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Securing an undergraduate placement- tips and advice!

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Hello! I am second year international student, currently doing Computer Science with Artificial Intelligence and I recently secured a placement at BMW Head Office in Farnborough in the Product Support team. Before successfully getting the place at BMW, I interviewed at Rolls Royce, Jaguar and Amazon for positions and I did a couple of online tests and video interviews for EG, Airbus, Virgin Media and King. Therefore, I want to share my experience securing a placement and give some tips & advice on applying and the whole process 🙂

Application process

There are three main stages to the application process, which are similar in most of the companies.

  1. Filling in the application online, which can take time! (In my case, besides uploading a CV and other details about my education etc. BMW Group required answering two additional questions, each around 500 words).
  2. Depending on the company, you may experience online tests or games. Most of the time, they are competency based tests and numerical tests – some of them were very similar to IQ tests, and some of them were phone apps that looked like a game. After this stage, each company was different – at BMW, Rolls Royce and MINI there were telephone interviews, at Amazon, there was a video interview, and at Jaguar, I attended an assessment centre. You would normally hear of decisions around a month after filling online tests. At BMW, MINI and Rolls Royce, you can apply for as many positions as you want, after the telephone interview the recruiter decides which positions are best for you. I was rejected for the position in MINI, but I got face-to-face interview for Data Science position at Rolls Royce and Product Support position at BMW Head Office. My Jaguar application went directly to assessment centre without any telephone interview that was entire day of tasks.
  3. That leaves the final decision – whether you are successful or not. At BMW the final decision took around 5 working days, Jaguar took 2 weeks, and Rolls Royce took 2 months….patience…

Advice based on my experience

  1. Start applying really early (Summer holidays – October) because most of the deadlines are either rolling or close in winter. It takes a lot of time to fill applications, so it was a bit hard to time manage when lectures started.
  2. Never give up and never lose hope – I filled many applications (20+) and aimed for the best companies in my industry. While my grades are okay…I still wanted to give it a chance as I’m a very active student and my CV is full of additional involvements – and that’s my third piece of advice…
  3. Stay active, and do whatever you can to enhance your skills and CV, whether related to your degree or not. You should start being active in your first year by joining societies (or even committees of societies), networking events, part time jobs at University and outside. In the first semester of my second year I worked as Link to Leeds ambassador, Student Digital Champion, Maths Student Ambassador, I was also Secretary at Women’s Engineering Society, a member of Library Advisory Panel and Student Partner for JISC. I believe all those positions made me an interesting candidate for big companies. It is all about how you can sell yourself and how you come across as a person.
  4. Finally, always check the values of the company and think if you are ready for a placement year and if the values fit into your expectations. That is something many students forget to think about – we are so focused on getting any positions, we actually do not think whether we are a good fit for this position. This is not in a knowledgeable way but based on personality. Think whether you like working with people, how much time you would spend around people and customers in this position and if you are more individualistic in work or require more supervision.

I would also like to point out, even if you were not successful – it is still very beneficial experience when you get to know companies and how they recruit. You can understand yourself better and how you present in front of others and what you should improve on. Even if you do not want to get a placement, I would say try applying as well, because this experience is something all students will have to do after graduation and its nice experience to start preparing during your second/third year of studying.

What did I use to apply for positions?

I believe our University has excellent teams that are very willing to help you with the application process and applying. If you are a Faculty of Engineering student, there is Engineering Employability team that sends newsletters with summer internships, placement or graduate roles, as well as different events. They also organise mock interviews and assessment centre if you don’t feel comfortable with going directly there without training. There is CV and covering letter checking as well. There is also an active Career Centre on campus that offers tips for students looking for placements. They give many suggestions how and where to look for it. Personally, I only used Gradcracker, which for me was the best for STEM students to look for placement positions available. There are many websites you can use that Career Centre can suggest for you, depending on your course.

Summary – what did I learn? How attending multiple interviews helped me?

Overall, it was a stressful experience but I strongly believe it was a beneficial. Attending multiple interviews helped me a lot, I understood how I have to speak, sell my skills and present myself. At the end of day, it’s not exactly about what you’re doing to enhance your CV, but how well you can present it and use it as a skill that will help you in the position you’re applying for. My first interview was scary, yet very exciting – I saw the Rolls Royce assembly line and I talked to interesting people with amazing career paths. I got asked weird questions about my CV, what taught me that literally everything you do can benefit you while getting a position – I wanted to delete many things from my CV that I found irrelevant but I was asked about these during my interviews! I believe it was really thoughtful experience and very beneficial. I strongly think it’s such a nice opportunity to see how recruitment process is, that even people who don’t think about securing a placement, should give it a go.

Good luck if you’re planning on doing a placement and I hope you found some of this useful!