear the details for that. So, without further ado, let’s head on over to my chat with Callum.

James: I’m very pleased to welcome to the show, listener, and member of the, How to Get a Graduate Job Group. Callum, welcome to The Graduate Job Podcast.

Callum: Hello James. Thank you very much for having me.

James: No, thank you for appearing on the show and yeah, today we’re going to explore your journey to getting on one of the most sought-after graduate schemes. You can tell us how you managed to bag a place on that one. But first, before we do, let’s maybe give the listeners a little bit of background so they can understand a little bit more about you.

Callum: Sure. So, I guess I’ll start at university. I went to uni at Manchester, I studied Material Science and Engineering. So that was a four-year course.  After finishing uni, I always knew that I wanted to take a year off before I started looking at longer-term employment, really and so I graduated back in the summer of 2019. And then I worked on a kibbutz in Israel for six months. And I came back home for Christmas, with the intention of going out and getting a bit more travelling in. Unfortunately, there was a little lady called COVID, came along and put an end to that and so I ended up doing an internship a six-month internship, at an FMCG startup. And then after, after commencing, I decided that it was, it was time to get cracking with graduate applications.

James: Excellent. And how did you come across the show. How did you find the podcast?

Callum: So, I think I came across it whilst, I was in Israel. I was started to think about you know, what potentially I’d be interested in doing afterwards. And at that point in time, Teach First was something that I’d heard about. And I think I just Googled almost ‘Teach First graduate scheme’ and the podcast pops up on YouTube and gave it a listen and I thought it was, it was quite insightful and almost put a little note in it and thought that’s something I would come back to when I started to apply to more graduate schemes in earnest.

James: And you mentioned when we were chatting offline that initially, you didn’t think graduate schemes were for you. What made you switch then to start thinking that you wanted to apply to them?

Callum: Yeah, I think to be honest, when I was at university and finishing my fourth year, I hadn’t really put a whole lot of thought into what I was going to be doing post this gap year. And I think most, students almost deal with perhaps a little bit of anxiety as to what they’re going to do after university, because for the most part, you go through school and you know that you’re going to be going to university. And it’s almost only when you finish university that you’ve got this whole world of possibilities. And I think it can be quite a daunting decision and thing to contemplate. So graduate schemes, I knew that some of my friends were applying to them, but it was almost something that I didn’t really feel like I wanted to commit to because I wanted to go off and do something a bit more interesting.

I wanted to have you know, some more worldly experiences let’s say. And then when I did come back to the UK and was working for the startup, it was a fantastic work experience. And I learned a lot about the working world and I guess myself in a more professional setting. And I think one of the main things that stood out to me was as great as that experience had been. There wasn’t necessarily a whole lot of room and opportunity for my own personal and professional development at a smaller company. And that’s what I, then when I reflected upon that, I realized that that was probably the benefit in me applying for these grad schemes in that they are a more structured program with the idea being that after a year to three years, by the end of it, you’re looking at a more of a leadership position I mean really, it’s almost a fast-track system that’s trying to improve really your professional development. And so that’s when I made the decision that actually, yeah, it would be a benefit to me to, to apply for these graduate schemes.

James: Yeah, I know it’s very similar to my experience. So, I was working for a low-cost airline at the time after university and loved the company. It was amazing experience loved the people, but then just had that awareness that the long-term development just wasn’t there, it was a smaller company  and they didn’t have those types of things in place and I had the recognition that graduate schemes are set up just with that sole purpose in mind, they are to develop the future leaders of the business. No matter which company you apply to, they see the graduate scheme as where the future leaders are coming from; so, they invest in you accordingly. So now good, good insight that you able to realize that with your applications. So, you were one of the initial cohort members of the, How to Get a Graduate Job course. So, what made you, what made you get in touch and sign up for the course?

Callum: So, I had finished my internship at this startup and made the decision that I was not going to continue working there. And I was going to almost be applying full-time to graduate jobs, which then put me back in touch with the podcast. And I think you, James had released an episode or you began to speak about in your more recent episodes that you were doing this course and found that a lot of your previous material certainly resonated with me. And I felt that it was useful. So, you know, when you said that you were gonna be doing this course, I was interested. And then you, I remember you sending out an email to people that had signed up for notifications with your podcast saying that you are open to a 15 minute just chat to see how the process was going signed up to that.

We had, I think it ended up being an hour-long conversation about all things, graduate jobs. And I thought, why not? At the end of the day, you’re investing in yourself, it’s setting you apart from all the other candidates and yeah. Okay. It’s a bit of an investment, but the idea is that it’s going to improve your chances of getting a graduate job by the end of it. And the salary that you then start on is almost you can account for that small investment that, that you’re putting in around September time really.

James: Yep. I remember you were in Canada. I was in Greece at the time. So, it was a, we were many time zones apart, but yeah, we had a, we had a good chat and as you said it is, it’s an investment. So, for lots of people listening, maybe they’re not able to make that investment, in which case, you know, that’s, that’s cool. There are 115 or so episodes of the podcast, you can listen to entirely for free. There’s lots and lots of brilliant content in there, but if you want to take it to the next level, you know, you really want to give yourself the best possible chance as you apply to these super competitive schemes as well. If that sounds like you, then definitely check out the course How to Get a Graduate Job at www.howtgetagraduatejob.com. So, let’s start at the beginning, so you sign up for the course and let’s see. This would have been September time. And did you have a firm idea in your head then of the exact companies that you wanted to apply to?  Had you really narrowed it down by this point, are you still open to offers?

Callum: I was definitely open to offers, but as I said, having worked for an FMCG startup and I quite enjoyed that business. I knew I was certainly interested in some of the bigger FMCG companies as well as some other big firms a lot of my friends had applied to, I guess, the bigger professional services firms. So, the big four. So, I knew that those companies were ones that I’d really be looking into, but then, you know, a lot of my research into companies started around that September time. So, at the beginning I was very open to the kinds of companies that I would, I would be looking at sending my application into.

James: Yeah. So, I’ve got your application tracker open at the moment, so everyone who joins a course, we have an application tracker, so we can track all the different stages of the applications. And you did really well, lots of people fail at the initial, the initial application stage and then the online testing stage. And you got through for every company you applied to for these two stages. So, you really, really did well there. So maybe starting then with the CV. You’ve got a really good CV that we didn’t really need to work too much on. What advice would you give people for that CV stage?

Callum: The biggest advice and it’s, I know it’s something that you cover in the course is just making sure that your CV is tailored to the specific company that you’re applying to. So, when you look at a job posting, let’s say it’s for Accenture, they will, there’s almost going to be three or four key traits that they’re looking for. It might be problem-solving; it might be attention to detail. It might be analytical. And then it is just about ensuring that you go through your CV and whatever work experience you have or sports that you played or volunteering that you’ve done. It’s about ensuring that you are then repeating the same phrases and characteristics that the employer or the job posting itself has mentioned. So going through your CV and saying, I am analytical because I did this, I am a problem solver because I did that. That would be my biggest advice on the, I guess the CV part of it.

James: Yeah. And it’s a jigsaw puzzle where they’re giving you the pieces of telling you exactly what they want. So, you know, you really shouldn’t be falling at this stage, but lots of people do because they adopt a scattergun approach and they don’t follow the advice which you did. But yeah. So, from that initial stage, it was FMCG companies you focussed on as you mentioned. So, P&G, Mars, lots of the professional services firms. So PWC, Deloitte EY and then a mix of more engineering or companies who have engineering aspects, so there were some car makers there. So, VW some oil and gas, so BP, so a nice broad mix but you were focused, not like some people who just apply to every single company that’s open. So, this was a, you had a strategy and you knew the types of companies that you wanted to apply to.

Callum: Yeah, a hundred per cent. And I think not adopting a scattergun approach is one of probably the most important parts of the whole process, I’d say, and it’s not, it’s not just simply as easy as saying, okay, I’m not going to adopt a scattergun approach because it’s applying for these graduate jobs. It’s this weird phenomenon where you naturally want to get as many applications into the system and rolling, because you’re therefore increasing your chances of one of them being successful. But for every new application you make, that’s then one hour less in a day that you can devote to an application that you might get to a video interview stage, or even just in the beginning the CV stage. So, almost from reading, that’s quite a small list of companies I ended up really applying to that doesn’t necessarily mean that it was quite as easy as that. I know that there was definitely points where I was wanting and trying to push myself to apply to more companies. But I found that once you start applying to more, you’re, then almost you’re, you’re increasing your workload by an exponential amount. And it starts to get really difficult to even then focus on individual companies. And so, once I realized that it was something that I was struggling with, I would then narrow down my focus and really highlight and push all my attention towards, there would be two or three at any point in time. And I guess that that’s perhaps something that attributed to my success in the earlier stages.

James: Yeah. And sticking then with the early stages. So, the online testing, I mean, you come from an engineering background. So, you know you’ve got numeric skills there still, you have to put the work in for the testing phase didn’t you?

Callum: Yeah. They are a skill, I think the first, so again, you, you mentioned it in your course that it’s a hundred per cent worthwhile signing up to some of these websites that they’ve got huge stock lists, let’s say of all these numerical reasoning, non-numerical reasoning all of these tests that it’s a hundred per cent worth signing up to those. It really is not that much money. And it’s just allows you to then, I think my routine was, I’d wake up in the mornings and have my breakfast and all that fun stuff. And then do two of those in an hour in the morning, just practising those so that when I did start to get to that stage in the process I was already well versed in, in passing those tests because I mean, even though I come from, I guess, an engineering background, which perhaps might make me better suit at passing some of these, at least the numerical tasks. I remember the first couple that I did. I was definitely almost below the 50% or the 50th percentile, but then once you start getting three, four or five tests and you start seeing your results increase hugely, so practice is definitely key.

James: And you do really get into a rhythm. So, when you’re practising, you’re getting better. And then just due to the nature of when these tests come in the process, you tend to get a lot of them at the same time for different companies you’re applying to. So, it is a muscle that you, you build really quickly if you do put the work in and yeah, the proof is in the, as I said, you passed every online testing stage for each of the companies you applied to. So really impressive. Well, well done for that, including the PWC the games based one, which actually I did practice, and I failed at, so you did, you did well with that one where you have to pop the balloons. So, your gaming skills coming to the fore.

Callum: So, don’t ask me to explain how I passed that, yeah it was strange.

James: So, then we moved on to the video interview stage of the process where we, we did a lot of work together on this. So, members of the course got credits to use at a time with me where we use the mock video interview tool. So, for listeners, it’s an opportunity to practice in the same format for the video interview tests you’re gonna get. So, I’ve got a bank of different questions depending on different companies. So, you’ll get the same questions you’re going to face, and then you’ll have the same time limit. So, two minutes, three minutes, whatever it is, and then we’d go through them together. So how did you find the video interview process? Callum, if you remember the first ones that we did.

Callum: The first one that I did, I think was to PWC actually. And yeah, I did not enjoy doing  those interviews. I don’t think anyone really enjoys them. They certainly make sense from the employer’s standpoint, but they are, it’s a very bizarre way to conduct an interview where you are quite literally just talking to yourself on a computer screen. But again, practice makes perfect, it’s a skill learning to see, right. I’ve got two minutes to give an answer. And as opposed to being in a face-to-face interview where you can just keep talking until you get very obvious cues from the interview that it’s time to move on or wrap up your answer here, you’ve got two minutes. So, it’s a skill that you get better at telling a particular story using the star technique, which I don’t know if we’ll touch upon in a bit. Yeah, again, it’s practice makes perfect.

James: Yeah. And yeah, as you mentioned, it’s a skill having the timer in the corner and you can just see ticking down, and getting used to knowing ok I need 10 seconds to wrap up. I need 15 seconds to wrap up or whatever it might be. Yeah, you could see a huge improvement. We can look back at the old videos from the first time you did it through to the ones at the end and they were very slick. The answers were really tight. It’s really difficult to get in one minute and answering one minute or two minutes or say with Mars where they ask you the questions, I’ve got four different parts to the question. And you’ve only got two minutes to answer them. They are really, really challenging. Can you remember from the companies you applied to any that were more challenging than others,

Callum: Probably the Mars one. And not necessarily because the questions themselves were quite challenging or abstract, but more that each question. And, and I can’t remember off the top of my head now, but each question would almost have four different bullet points. And so, the way that these video interviews work is you tend to, the question will pop up on the screen and you’ve got, say a minute to, to think of an answer. And then you’ll have, I think in the Mars instance, there was four, four minutes to give your answer, but that minute about half of it was spent just reading the question and understanding what are the four different points they want me to cover. And then you’ve got 30 seconds to quickly try and give a brief structure to your answer before the countdown starts. So, I certainly found that to be, I think the most, the most challenging one just because I almost felt that I was trying to structure my answer whilst I was actually delivering it at the same time, which you know, undoubtedly probably isn’t the best way to do it.

James: Yep. So, you had a really good bank of answers to questions. Which do you find more difficult? The competency questions you faced, the strength ones or the more motivational ones, you know, why you wanted to work for a particular company? Were there any that you preferred over any others

Callum: In terms of the type of question situational versus competency? I think competencies are fine once you’ve got a good bank of questions in or answers rather in your mind. I guess the difficulty with them, and I started to find this as I had done a few of the video interviews is almost, you’ll be telling the same stories over and over again. Yeah. And your, like I said, you’re almost telling them to yourself, which starts to get quite tiring, but you just need to remember that actually this is the first time that whatever company it is, you’re applying to that’s the first time they’re going to hear the story. So, I think I remember we were doing one practice, video interview, and I said, after we’d done it, and you also liked the way it went. And I said, you just got quite frustrated with my answers because I was so bored of telling the same stories over and over again. So that’s a slight difficulty, I guess, that you might have with the competencies. And then the other ones are the motivation. I guess those can be a bit more difficult because they’re more inherently personal. How can your past experiences or your future goals, how can they resonate with the particular company you’re applying to? But they would say really the key like with a lot of stages of the process is to make sure that you’re speaking to people at the company that you’re applying to, because, you know, they might talk about a little project that you can then bring in your answer, or they might talk about a person or an aspiration that they have, that you can then link into an answer. And just speaking to a current graduate that is in the program and is for the most part, I don’t think I spoke to anyone that was not excited to be working at the company that they’re at. That excitement definitely rubs off on you. And I would have to find, and these phone calls with people that are a year, two, three years into the specific program. And I would feel a lot more motivation towards working and applying for that company. So definitely that’s the key to the motivational ones.

James: And that’s, to be honest, that’s one of the things that you did really, really well was in your answers. And it goes back to the, probably the number of companies that you applied to. Was the motivational aspects of the questions were really strong, you know, you’d, you said you’d spoken to people who work there, you knew about the company, you knew the name of people doing interesting things? You knew really interesting bespoke aspects of the company. I remember, was it PWC where you were able to talk about the sustainability and the building, their head office being one of the most sustainable buildings in the country. And you were able to drill down into really specific things. It isn’t just instantly readable from two minutes on their corporate website. You’d shown that you’d really put the time and energy and attention in, and that just separates you out from other candidates massively because people don’t tend to do that. You know, it’s really generic stuff of, I really want to work here because your number 27 in the Times top 100 places to work and generic stuff like that. That’s just not going to impress any graduate recruiters at all.

Callum: Yeah, exactly. And I think that line about PWC head office being ultra-sustainable or whatever it is I got from speaking to someone about PWC. So yeah, definitely try and speak to the current employees of the companies that you’re applying to.

James: So, at this stage so again, looking back at the tracker, you would get in doing the video interviews mid-November time. And so, you’d been considered you start applying September. So, this is a couple of months to get to this stage. So how did you, how did you keep yourself going in terms of motivation? Cause I know from when we were doing the webinars and the course, this was when people were starting to hit the dip a little bit, you know, you’ve been applying, you’re not hearing back, it’s gonna be a month or even longer before you get responses from people. How did you keep going through this period?

Callum: Yeah, it’s it, you certainly start to lose a bit of motivation as you get through to November. But I think I, maybe my answer isn’t necessarily going to be as useful to everyone because I was quite lucky in that for the months of September and October, I was actually out in Canada living with friends. So, although I was doing this full time, at lunch I would go out for a canoe ride because we were staying out on the lakes. And then on the weekends, I would properly relax and enjoy time with my friends. So, when November came around, that was the first time that I was actually back in my own house really slugging away with the applications. So, in that sense, almost my, my dip was perhaps delayed by about a month or so, but I guess then when I was in the depth of motivation around December time, it’s just important to, I guess, just remember that it is a process and you just have to have to have a lot of confidence in yourself and you have to trust the process and you have to trust that you are doing the right things to get a job and then still take care of yourself.

So, is it going for a walk at lunch? Is it phoning a friend every evening or whatever it is? Do you like cooking? Make more of an effort to help out around the kitchen or actually say right every Wednesday and Friday, that’s going to be me cooking, cooking dinner just staying in tune with yourself and make sure that you are staying healthy both mentally and physically is probably the best tip that I could give.

James: Yeah. And I think that’s a, that’s a really strong one and having that positive support network around you, of people who can keep you going when you’re having, when you’re in that dip and you’re not hearing back and recruiters are being slow and all that standard stuff that the graduate recruitment process is difficult, especially chucking lockdown into the mix. And it’s, it’s a difficult time. So, you have that positive network around you, which is one of the, for my coaching is one of the key things often is just keeping people positive through these difficult times. So, you did really well with all the video interviews. I think the only one that you failed at was EY can remember why, what went wrong with EY?.

Callum: I mean, it’s, it’s hard to say for sure, but I’m pretty sure that I failed one of the, because they had a video interview stage it was a mix of some video interview questions and then some more situational judgment questions where they’re really just making sure that your personality matches up with what they’re looking for in an employee. And there was a question that was asking about new and emerging technology that I just completely misunderstood. And I’m pretty sure that that’s, that’s why I failed that. So, I didn’t, I think it was almost right. What would your response be to a certain situation? And very simply it was either you use new technology that perhaps hasn’t been tested or you use tried and tested technology. And I thought that the question behind the question was asking you know, are you going to constantly be trying to use new techniques or the tried and tested ones? And so, I think I got, I got that one wrong. Really?

James: Which one did you go for? The tried and tested or the new techniques?

Callum: I went for the tried and tested. Whereas I’m pretty sure that what they’re after is you’re constantly wanting to be using new technology and exploring new routes to success.

James: Yep. It’s tricky especially those more interactive ones, you’ve really got to be focused, but I’m sure you, you learned a lot from it and you then progressed through all the other video interviews that you faced I think. So, you did really well. And now we get into the assessment centre stage. So, one of the frustrating things you had then was PWC. They filled up all the spots, didn’t they on the scheme you’re applying to, what did they, what hoops did they then make you jump through?

Callum: Yeah, so for PWC, I was applying to, I think it was data analytics scheme or something along those lines. And it was one that there was, it was a lot more, what’s an easy way of putting this. Well, there wasn’t a lot of spaces on that scheme. It wasn’t the same as the audit schemes where there might be 20, 30 spots. I think this was this role. There might’ve only been two or three spaces. So just by the time that I got through the video interview stage, I was told that I passed and had the assessment centre, but there was just a few people ahead of me in the process. So, they had to see how they went before they could offer me an assessment centre because they may or may not have been a space available at the end of it. So ended up being the role was, was filled up and I was given the opportunity to apply to a different role, but in doing so, I had to go back to the video interview stage to do another video interview and then had to wait to hear back from that.

James: Yeah, it’s one of the super frustrating parts of the process. And I know from some of the people I’m coaching at the moment, the frustrating thing is they’ve got through the assessment centre stage, you know, they’ve jumped through all the hoops, done the video interview, they’ve got the confirmation that they have passed and the response they’ve got from the company is well done. You’ve passed, you’ve made it through to the assessment centre, but we don’t know if we’re going to have one because we might be full. So yeah, it’s an annoying when, when that happens. But the good news was you got through to the assessment centre with P&G. So how did that one go?

Callum: Yeah, so that one, that one went well. The P&G assessment centre is normally if it wasn’t for COVID, it’s meant to be a two day, I think they call it a career academy. So, it’s two days you’d be onsite. And I guess, depending on what department you’ve applied to you’d be shown around the sites. You get to see what some of the grads are doing, and then you might have to do a presentation and you’ve got a final interview. So that, that didn’t happen originally. It was then going to be a virtual event for two days for whatever reason that then also got cancelled. So, by the end of it, it was actually just that final interview with someone in senior management on the site. So, in that regard, it was almost quite simple because I’d already been preparing for interviews and was quite well prepared for those. It was just another interview where again, I had to convince the interviewer that I really did want to work for Proctor and Gamble and that I was the right candidate for them.

James: And was, did you notice a real focus on that in terms of that motivation? Was that one of the things that he really, he really drilled you on the why P&G angle?

Callum: Yeah, I would, I’d definitely say so. I say, I think so I ended up having three interviews in total for Procter and Gamble and they all adopt a fairly similar structure in that there will be five or so situational questions. Then there might be two or three or sorry, five competency questions, then two or three situational questions. And then it turns into a bit more of an informal discussion about yourself, your motivations, why Proctor and Gamble, what you’ve done in the past. And I definitely felt that in that final interview, there was a lot of focus being put in to, okay, do I actually want to work for Proctor and Gamble? Why do I want to work for Procter and Gamble? And those sorts of questions that I remember finishing. And when you asked me how it went and me replying in the email saying, I certainly felt that I would be grilled a lot more in my motivations than I had previously.

But then again, it’s just, have you spoken to people at the company? Do you really know what your job is? Cause that was, that was a question I remember getting asked, almost ‘How do you know you want to work for us’? ‘How do you know you want this job? Because you’ve never done it before you say you’re going to like it, but how do you know what it is’? You’re gonna be able to w what it is that you’re going to be doing. And in my answer for me to say, well, I, this is what I’m going to be doing. I know this is what I’m going to be doing, because I’ve spoken to person X at the company. I think is probably quite a good response to it because you’ve, you’ve gone the extra mile and you’re proving that, okay, I want to do this. And I know what it is that my job is going to be consisting of.

James: Yep. And you, that, as I said earlier, that was always one of the really strong aspects that, that really came across in your video interview. And I’m sure in person, it came across even more because also you, you weren’t blagging, right? You were, you were being, you were able to be honest with them because this is a company that you really interested in. It was in a role you really interested in. And I know that sounds really stupid, but many times with graduates. I speak to, that’s not the case, it’s people from that scatter gun approach who are applying to companies just because they’re open and the roles, maybe aren’t right for them. And they’re trying to blag that, yeah. I really, really want to work with you for X reasons. And it doesn’t come across if it’s, if it’s not true.

Callum: Yeah. A hundred percent. I think, well, Proctor and Gamble was actually the first company that I applied to in my initial application stage and was definitely in the top three, if not the top company that I really wanted to be working for. So, when I got to that final stage that I was quite confident at answering a lot of these motivational questions, I had work experience in an FMCG startup. So, I had a lot of experiences to draw upon. But that’s not to say that if you didn’t have those experiences, that you could still prove your motivations for that particular company when it gets to that stage.

James: And of course, I didn’t want to take the time, but I was extremely confident you were going to get it. I yeah, I, I knew you’d, you’d do really, really well. And you did, do you know, the big reveal, big reveal for listeners? You want to tell them?

Callum: Oh yeah. So, I got the job offer at Proctor and Gamble, which is exciting.

James: Yeah. Brilliant. And yeah, I thought you’d be chilling until September, but they want to get you in and get your working.

Callum: Yeah. So, I’m starting on the 1st Feb. Yeah, originally, I thought that it would be starting September odd, but to be honest, it’s actually quite nice being able to just get started during COVID because the original plan was apply for grad schemes. Hopefully get something lined up September and then be able to go away for six months or so. But obviously yeah, with travel restrictions, that’s not really too feasible. So, I’m actually very happy that I’m going to be starting in, I think two weeks’ time.

James: Brilliant. Welcome to the world of paying tax, about time we can get you involved, but yeah, you’re excited to be starting?

Callum: Yeah. Really excited. I think, I think having taken a year out after university and done a bit of traveling, I know there’s certainly people that have probably spent more time jetting around the world. But I certainly feel ready to start work and it’s something that I feel like I’m making an active decision to do as opposed to simply rolling into work or rolling into a graduate scheme. So yeah, I’m actually very excited for it.

James: Oh, brilliant. And as I mentioned, right, you did really well. You got through for most of the, you did the video interviews. Are you still not that you’re going to change your mind, but are you still waiting to hear from companies like two months later on whether you’d got through?

Callum: Yeah. So, I think Deloitte, they were one of the first, they might have even been the second video interview that I did. But I even got an email from them recently saying that, you know don’t expect to hear back from us until I think the end of January. So yeah, there is a lot of waiting potentially involved with these companies.

James: Yup. Listeners, you know, go into the graduate application process with that awareness. It is not a quick process, you will be waiting in between the different stages. And if you don’t expect that it can be really demoralizing because you think what’s gone wrong, I’ve not heard anything. Is it going to be a no, it conversely tends to be the opposite the longer you, you don’t hear then probably the better your chances, no’s definitely come back quicker than yeses. But yeah, as I said, two months before that you did the Deloitte one on the 11th. Oh wow 11th of October. So that’d be three and a half months till finding the answer, which is going to like, that is, that is pretty poor. But yeah, it is a waiting game. So just bear that in mind. So, time is running away with us Callum before we move to the weekly staple questions then do you have any tips then from the different processes, the different parts of the process? So, from say, you know, the video interview to assessment centre, any advice you’d be giving listeners for these stages?

Callum: It’s really boring because, I’m sure. Well, I can’t  remember if you repeat it quite a lot in these podcasts, but I know you repeat it a lot in the course, but honestly, speak to people at the companies you’re working for, the information that you get from them. You can filter in every stage of the process as well as then I think I alluded to it slightly before that almost this idea of anxiety, right? What am I going to do after university as this big unknown graduate schemes and, and all of that? But when speaking to someone that’s been through the process, it humanizes it a lot more. You realize that actually there’s a lot of people going through this. And yeah, honestly, that’s, that’s the biggest, the biggest tip I could give.

James: Super now. I like that. Yeah. And I do mention it a lot in the course because it is just so, so important. And it’s always gratifying when people, people take the advice and, you know, to see you do so well, you know, you put the hard work in and you have you deserve every, every success. Especially in the video interviews were top top-notch you did really, really, really good jobs there. So, you put the hard work in and you deserve it all so well done.

Callum: Thanks very much.

James: So, let’s move on then to the weekly staple questions. I’m interested in what nuggets you’re going to share with listeners here. So, first question number one, what book would you recommend that listeners should read?

Callum: Yeah, so unfortunately, you’re not going to get any pearls of wisdom in terms of books that are gonna increase your employability, but I’m going to recommend the Last Exit to Brooklyn. I can’t even remember what the author’s name is and which is suddenly quite embarrassing. Is it, I’m not even gonna take a guess because I know it’s gonna be wrong? But really, really interesting, but definitely give it a listen, not listen a read. Probably the favourite, my favourite book of all time.

James: Hubert Selby, Jr.

Callum: That is the one. Yes. yeah, it’s, it’s really interesting. It’s… it’s almost, I think it’s like eight sorts of short stories that all vaguely interlinked and it’s written…there’s a lot of speech that goes on in all of these stories, but there’s no speech marks, it’s all the way it’s written is that you can…it’s written so well that you can pick up who is speaking simply from the way a sentence is written, which I found really, really interesting. I remember the first or two pages being quite difficult to work out what’s going on, but once you get into it, the whole, the whole book just flows and it’s really, it’s really, really cool. It’s written… yeah, I haven’t read a book that’s written anything like that. You know, I’m sure that if there’s any English grads or people who did slightly more literary degrees, that perhaps they can describe the, the techniques, but yeah Last exit to Brooklyn give it a read.

James: Excellent. yeah. You know, just off the top of my head, I would describe it as being written in a brusk, every man style of prose. And that’s no way just taken from Wikipedia. So, I’ve not read that one myself. I we’ll have to check that one out, but I will be linking to it in the show notes, which today you can find at www.graduatejobpodcast.com/Callum, which is C A L L U M. And next question, Callum, what website or internet resource would you point listeners towards

Callum: BBC sport? It’s a fantastic way to procrastinate and waste all your time. Get involved in all the, have your says. And its darn entertaining watching or reading about all the Liverpool and Manchester fans, heckling each other on these forums,

James: Not that Tottenham fans do that at all do they?

Callum: No comment.

James: And final question today. What one tip would you give listeners that they can implement today to help them on their job search?

Callum: Do yoga. It’s great for your mind and it’s great for your body.

James: Not one that was expected, but yeah,

Callum: No, I think I’ve panicked there, but yeah do yoga.

James: Callum, thank you so much for appearing on the Graduate Job podcast and all the best at P&G.

Callum: No worries. Thank you very much for having me, James.

James: Many thanks there to Callum for coming on the show and sharing his story of how he got a graduate job with P&G. As you can tell, I had a lot of fun recording that one, and it’s one of the things I enjoy most about being a graduate career coach, of course helping my clients to get graduate jobs, but also, I’m working really closely with my clients over many months, sharing the ups and downs of their jobsearch, but we have a lot of fun along the way. Now that was recorded back in January, (yes, I know I have been slow getting this live), and at the time Callum hadn’t started with P&G. Now there is an interesting postscript from the episode today, Callum talked about Deloitte and just how slow they were to come back to him, well, come back to him they did with the offer of a date at an assessment centre post starting with P&G. And I’m sure it comes as no surprise for me to tell you that he did really well in the assessment centre, with the upshot that he was offered the graduate job with Deloitte, so well-done Callum, two job offers from 2 of the best graduate employers, a great position to be in. And that is the position I’m always working with my coaching clients to get to, 2 or more offers so you can really pick the one that is right for you. Wait till you here the interview in a couple of weeks with one of my clients from the course who had 5, yes 5 graduate job offers. So Callum, what did he do? He is in a great, and rare position, he isn’t just comparing 2 roles on paper, he is actually doing one of them, so he can really make a decision from a position of strength. What’s it to be….the bird in the hand of P&G, versus the offer of a graduate job from Deloitte…well I was speaking with Callum today and he knows what he is going to do, but I’ll let him tell the companies before I tell you. So there you go, another successful and satisfied member of How to Get a Graduate Job. It worked for Callum, it worked for Jack in the last episode and it has worked for my upcoming guests that you’ll hear on future episodes. I’ll be relaunching the course with some brilliant bonuses on the 1st of August, so put that date in your diary. That’s the 1st of August. Put a note in your phone as I will be offering for a very short time the course with some brilliant extra goodies including one on one coaching sessions with me. As Callum said, if you want to get a graduate job you need this course! So what should you do right now? Visit https://howtogetagraduatejob.com, specifically https://howtogetagraduatejob.com/5steps/ that’s the number 5 and the steps, as that will take you to my free download where I share the 5 steps you must take before applying for graduate jobs. I’ll then be able to keep in touch with you and let you know what you need to do to sign up for my course and just how you can get it with the hundreds of pounds of free extras. It’s going to be bigger and better this year, and you aren’t going to want to miss out. I promise you that, so head to https://howtogetagraduatejob.com/5steps/ Right, I’ll leave it there, I hope you enjoyed the episode today, but more importantly, I hope you use it, and apply it. See you next week.