Episode 103 – How to get a graduate job with Capgemini

July 30, 2020 Podcast

Hello and welcome to the 103rd episode of the Graduate Job Podcast, the UK’s number 1 careers podcast. I have a cracking episode for you today, as I’m joined on the show by Dan Doherty, Recruitment Manager for global consulting and technology giant Capgemini. I have to warn you, it’s a longer episode than normal, coming in at nearly an hour twenty today, but there is a good reason for it, as we go deep deep down into exactly what you need to do to get a graduate job at Capgemini. We explore the different roles that they have available, from the Invent Accelerate Programme, through to direct entry for a host of technology and business specific roles such as cyber security and project analyst roles. We also explore all aspects of the recruitment process in depth and look at the key mistakes you need to avoid. We explore why Capgemini look to recruit from a broad range of universities, why the degree you studied matters less than you might think, and why you should definitely let them know about your side hustle. We cover why 65% of applicants fail at the initial online application stage, and what you can do to make sure that isn’t you. We look at why you need to forget about your competency answers when applying to Capgemini, and instead start to think about your strengths. We discuss why it is so crucial to show your authentic self in the video interview and exactly what you need to do to impress when you get to the assessment centre. If you have ever thought about applying to Capgemini, a consulting firm more generally, or any professional services company, then this is an episode which you won’t want to miss. As always you can find a full transcript with all of the links over in the show notes at https://www.graduatejobpodcast.com/capgemini. As I said it’s a longer episode than normal, so get yourself a cup of tea, settle down and enjoy my chat with Dan Doherty.

MORE SPECIFICALLY IN THIS EPISODE YOU’LL LEARN ABOUT:

  • The graduate job opportunities that are available at Capgemini
  • Why Capgemini look to recruit from a broad range of universities and why the degree you studied matters less than you might think
  • Why 65% of applicants fail at the initial online application stage
  • Why you need to forget about competency questions and focus on strength-based questions
  • Why you need to show your authentic self through the video interview and assessment centre stages

SELECTED LINKS

Transcript – Episode 103- How to get a graduate job with Capgemini

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.

Hello and welcome to the 103rd episode of the Graduate Job Podcast, the UK’s number 1 careers podcast. I have a cracking episode for you today, as I’m joined on the show by Dan Doherty, Recruitment Manager for global consulting and technology giant Capgemini. I have to warn you, it’s a longer episode than normal, coming in at nearly an hour twenty today, but there is a good reason for it, as we go deep deep down into exactly what you need to do to get a graduate job at Capgemini. We explore the different roles that they have available, from the Invent Accelerate Programme, through to direct entry for a host of technology and business specific roles such as cyber security and project analyst roles. We also explore all aspects of the recruitment process in depth, and look at the key mistakes you need to avoid. We explore why Capgemini look to recruit from a broad range of universities, why the degree you studied matters less than you might think, and why you should definitely let them know about your side hustle. We cover why 65% of applicants fail at the initial online application stage, and what you can do to make sure that isn’t you. We look at why you need to forget about your competency answers when applying to Capgemini, and instead start to think about your strengths. We discuss why it is so crucial to show your authentic self in the video interview and exactly what you need to do to impress when you get to the assessment centre. If you have ever thought about applying to Capgemini, a consulting firm more generally, or any professional services company, then this is an episode which you won’t want to miss. As always you can find a full transcript with all of the links over in the show notes at www.graduatejobpodcast.com/capgemini. As I said it’s a longer episode than normal, so get yourself a cup of tea, settle down and enjoy my chat with Dan Doherty.

Before we start though let me tell you about my upcoming online course titled ‘How to Get a Graduate Job’ which goes live on the 27th of August. This course condenses down all my years of experience of coaching people get graduate jobs, my personal experience applying for graduate jobs and then being on the other side of the table and interviewing other people for graduate jobs, and from the 100+ episodes of the podcast, condensing all of that down into one online video course which takes you step by step through everything you need to know, and everything you need to do to get on a graduate scheme like Capgemini. I take you through 8 modules, from getting ready to apply, to online applications, online tests, video interviews, all aspects of the assessment centre, look, if you need to know it, or do it to get a graduate job, its in my course. This course is for you if you have been applying to graduate schemes but just not getting any offers and you don’t know why. If you have just graduated and you know that its going to be a really competitive job market and you want to make sure you are as prepared as you can be, then this course is definitely for you. If you are serious about getting on a graduate scheme, head to www.howtogetagraduatejob.com where you can get my free guide, The 5 steps you must take before you start applying for graduate jobs’, it will revolutionise how you get ready to start applying for graduate schemes. Ok, lets head over to the interview.

James Curran: A very warm welcome to Dan Doherty, Attraction and Recruitment Manager at Capgemini. Dan, welcome to the Graduate Job Podcast.

Dan Doherty: Thanks very much. Good to be here.

James: As a way of introduction, would you like to tell us a little bit about what you do at Capgemini?

Dan: Yeah, so Capgemini, as a company, are a global technology consultancy, so helping other large businesses with their business and digital solutions. My role is to lead our attraction and recruitment of around 300 or so graduate and apprentices in terms of placing students each year right across the multiple locations in the UK. They’re largely into technical roles, some into management consulting, and some business roles.

James: 300, that’s going to keep you busy.

Dan: Yes, and its year around as well, we have multiple intakes, and the locations, obviously, can be quite a challenge at times as well. We kind of are actively engaging and attracting year-round and assessing and selecting during periods of the year as well. It’s nonstop, really.

James: Capgemini holds a special place in my heart as where I started my graduate career back in the day on the consultant development community, so the precursor to the Capgemini Accelerate Invent Programme, which was a brilliant place to start my career, and I was at Cap for coming up to six years. It’d be good to dive in and see how things have changed since I was there. Listeners, all the links from today and a full transcript, you’ll be able to find over in the show notes at graduatejobpodcast.com/capgemini. Dan, let’s get straight into it then. You mentioned there’s 300 different opportunities. Would you like to run by listeners some of the different opportunities that are available with Cap?

Dan: Yeah, sure. We take the graduate route first. We have two different main routes coming in. One is the one that you referred to there, which is the Capgemini Invent Accelerate Programme, which largely follows going into management consultancy with some specialisms by area or skills or sectors further on in their career, and then those who kind of know what they want to do now, whether it’s a developer, tester, technical consultant, cyber-security, that kind of thing, we’ve got roles in our Capgemini UK business which offer them a chance to come into a role from day 1 and almost hone in on that particular job family.

So things like insights and data, things like being a business analyst, an associate consultant, or cyber-security consultant, those real kind of specific role titles that I guess are often associated with people that are at a more experienced level. We provide a route in by offering them a job family which might deviate in terms of technologies or business units, but they tend to stick quite closely to that specialism. That can often be good for those students who have got a course that’s quite well-aligned to that area, so insights and data might be quite interesting for those who’ve done math, engineering, IT, for example, whereas a business analyst could be quite a good fit for some of those people who’ve done some IT and business hybrid courses, or even some non-STEM courses.

When we look at the apprenticeships, which is our second-largest route in in terms of volume, it’s normally about 200 graduates, normally around 100 apprentices each year, and the majority of our apprentices come onto our digital and technology solutions degree apprenticeship so they can earn a degree and earn whilst they learn, full-time role with a blended learning part-time degree over five years, four and a half years, and obviously no student debts. It’s a great option for those who want to pursue a technical career without a degree that they’ve already attained.

We have a business degree apprenticeship, so chartered management degree apprenticeship as well, which works with a similar format and structure of four and a half years, and those tend to be people who come into roles which are a bit like project management office and maybe some support analysts roles, that kind of thing.

We have the odd apprentices coming in as finance, cyber-security, HR, that kind of thing, but quite niche roles and more sort of ad hoc demand that comes in. We have a handful of placement and intern roles as well, particularly in our Telford location. We have one of our large clients there. Smaller numbers, but we’re looking to grow that for the years to come.

James: You can see, like I said you’re busy, at the beginning of the show. Lots of different options there, and the apprenticeship, learn while you earn whilst getting a degree, no student debt sounds like a brilliant opportunity for people looking to get on that one. Yeah, lots of different options there. Maybe if we focus today just on the graduate side of things. You talked about 200 graduate roles. What would be the split, then, between the direct entry route and people into the sort of Invent Accelerate Programme?

Dan: It’s around 60 roles in the Invent Accelerate Programme, the management consulting route, which leaves around 140, I think, if my maths is right, for the role-specific route, let’s call it. Within those 140, about, I would say, around 100 of them are quite technical roles. By technical, we might mean software developer, software tester, cyber-security, insights and data, data science, technical applications consultants, and those roles are a little bit more hybrid. They might be sort of functional apps consultants, so they’re working a lot with technology, but perhaps not a backend technical person.

Then, we’ve got a proportion of roles, maybe a few dozen, which are project analysts, PMO, associate consultants who largely work within the technology arena with their clients, but they’re not the ones who necessarily deal with the technology there, part of the project that delivers the technology, and maybe more the people and business side of things.

James: Really, something for everybody there, no matter what side of technology or business you’re interested in, something to get your teeth into. Let’s maybe break it down into two, and I’ll start with the Accelerate Invent Programme, and we’ll go through to the role-specific entry. With the management consulting Accelerate Invent Programme, what sort of applicants are you looking for?

Dan: With the Invent Programme, it’s quite a popular program, organically. I think management consulting is now, if not always been recently, the most popular career route for graduates. It’s usually in the top three or five destinations anyway over the years. Usually alongside finance, and HR, and marketing, and media. With that comes a variance and a real wide spectrum of applicants because of its appeal. From Greek history all the way through to forensic science and geography, we get it all, really.

There is some pockets or capability, as we call them, who have a particular fondness towards some degree backgrounds that are quite handy to align to what they specialize in. Whether that’s strategy or people operations, or whether it’s future technology, or whether it’s insight to data enterprise, if it’s driven enterprise, you may find that there’s some candidates that might be slightly better-aligned to those business areas, but generally what we’re looking for is those who have got quite an avid interest in the world of technology.

They’ve got some good background and experiences, whether that’s life experiences, work experiences to the experiences that can shape — problem-solvers can shape people who are good communicators and make sure that they can show that they have got that client advocacy. Do they understand what it is that a consultant does, and how we actually help our clients, and why that has such an impact on their business as well as ours?

Those will be the key things we look for throughout the process. We hire on a strengths model for all of our roles, which is very much around the people, and the potential, and the things that they’re good at, they do often, and maybe would like to do more often, and not always about what they’ve done before, which is a little bit more sort of competency-led and looking at the past and the history. That’s really important to us because it is entry-level, and therefore we should be looking at the future rather than what you’ve done before.

James: I completely agree, and when I joined, there was such a broad range of, as you mentioned, degrees. I did a geography degree. There was people from finance to classics and everything in between, and also a really broad mix of universities. I think everybody had come from a different university around the UK, so that really broad mix that people brought to the scheme.

Dan: I was just going to say, just on that, from a social mobility perspective, you target unis and uni representation. I think we had well over 100 different universities represent our application pool and nearly 100 represent our offer pool across all of our graduate roles last year. We very rarely have a certain uni or set of unis which attain a significant number of those roles. I think the most we would normally have is between maybe five or 10 offers from any singular uni out of 200.

That, in itself, shows you that, from a social mobility index performance perspective that it’s about maybe more courses rather than maybe the university that you went to, and more about the person that applies rather than where they’ve applied from. From a Russell Group versus non-Russell Group uni perspective, there’s an equal proportion of representation there rather than what might be out in the press.

James: Listeners, don’t think that where you did your degree is going to hold you back. Your degree is as good as anyone else’s, so make sure you don’t let that stop you from applying. Dan, getting then into the detail of this scheme itself, how long is the Invent Programme, and how long are people on it in terms of rotations, and then settling down into a role?

Dan: The Invent Accelerate Programme, it’s a fairly new iteration of the one that you went on a few years back. We’re ongoingly looking at that program and getting some feedback from those that are on it as well. But, in its current format, we’ve got a period of 21 months that the graduates spend joining in at a certain grade and going off to see different rotations in different business units, and therefore being different sort of sectors and industries. During that time, they’ll start to get a good feel of where they maybe find themselves being at home and where their skill sets are best aligned, and therefore look to cement their place in that area long term after the 21 months itself.

There’s quite a good retention rate as well with our graduate hiring. On program, and not just after the 21 months, but in three, four, five years onwards. I think you mentioned yourself there that you were there for at least five years. We do find that the graduates benefit from being in a consultancy whereby they’re still employed by the same people.

They still have the Capgemini values at the heart of what they do, but the opportunities they get can vary significantly between sectors, industries, and locations, and therefore, it kind of feels, per assignment, that you’re changing job in itself rather than having to leave employers to get that almost gig economy style feel that seems to be a bit of a stat or something in the press, or a bit of a myth out there that graduates just want to job-hop, if you can provide that, almost, variety within your program and your time at the employer, then there’s no need for them to go and explore elsewhere. Those 21 months gives them that early variety that they really want.

James: In terms of location, where will applicants be? Is it London and Edinburgh or just focused in London?

Dan: Just London, as it stands for Capgemini Invent Accelerate Programme, where the projects would be could be across the country, so something that we ask all of our applicants, apprentices, or graduates that are UK travel mobile and their base location may be near to where they live, like Birmingham or Manchester, London, etcetera, but their client could be in Norwich, in Northampton, or Inverness. We really don’t know, so mobility and being able to work away from home during the week is obviously expensed, but it’s an absolute necessity for quite a number of our roles, and it is asked in the application form stage and throughout the process about how mobile they can be.

James: Yeah, and that was one of the things I probably underestimated at the beginning was just how much time away from home that you’d spend in the role. You might get lucky and get a role in London, but the odds are you’re going to be working away Monday to Thursday, which was really good fun, but it suits some people more than others. At the beginning of your career, and especially if you’re single, it’s a really fun lifestyle and very social, working in small teams on projects. You really get to know people quickly, and just bond very quickly.

Dan: I think a point you make there about not being for everyone, and that’s absolutely fine if it isn’t. We are really clear, at multiple stages during the process about that just to make sure that they see it as opportunistic and they see it as an attractive part of the offering, not as a chore. We’ve had people who might have been semi-professional footballers, athletes, musicians, people who’ve got responsibilities who have, in their local community, or in family and friend circles, and missing football training on Tuesday meant that they couldn’t play on a Saturday and have, maybe, a semi-professional sort of wage coming in and things like that.

They had to make decisions at that stage, and despite being offered a role, it meant we had to part ways because they just weren’t able to fully commit to what we needed them to do. That’s absolutely fine. Circumstantially, that can change over time, and maybe we will see somebody like a person, again, maybe further down the line when they’ve settled down, maybe more or whatever. It’s something that should not be overlooked. Like you mentioned, it’s hard to really understand what it looks like, what it feels like, so I’d really encourage those who are looking at roles that are mobile, roles that involve consulting and working with clients that there is so much glamor associated with it, but you need to have sort of an agile mind-set, almost, that your circumstance, your environment, and your time away from home could be quite unpredictable. Let me just set the record straight.

We’re not talking about a haulage driver driver where you get a PDA in the morning saying you’re going to be driving here and then driving there. It’s more static than that, but at least you can plan both your work and non-work activities and advance a little bit more than a haulage driver, let’s say.

James: With the Invent Programme, is there still a really strong emphasis on the social and community aspect of it?

Dan: There is, yeah. I think you find, if you’re heading to the London office on a Friday, you’ll see a lot of the grads and the apprentices who’ve been away on projects want to go into the office to see each other, and they might not have seen for a number of weeks or months, and they’re involved in some of their giving-back activities, which is a necessity part of their program, their role, too evident that they are giving back to the local community, and there’s various different topics around environment, around people, around digital skills, charities that they can be involved in as well.

In their non-BAU kind of work, they do have a chance to give back, and part of that is to really work with each other, and probably those that you wouldn’t find on your projects, day-to-day, maybe from different job families, different business units, different locations, and more often than not, they may well, and he can search for days from their induction period that might have been a year or so beforehand.

James: When I was there was a very strong community, and I’m still friends with people that I joined with all these years later, so especially when you’re working where you do, build very rapid and strong bonds with people. You do make friends for life, which is a really important aspect of this scheme well it was for me.

Let’s move onto the direct entry then. You talked about some of the different roles you’ve got available: business analysts, insights and data, cyber-security, and you mentioned also some degrees tend to lean or be more relevant, some other roles than others. Consulting’s different because it’s quite difficult to have work experience in management consulting. With the direct entry roles, do you specifically need that relevancy in a degree or work experience or are you quite agnostic when it comes to people applying?

Dan: It can vary, really, between the role families. Some of them are really, really specific and niche. They do tend to have a kind of a natural alignment. They tend to appeal to an audience. If I take something quite specific like a route into data science and insights and data, software developers, you’ve got to really be interested in data, and that could often stem from people who’ve done data-related subjects rather than a hobbyist that’s data-related. I don’t know there are many hobbies that are such like that are related to data in some ways, compared to maybe somebody that might have a side hustle which is social media. They could link that to digital media and link it to marketing, for example. There’d be almost a loose assignment there. With data analysts and data science, it’s probably not as easy to align. We’d probably fine that there’s a spectrum of really niche technical roles and then some of the more business roles which show a more variety in courses that apply, and therefore courses that maybe are successful in the process.

We don’t have a prerequisite with any of our roles that you have to have this degree to get onto the role. Best examples there are, some of our software developers are graduate software developers and they’ve not done a computer science or IT course. They may have been people who’ve done math, they might’ve been people who’ve done engineering, they might have picked up some coding as part of a course and then took it to another level with self-talk courses. They might have gotten certifications in something they self-funded.

We’ve got one chap that’s got a history degree who’s in our robotics process automation practice, and he’s in a software developer role because of something he did outside of a uni degree. I think that’s a really good point to hone in on for students that are listening. Don’t underestimate the non-course-related potential in direct affiliation between that and what you’re applying to. Don’t assume that recruiters or assessors can join those dots. Do make sure that, when you’re applying, whether you’ve got on a CV, whether you’re talking about your motivational interests in a role on a digital interview or an assessment centre, you can do that dot-joining for them, and it will add some credibility as to why you’re there, why you’re in front of them, why you’ve applied.

On the flip side of that, if you’ve got a science degree that does not, in any way, make you superior to any of the candidates in the process for a software developer role, just because you’ve done some software development as part of the degree, that does mean you’re going to be better at the role, or you’re more suitable for us. If you think about it from those two angles, you’re either a candidate that sits in one or each of those, and that should give you — I guess if you talk about things like impostor syndrome that even candidates in process, never mind in roles that you hear about these days, that should reassure them that they’re not seen as a superior or inferior candidate just by courses or universities they’ve gone to.

James: That’s a brilliant point and some of the things to touch upon there, especially with software developing where, for some people, it is just a passion. As you mentioned, it doesn’t matter what degree if you’ve got. If you’re into software developing and you spend your weekends coding and coming up with websites or whatever it might be you’re spending your time on, that passion is just invaluable. It doesn’t matter what degree you’ve got. If you’re interested in it and you put the time in, then it’ll stand you in good stead for the application. How do you feel, then, Dan, about something we touched on offline in terms of candidates having side hustles and things that they’re working on on the side. Is that something that you’re keen to hear more about?

Dan: I think there was a conference a few months back in Q1 with the ISE, and there was somebody from the ISE themselves that talked about side hustles in some depth, and I think as I start to say that, it’s around 41% of undergrad students had a side hustle of some kind, which is a far higher percentage than a lot of employers in the room thought. It kind of made us think over the coming months, really, about the perception of side hustles amongst family, friends, and when it comes to careers, there’s almost a taboo element of it on both sides of it from a candidate and an employer, it seems.

I thought about it from the Capgemini point of view, and we’ve hired so many apprentices that their side hustle, their side hobby, their kind of non-academic or non-working hobby or interest is software development, or coding, or something technical, and they want to get paid to do something they’re doing on the side. That, in itself, is still almost like a side hustle, but without getting paid to do it. But, coming and making it be a job is obviously an aspiration there.

They do really well in our process because of the things you mentioned around having a passion and real subject matter interest. Our clients love the people that love what they’re doing because the reason they work with us is because they don’t have the skill set in-house to be able to deal with the problem that they’ve got. Having someone that comes in that’s not only able to do it, capability-wise, but do it with such passion is obviously quite endearing and infectious for them.

What we’re looking at, going forward, I think is to do some webinars and do some more research into graduates and the school leaver market around side hustles and how you weave that into your recruitment process in an inclusive way and an engaging way so that the candidates are more willing to share what they are doing as a side hustle, obviously, if it’s relevant and it is to aid their application, then it’s their judgment as to include that.

It shouldn’t be seen as a negative thing, in my opinion, and we definitely don’t hear a number of our graduate apprentices who clearly, and openly, and visibly have a side hustle which is totally unrelated to what they do. They’ve got a chap who’s finished his apprenticeship now who runs a clothing firm online and sells on Instagram, etcetera, and that’s been his thing since he was maybe 16 as an aspiration, and now he’s got a chance to do that. He’s a salesman by day, but he joined as a software developer. He’s really gone full circle from tech to non-tech, but I guess some of his skills in the sales environment and commercial skills have helped his side hustles, and his side hustles helped his day job.

If they’re complementary in an indirect way, then I can’t see why employers would see it as a negative thing. The other stat I’ll leave on on that section of the call is there was only a small percentage of those 41% actually wanted to pursue it as a full-time career. Like the real minority, I think it was less than 15 or 20 per cent, so it’s the fear amongst employers is that, “Oh, they’re just going to come and do the job, but they’re going to spend all their spare time or even whilst they’re working on their side hustle and then just leave us prematurely.” That’s not actually what they’re doing it for. It’s an interesting and probably a rising topic I think we’ll see a lot more and hear a lot more about.

James: Definitely, completely agree. As we talked earlier about passion, you can demonstrate that passion in many ways. It doesn’t have to be the classic group exercise at university. If you do have skills in different areas, then make sure you are bringing them to the fore through the different parts of the application process. Maybe check before we do move onto the application process, one final question then to the direct entry roles, location-wise, are they London or is it more of a geographic spread for them?

Dan: A huge geographic spread for those. We have a number of roles that are London, Birmingham, Manchester bases and Woking in Surrey. We have a lot of roles in Telford, some graduate roles down in Worthing, down in West Sussex, south coast. We have some odd roles from time to time that might be up in Scotland, Glasgow, and then on a rare occasion, maybe some client-based location roles, which can be up in Cumbria, or South Wales, or the southwest. Largely, the spine of England than the Manchester, Birminghams, plus Telford and Worthing is probably the key five locations, really.

James: Lots of chance to experience the joys of the UK that you’d not seen before. I know I spent quite a bit of time on a project in Telford, and it wasn’t an area I’d been to before, but it was also some nice pubs down there. You always get to see different parts of the country. Let’s move onto the application process, then, in detail. Is the application process the same for both the Invent Programme and the direct entry or is there quite a difference?

Dan: It’s largely the same with an online application form, which is manually screened. The reason I stressed that is that we want you to, particularly with passion and motivation, tell us what you want us to see and hear about you, not what you think we want to see and hear, and there’s no model answers to our application forms, and it’s a great opportunity for you to differentiate yourself just the same as where you might have done a personal statement or a CV. It’s treated the exact same. If there’s a lack of motivation to apply, then we may think you’ve got a lack of motivation to actually want the role, so it’s really key in that stage.

Then, candidates will go through a series of two stages before the assessment centres, one being the digital interview, which is a mix of questions they read, record the answers, and a couple of questions around reviewing some documentation, and then the situational strengths test online, which puts them in, I guess, different situations that they might find themselves with a consultant, and look to choose preferred options and look for consistency in their mind-set.

Then, the assessment centre itself, which would normally be hosted at one of base locations, and you’ll find yourself there with anything between four and 12 candidates, normally, and it will be normally around a half to sort of two-thirds of a day long, and run by one of the recruitment teams facilitators and the assessors from the business.

All in all, it’s pretty much like for like. We don’t have capability assessments, we don’t run anything around numerical reasoning or anything like that, we don’t test developers about how well they can write in Java. As such, that comes out as part of the assessment centres as well and their passion and motivation in their digital interviews and in their application forms.

As I said in the start in the outset, strengths allows us to look at the potential rather than all the things that they’ve done before, and it does allow them to differentiate themselves a little bit easier than somebody else that’s on their course. From the same uni finishing at the same time, sometimes, can be quite difficult to see how your differentiated from the person next to you in the lecture hall. Strengths definitely does do that.

James: Let’s maybe break down the different aspects there. You talked around the initial online application and the need for candidates to show their motivation to apply. What are some of the ways, then, that the good candidates separate themselves from the average candidates who might not get through.

Dan: Good question. Differentiate themselves? If you break it down by the different stages, I think, application form-wise, there’s a real opportunity for them to really personalize that motivation, answers about why Capgemini and why the role. Bear in mind that Capgemini, not being a B to C type company and more a B to B one that candidates might not have ever seen or heard Capgemini before. Maybe they saw the role through keyword searches or maybe the role motivation supersedes the company motivation, and we totally get that, but we do expect this to be a level of understanding about what we do.

It’s probably more about the application of that theory, so what you read, what you see, and what you watch. Anyone could have done that, but we want to see what that actually means to you. Is there certain values, or certain pieces of content, or certain people you’ve spoken to that have really piqued your interest, or have you been able to join the dots between what your experiences have been and what that person said in that video?

It would really show evidence that you’ve looked into this and that it doesn’t feel like you’re applying to Capgemini in the same way you’re applying to another consultancy or another graduate employer because it’s quite easy to see that copy and paste, particularly if you do leave the company that you previously applied to in that, which is a rare occasion, but it’s an obvious flaw.

When you go into digital interview stages, don’t be overawed by that. We’re not looking for actors and actresses, we’re not looking for people who are selfie kings or queens, we’re not looking for the absolute polished TV presenter style sort of performance. It just needs to be quite authentic, quite real. Just prepare and make sure you’ve read the instructions correctly, and your answers will be your answers, not anyone else’s, not what’s on WikiJobs.

The questions that are pitched towards you are strengths questions; they’re not competency questions. Do think about answering the questions that’s asked, not what you think has been asked as well, and you’ll find that if you’ve accurately portrayed yourself the way that you want us to see you, then that is you performing at your best. Again, strengths allows that to happen as opposed to the competencies which follow a very robotic and sometimes misleading format.

James: Just jumping in there, what percentage of people manage to get past the online application?

Dan: I would say there’s an average of around 35%, if you include all of our different graduate and apprentice routes. I’ll say an average of around 35 to maybe 40 per cent would get through screening. That’s the point I made earlier around the obvious alignments. It’s going to need more than that for you to get past screening. If you applied for a software developer role and you’re a computer scientist, just by saying that you studied computer science at uni and you did a certain module, well so did everyone else, and we can go and Google that on the UCAS directory and find that you did that module. It’s on your CV you did that module, but that’s quite an almost lazy way of covering up your motivation when it’s not helping you differentiate yourself.

If you can’t be self-motivated by an application for a role that we hope is something you want to apply to, then are you going to translate into being not self-motivated when you’re in the business with the projects that you are aligned to? It really is telling, and I completely get that people have different forms of communication that they prefer, whether you’re extrovert, introvert, etcetera, etcetera, or anywhere in between.

Written, verbal, visual, audio, all sorts of communications that are out there, some people will prefer to get in front of a camera and doing a digital interview, and some prefer writing their motivation down, some will prefer delivering it at assessment centres, and all of those different communication styles are covered in the process. By the time we get to deciding whether to make an offer, we’ve seen multiple versions of that motivation, that obviously keeps it fair. That’s a frustration for me when somebody relies too much on education and solely the education for their motivation because it doesn’t put you in a superior position at all in our process, anyway.

James: One of the things that really stood out for me from what you said was the focus on personalization and differentiation. With the clients I coach, I emphasize that it’s a lot better to focus your attention on a small number of companies, and do the level of research that you require to get past the initial stage. It’s pretty brutal. 65% of people don’t get past the online application stage, and it’s probably, as you mentioned, a cut-and-pasted application. I’m into consulting, so I’ll just delete KPMG and paste in Capgemini and hope that nobody notices the difference, but it’s so easy to notice the difference. When I’ve reviewed application like that. It just stands out a mile to people who’ve put the effort in and the people who are just trying to be lazy and just do the minimum to get past the process. It’s not going to get you past the first stage.

Dan: No, and that approach around honing in on those companies, that links to their own journey as a candidate or as a pre-applicant. What have they done to influence and motivate themselves before applying it? Or, is it they’ve gone, “Right, I need to go and get a job. I’ll look online, I’ll go to these main job boards, and I’ll pick what’s there. That, in itself, is quite dangerous because you’re only getting a snapshot of what’s live at that time. I know there’s emphasis on the students to continually engage with employers right from when they join the campus in the first year.

Sometimes, that’s not at the forefront of their mind, and I completely get that. I was one of those students that left it quite late myself, and looking back on the other side of the fence now, it’s absolutely regrettable, really, in some ways, because you’ve got ample opportunity over those three-plus years to really scour who’s recruiting for what and where. We live in a digital age where you can get your hands on anything from these podcasts, to videos, to face-to-face events, to apps that ping you a notification that someone’s on campus tomorrow.

There’s a lot of stuff that’s out there which talks about support for young people, but there’s a certain level of responsibility that they must take for themselves, particularly in this era which is different from the one, I’m sure, that yourself and myself came out of uni of that we didn’t have this at our fingertips at all. I think the onus is on the individual to make sure that they don’t condense their career search in such a squeezed area and time period because you’ll just see certain number of weeks’ or months’ worth of roles that are live.

Luckily for us, Capgemini-wise, we’re open for lots of roles year-round, and we can be open at times when other employers are closed because of their cyclical process, but don’t be leaving into an eight-week period at the end of your dissertation or something like that because you may well find that — I think there’s a distinct link between cramped applications and retention versus attrition employers at graduate and apprentice level. Those that have done the more informed decision-making with a bit of a plan and looking at who they should apply, I think there’s a direct positive correlation between how long they stay at companies based on how much they’ve engaged and how much they’ve really took time to consider their options.

I don’t know if anyone’s done any extensive analysis on that, but my gut says that the people that we know about before they even apply are still with us five years later, and that’s kind of a reason why that is a bit of a loyalty and bought into the company, so to speak. Interesting topic.

James: It makes complete sense because it is also a two-way thing. It’s not just, “Which companies will give me a job?” It’s also, “Which companies are going to be a good fit for me?” and if you can start that research early, if you can realize, “Actually, this company is social, this company has similar values and ethics to myself,” it’s going to be a really good match, then you’re likely to be there longer than you will somewhere where you don’t enjoy going to work, you don’t enjoy the people you’re with. You’re not going to stick around at all.

Moving on then, Dan, you mentioned the recorded virtual interview. With answering the questions then, is that a one-take only option or do candidates get a chance to re-record if it’s not quite how they want it?

Dan: There is a practice arena at the start of the digital interview, and in fact, if you go on the website, our website, you get the link before you even apply to go and have a practice in using our partnered technology so that you can see what it would be like. We do implement that a lot in schools and on campus so that people can get used to seeing themselves on the screen or going through the technology and testing the audio and stuff like that.

That’s kind of reassuring. When they go into the actual questions, there’s a lot of explicit instructions about what they need to do and what they need to prepare, and then they will be given a time period to see and read the question or listen to the question, and then they will have another period of time to answer that question. It’s usually a 30-second read the question, then a minute and a half or three minutes to actually answer the question, depending on what we’re asking and what length of answer we’re suggesting and hoping to see.

Re-recording, etcetera, isn’t an option based on the strengths methodology, really, because it’s not about having a polished, rehearsed, regurgitated type answer. It’s more a bit like this situation, really. I have no idea what these questions are you going to ask me, and you’re going to get a genuine, honest, and hopefully credible response.

It sets you up really well for the world of clients and consulting, really, because you can’t go into a meeting and expect to know exactly what the clients are going to ask or say. You need to be able to act credible and be a client advocate and know what you need to know. If you can’t answer questions on the spot about yourself, then how well do you even know yourself? Trying to second-guess, predict, or go on WikiJobs until your eyes bleed to find out the inside scoop is going to be easy to spot and see, really, because you’re trying to be something that isn’t natural, and you’re not going to have that prepped when you go into a meeting or you’re going to go into an assessment centre. You can’t fake that on the day.

As I said at the outset of this topic, we’re not looking for the polished actor and actress. It’s not about a performance or some sort of polished TV presenter style delivery. It’s more about what you’re saying and how you’re saying it and the passion and motivation that comes with that, and that should shine through.

James: You’ve mentioned there what you’re looking for. What are some of the no-nos then where the howlers that people have been making? What mistakes do people need to avoid to get past this stage?

Dan: I think one of the ones I see quite often is that they’ve clearly not took time to read the instructions, or advice and guidance, or watch the suggested video about the hints and tips. It’s just maybe a generation which is quite digital-savvy, which is fair to say. Hopefully, me and you are still in that category. But, the majority of the graduates and apprentices are a largely younger audience and grew up with an iPhone in their hands and things, Samsungs and other devices that are out there available.

Maybe they just think it’s so self-intuitive to just click through, click through, skip, agree, tick boxes, and I’m straight in front of the camera, and it’s like, “Oh god,” and they come away and they’re probably thinking, “That wasn’t great at all.” That does speak volumes itself that, again, going into the working world, you can’t really expect to go into these meetings or go into these projects or going into things without being prepared. Going into an exam or a piece of coursework without knowing what the questions might be about, you wouldn’t do it, so why would you do it with something like an interview, or an assessment, or even a digital interview?

It’s that preparation piece there that you can tell that somebody’s — there’s a difference between being nervous and being unprepared, and we can absolutely see the people who’ve not literally, and it just suggests to us that they’re not really that bothered about it. Actually, they might really be. It’s just that they’ve fell short on that.

Candidates can reapply if they are rejected at stages. They can come back six months later. We understand that people can be still keen on working for us, but also their preferences, their role choices, and their experiences might lead them down a different role and maybe there’s some different questions they might be asked the next time around. That’s one of the key frustrations from a recruiter perspective is clearly seeing the difference between nervous and unprepared.

Those that are unable to maybe expand in detail to back up their point, if it’s asking them about if they enjoy analysing data, “Do you enjoy analysing data?” it could be a real question, the answer, technically, could be, “Yes, no, maybe, sort of, kind of,” and then that’s it. It’s like, “Why? Why don’t you like it? Why do you like it?” If you do like it and you can explain why, what sort of evidence comes with that? You start to then bring in things that are credible and give evidence behind why you’re interested in that or why you’re good at that, and why you like doing it.

We won’t say, “Tell me about the last time you analysed a piece of data?” because the last time might not be the best one to give. You can rehearse the answer and put all the bells and whistles on, and we might not be able to actually prove that that was not the case. These questions are positioned in a way which are more conversational, more dialogue, and more natural questions that should prompt people to talk more about things, then maybe you might be kind of expecting, but that’s a good thing. It’s giving you more evidence to go on as a screener or as a recruiter.

James: As you said earlier, some of the competency and specifically the STAR methodology, which is used to death, the answers can come across as really robotic. I do like the strengths-based questions, which as you said, it’s just a lot more natural and come across natural. “I will tell you about this group exercise where somebody didn’t pull their weight and I took the lead, da-da-da.”

Quality advice there around the virtual interviews. I love the distinction you draw between nervousness and being unprepared. It’s a really good distinction. Listeners, check out the 96th episode of the Graduate Job Podcast, which will be on virtual interviews. It’s actually the one just before this one where we’re going to detail on how you can prepare for virtual interviews. Links in the show notes at graduatejobpodcast.com/capgemini.

Also, if you do want to practice recorded virtual interviews, then I can help you, and you can practice live with a virtual recording, and then I’ll be able to review it with you, and we can go through and just analyse your performance and how it looks and help you to improve so that when you do get in front of Dan, you wow him with your answers.

Moving on, then, to the final stage, the assessment centre day, a day that does come with some trepidation for applicants. Firstly, what sort of time scale will we be looking at from getting your online application in to making it through to the assessment centre?

Dan: I got asked this question yesterday, actually, so this is quite a good one. The straight answer is that it depends. We work in the consulting sector, and therefore, we’re driven by client needs. If in situations where the demand for a graduate and an apprentice on certain projects is no longer needed or it’s been reduced or postponed, that could mean that when the assessment centre runs, it’s slightly postponed by days, weeks, or potentially even a month or so.

We don’t have application window closing dates. We hire on a first-come, first-served basis. We don’t have pools and pools of candidates that are spilling over into a holding pen. We don’t have much wastage and spillage on that front to keep the candidate experience quite positive. We do recruit year-round. Some roles are open for longer than others. Some roles, like software developer, we might have 80 roles. We might only have two cyber-security, but the number of people applying for cyber-security in a week versus software developer might be fivefold.

There’s a sort of predicted number of candidates that we think, based on the screening, based on pass rates, based on withdraw rates, based on offer rates to show which roles will require which number of applications at the start in the front end of the funnel. Using that methodology, we can sort of predict how long we might be open for, which does, in some ways, encourage us to communicate when things are likely to close before they do, and when we go out to public, we can be almost prompting people to go, “This role won’t be open for long. You should apply now, but I can’t tell exactly when we’ll close it,” because you don’t want candidates who complete all the stages and not have an assessment centre to go to, because that obviously feel like they’ve been cheated on, they’ve wasted their time and things.

I know that other employers in the graduate apprentice space have a different way of working, a different maybe resource and setup as well where they have a real big surge, maybe in Q4, and then they review all the applicants in Q1, then they run all their ACs in Q2, and they all start in Q3, and it runs in a very cyclical, repetitive way each year, but our industry’s just too volatile for that to set out in that way, and we will recruit and go live, and pull and push roles open and live as in when we need them.

That goes back to one of the points earlier, which is around the long-term engagement, the warm candidates, the people who are pre-engaged with the brand. They’re more likely to then obviously hear about the roles as soon as they go live because they’re registered through interest, and then they’re in pole position, whereas yourself or Joe Bloggs is on campus and clicks on a job board and the role that was on there yesterday is no longer there, but he didn’t know or she didn’t know that, and therefore he’s missed the chance at Capgemini because he didn’t engage directly with us before.

Not every employer works like that as such, but we’ve actually reduced the number of applications this year than we have last year from 11,000 down towards 7,000. We don’t need those extra applications as such to fill the roles we have, but the volume of warm candidates versus cold candidates is obviously starting to go on the up. I really, really would encourage those listeners who are undergrads or postgrads, whatever, to make sure that when they are engaging with these brands, when they are sacrificing or giving up data to register online that they know what exactly they’re getting from that.

Is it updates, newsletters, is it first to hear about the new roles? What’s the ROI for you in the exchange for your information? There’s no point in giving that if you’re not really going to act upon it when you know, so don’t register for everyone and everything. Back to your point you mentioned there, James, around five or six people you really wanted to work for, why wouldn’t you want to be first in the queue when the shops open, so to speak? It makes sense.

James: Completely, and the secret, if there is one, is the sooner, the better. It’s the key for applications. Don’t be leaving it to the last minute because I know there’s graduate schemes where they said they were closing on the 31st of December, but actually they have so many applications they closed two weeks before, and if you were planning to leave it to the last minute, you’re left high and dry. You’ve got to wait another year, but it’s your own fault. Get it in earlier.

Dan: Absolutely, and the analogy that was used yesterday was around going to the shop, and if you are going to go and do your weekly shop at quarter to 5 and the shop ships at 5, you’re going to find that some of the things you wanted to buy are not there. They’re out of stock, and a bit like the application window for the employers, you go with your shopping list with who you want to apply to, and six, seven of the items of the 10 you wanted to buy are closed.

It’s not always possible to go to the shop at 9 in the morning, so to speak, for keeping with the analogy, but don’t use the deadline as your incentive to apply. It’s there. Sometimes, companies do it if they’re anticipating or expecting or are used to a surge or have a resource capability that’s set up to deal with some sort of surge. We’re more inclined to go with a more ad hoc, turn off and on sort of style and work with our warm candidates a little bit more.

James: OkDan. So…Breaking down, then, the assessment centre to its constituent pieces, the group exercise is often one that candidates worry about maybe because it’s something they’ve not really practiced before or had the experience of any words of wisdom for people who are going to be facing the group exercise.

Dan: I would say, as cliché as it sounds, make sure that you are yourself in that situation. I guess what we mean by that normally is that there’s often a lot of things you read around people that assert some sort of position in the group. Are they the minute-taker, are they the person who’s like the project manager, are they the person who has the ideas? If you don’t know what you’re going to be presented with, it can be quite hard for you to play some sort of role like that.

If there’s an opportunity to do some of those things where there’s a gap where there’s somebody not picking up some of those key things that employers might be expecting a group to do around time management and including other people in the group that are not coming to light with including them in the conversation if they’re a bit quieter. Active listening, for me, is a key one. From an eye contact perspective, but also from a written note and referring back to data that people or quotes that people have used in the group exercise so that you’ve actively shown that you’ve listened to what they said, nodding and smiling, yes, gets you somewhere, but doing that all the way through is not actually showing that you’ve made — are you finishing their sentences, are you giving them feedback, are you challenging?

That is active listening, not just showing eye contact, because the lights might be on, but there’s no one at home is the phrase that could be used. We want to make sure that people are able to contribute. I know our model allows people to have to contribute in their exercise with their proposal, their solution, and where it goes after that is obviously a natural group dynamic. A couple of other key things I’ll mention, is that if you’re naturally someone that isn’t quite as dynamic within a group setting, see if there’s certain things that are more natural for you to be the SPOC for, or natural for you to hone in on.

If you’re quite into your data or your stats and stuff, maybe you’re the person who can make sure that you’re on hand to hone in on those strengths. If you’ve got an affiliation with the actual topic outside of the day itself, I know there’s some examples we have where people had been involved in charity work and it was linked to some CR&F activities and they actually used some examples from outside of the setting of the day to prove and add some credibility to their idea, and that landed really well. Again, putting yourself in a client situation, they’re going to expect us, as experts, to actually be able to refer to other examples of work so that we can show that this has been done before, that they can trust us.

There’s lots of opportunities for students to earn points as you go through the exercise. Don’t feel like you’ve got to play a specific typecast role, and one final point would be if you don’t say or do anything, you have no real way of scoring at all. You can’t feel hard done by,  you just won’t score. It’s like saying, “No comment,” to all the questions in the interview. It’s not going to bode well.

James: Some brilliant points there. It just reminded me of when I’ve been assessing group exercises. As you said about the roles, you can see everyone, they’ve been prepped beforehand. It’s like, “Okay, okay, the role,” but four of the six people volunteered to be timekeepers, “I’ll be timekeeper, I’ll be timekeeper,” and the person who volunteered first and got the timekeeper role, then just sort of didn’t do anything with it the entire way through the assessment centre. They forgot, actually, that, as timekeeper, they were meant to keep time. They volunteered for it, but then didn’t do anything with it. I liked your analogy of it’s like the nodding dog from the Churchill TV adverts where he’s just sort of smiling and nodding. You need to say something and actually make some contributions.

Another thing for me was the mentality shift when you get to the assessment centre stage and the realization that you’re no longer in competition with people around the table with you. If you’re all good, then you’ll all get the job, and if you can help them and bring out the best in them and their points and do it in a collaborative way, because collaboration’s a very important thing at Capgemini when I was there. You can showcase those skills and just change that mind-set when you go into the assessment centre that you’re there to help each other perform to your best. With the interview, then, the assessment centre, any advice on this? Would it be with one of the senior managers in the business?

Dan: Yeah, the assessors are people from different grades, actually, within the business. They could be some people who are the graduates and development leads for that area of the business who are concerned with their development, professionally and personally, during their time in programs and in roles. There could be some who are former graduates who are now in roles of a certain level to be able to assess.

Some of us who may be some senior specialists who maybe they’re line managers or project managers on the assignments in the future. That’s quite a good thing that there is a mix. There’s always a graduate there who’s from the area or in that role from years gone by, whether it’s as an assessor, or as a volunteer, or maybe they joined last year or two years ago to get a good insight into what it’s like as a graduate, and maybe previously as a graduate.

There’s no difference in what people are asking. It’s all kept consistent and fair, and every assessor will get to see every candidate in a different environment, so there’s a good holistic view of all the candidates and a good holistic view for the candidates of who they could be working with.

James: Any advice on how people can stand out to this stage and really make an impression in the interview?

Dan: Yeah, so it kind of just aligns a little bit with the digital interview in a way. The strengths questions are there as well. There will be some motivation-type questions also, and I think if they’re quite being confident, and some people are not naturally confident. Some people are really able to exude confidence externally and inside are really shaking. That’s something to think about, how they come across, perhaps. Again, there’s a key difference between nervousness and being unprepared for certain things that people will have development points that we know that we can shape or hone in on and make better, and nobody ever comes out of an interview with full marks as such.

We’re not looking to use the interview to trip people up. Strengths is there to try and — it will raise red flags if there’s something that doesn’t sort of marry up with what we’re looking for, but it allows candidates an opportunity to perform in the best way they can. I think the interviews are the most highest-scoring area of the day in terms of how many points you can attain during that exercise, and probably just over half the marks on the day. It’s an important part of the day in terms of how you perform overall, but when you look at 75% of our candidates actually pass our assessment centres, a lot of the work to find the right people has been done further up the chain from the attraction and assessment selection stage.

We don’t really think that there’s many candidates, if any, that are not in contention for an offer as they walk in that door or sign on that link virtually as it is. We hope and we can potentially offer all those people that come to the AC. Again, that’s a bit of a myth with some employers that maybe hire the best person on the day or the top two, and there’s maybe 20 people there, and it’s quite highly inefficient, potentially, but each to their own. With ours, we have the best intentions that we’ll offer everyone on that day, so you’re not competing with others.

James: That’s a really good stat to keep in mind. Just talked about confidence and being confident, and you make a great point. Why would you invite anyone to the assessment centre if you didn’t think they could do the job? It’d just be a complete waste of everybody’s time. Be confident that you’ve done well to get there, you’ve impressed to get there. This is a chance for you to shine and show Dan and the team what you can do.

One, maybe, final question then, Dan, before we move to the weekly staple questions. Where do people really let themselves down then? What are some of the things that you see at the assessment centre stage where you’re just there shaking your head, thinking, “Oh dear, why did they do that?”

Dan: If I do it by exercise, I think there’s a couple of things which some students, some applicants might not realize they’re doing is they are looking, almost, for approval from the observants or from the assessors during the exercise that when they’re speaking, it’s almost to work out either who’s assessing me or have what I said created somebody to write something.

It’s almost like a reaffirmation process that they want that what they’ve said, or what they’ve done, or what they’ve challenged on has landed, and they want that constant reapproval during the exercise, and that can be potentially off-putting for everyone, really, the assessor included because they don’t know who’s assessing who. They need to keep the eye contact with the candidate that they’re looking at, and if they’ve kind of assessed that out and they just don’t see why candidates have got that in their heads to be very, maybe, anxious or cautious over who’s looking at them, it should be, obviously, an environment that means they’re comfortable and they’re just there in the most natural way. Are we going to be doing a group exercise at work every day? Of course we’re not, but if you go into a meeting, or a call, or a workshop, you’re not going to be constantly thinking about what the reaction is to what you’re going to say. It’s just going to become, hopefully, quite natural.

That’s quite a difficult one for us to get our heads around, but we can obviously share feedback on that, and we do that after the assessment centres the next day and the next week. Some of the things that they’ve done, those that really just didn’t give us enough in their motivational answers in the interview to help differentiate and personalize themselves against others, you’re the only person that can actually do that, as easy as that sounds. If you really can’t articulate exactly why and why exactly you, then you probably let yourself down.

There’s already been a written version of that, a digital version of that, and that was your chance to really tie it all together and form a bit of rapport with the assessor and really show that you could see yourself working with them. I think the other thing would be, also in interview, is they’re fully aware that this is a strengths-based process, but they still are adhering to what they see and read online and what people have told them and have almost carbon-copied and maybe fictitiously made up some examples to glorify their example, which when you’re found out and you’re being asked in more detail, we’re not doing that to trip you up, but you may trip yourself up by doing that.

I’ve seen one or two examples of that first-hand interviewing years ago where there was somebody, whilst there wasn’t a Capgemini, but somebody that claimed to be part of a security workforce and a certain situation happened, and I didn’t know, but a colleague of ours actually used to work for that large global firm, and that is never, ever even legally allowed to happen. By making up and glorifying that example, that person’s credibility just immediately — he didn’t need to be a superhero in that situation. It was already quite a good example. It just didn’t need the bells and whistles that he thought he needed.

Keeping to your script what actually happened because, again, you can’t be making things up with our clients and then not be backing it up with solutions. You can’t over-promise and then deliver. You know that yourself, so don’t be doing it when you’re interviewed because if you’re hired, and then we’ve hired what is effectively the wrong person, not the person that we thought we hired, then that’s a bad recruitment decision and it can influence, obviously, and affect attrition rates and things. Don’t blow the trumpet too much. Just make sure that you’re telling the truth.

James: Honesty is definitely the best policy, so that’s a good point for us to finish the main part of the interview on. I’m just conscious of your time, Dan, so let’s quickly move onto the quick-fire weekly staple questions. What one book would you recommend to listeners? What’s going to impress them if they’ve name-dropped this book during the recruitment process?

Dan: I’m probably going to be biased here, and I’ll go for a book that I think can be applied very widely that allows people to individualize their own interpretation of the book, and it’s Simon Sinek’s Start With Why. I think the question “why” and the curiosity that that mind-set of having a curious mind is great from an innovation and from a consultancy perspective. If they can understand what value they’ve got from reading a book similar to that or that book itself, I think it will show that they are someone that’s always innovatively thinking and looking to solve problems in a new way, and that’s exactly what we do as a business and why we have clients, because they don’t have the solutions in-house.

James: It’s a quality book, and it will be linked to in the show notes of graduatejobpodcast.com/capgemini. Next question, Dan. What one website or internet resource would you point listeners towards?

Dan: I’m going to say a generic one here because it’s generic but it can be tailored, and the key is that last bit that I’ve mentioned. For me, in terms of career-related content, LinkedIn. There is zero competitor for that for me, and it works supremely well for me, personally, and as a former student, a graduate, job-seeker, etcetera, purely because of how well you can help influence the algorithm, bring the news, and bring the relevant content, and influence to your feed, and to your groups, and to your network, you can get such rich content from there daily.

You can dip in and out and get zero procrastination on that platform. You’re not there to waste time on it. You’re there to get some real value. Absolutely encourage it. Don’t worry about trying to get yourself to be some sort of blue tick or send the internet crazy with something viral. It’s not about that on LinkedIn. You’re going to get some supreme connections, networks, and value from just observing and watching what’s going on. If you do that in your first year at uni, by the time you’re in third or fourth year, you will absolutely know who you want to work for and why.

James: Definitely, and also it’s, unlike some parts of the internet, it’s a very positive place. It’s not full of negativity and hate. It’s lots of positive content that can help you, so really good advice there.

Dan: A very good point. Often overlooked that.

James: Yeah, compared to, say, Twitter, which can be so much negativity on there. The final question, then, today, Dan. What one tip can listeners implement today to help them on their job search?

Dan: My tip would be once you’ve worked out by looking at content and looking at different companies, ones you’ve met, haven’t met, wanted to work for, you were curious about, if you’re going to go and register for things, and in exchange, your data, do make sure that, A, you do do that, and then you can be in a better position, further down the line, to either have exclusivity, first refusal on applications or roles. You’ll be invited to more exclusive events, webinars, face-to-face sessions, and you might find that there are some reasons why you don’t want to work for that employer that, maybe, you would have found out before you actually applied or even started with them. It’s linked to the career searching piece, but you can individualize by signing up for Google Alerts or signing up for alerts from employers.

James: Brilliant advice, and a lovely place for us to finish the interview. Dan, thank you so much for your time today. What’s the best way that people can get in touch with Capgemini and the work that you do?

Dan: Capgemini, Google “Capgemini career pages”, or the graduate pages. Direct connections to me on LinkedIn if people want to do that, /dandoherty, Twitter and Instagram as well, we’ve got content that goes out from our corporate platforms from the Capgemini UK  accounts that all feature and showcase some of our graduate opportunities and life as a graduate at Capgemini.

James: Excellent. Dan, thank you so much for appearing on the Graduate Job Podcast.

Dan: Thanks very much, thanks all.

James: There we go, many thanks to Dan for such a great interview, so much value there to take with into your application with Capgemini specifically, but any company that you are thinking of applying to. It was a slightly longer episode then normal, but I didn’t want to cut out anything as it was all good. As I said, I started my career at Capgemini so I am slightly biased, but they are a great place to work and particularly the consulting Accelerate Invent Programme is a fantastic scheme to start your career with. You will get breadth of experience that it is difficult to get elsewhere, and it will set you up for whatever else you want to do in your career, whether that is to stay in consulting or move into other fields. So make sure you do check them out. As Dan touched upon throughout the interview, getting into Capgemini will be competitive, you will need to be at your best through every single stage. Don’t underestimate this difficulty as you don’t want to be one of the 65% of people who fail at just the very first stage!

If you are serious about a career in consulting, then make sure you check out my course ‘How to Get a Graduate Job’ which goes live on the 27th of August, as I take you step by step through every stage of the recruitment process that you will go through when applying to companies like Capgemini. I teach you across 8 video modules everything you need to know, and everything you need to do to make sure you make the grade and impress. As a first step get across to www.howtogetagraduatejob.com and get my free guide ‘The 5 steps you must take before you start applying for graduate jobs’, it will revolutionise how you get ready to start applying for graduate schemes.

Right let’s leave it there, thanks again to Dan Doherty, and do drop me a mail at hello@graduatejobpodcast.com and let me know what you thought of the episode or if you want to hear more about the course. I hope you enjoyed the episode today, but more importantly; I hope you use it, and apply it. See you next week.