Job hunting - Summary

So called Graduate Development Programmes offered by many companies are basically dream jobs for fresh graduates. You have a opportunity to be involved in more teams and departments of the company, you can still develop your theoretical knowledge but you also work on real-world projects and...it is all well paid! What more to wish for, right? Only problem is to get to one of those programmes. As far as I know there are usually 30 applicants for 1 position offered. On this blog I tried to describe my experience with the selection process. This article is kind of summary - the essential stuff you should know if you want to succeed and get your dream job so it will not be as consistent as the other articles. So here is my advice:

• Start early - you can start applying for the programs during late November and you can apply (usually) till end of January/February. To choose companies to apply for, filling in all online applications and taking part in the assessment center will be time consuming. Get ready for it...and start early!
  
• Choose companies wisely (more here) - how to choose the best companies for you? Try to consider following:
  
  • company's industry - what I did first was I selected industries I find interesting and then selected companies from these areas. So if you find banking boring (as I do) do not apply for banks. However this is very subjective and therefore not very scientific but it can help reduce the number of companies to choose from.
    
  • Image of the company - everyone wants to work for cool company so try to involve this factor in your choice - again very subjective, but if you want to be satisfied with your job it is a lot about feelings which are subjective. You do want to be proud of a company you are working for!
    
  • Structure of the graduate dev. programme offered - try to get some info about what you are going to do if you get the place. Is it just a work or are there possibilities to develop yourself in other areas (languages, international placements, getting certifications etc.).
    
  • How difficult it is going to get the place - when you are selecting your companies do not focus only on the industry leaders. It is probably very difficult to get a job within such company. So do apply for jobs in "less cool" companies. It is not a good idea to apply only for Google, McKinsey & Company and IBM.


• Do some research - you need to do some research before you take the telephone interviews (see here and here). The research should take at least 30 minutes for every company. What to read?
  
  • Wikipedia entry about the company
    
  • Company's webpage with focus on products and services
    
  • Google out some recent stuff about the company (use news.google.com)


• Do even more research before the AC (see here) - during the assessment center you will take part in several different tasks. Usually you cannot prepare for them. One of them will be interview and you will be talking about yourself. This is a great selling point but only if you are prepared. Try to link your experience/theoretical knowledge to the company's industry - but you need not know a lot about this industry, so do your research!
  

I hope this series of articles helped you to get a nice graduate job. For me it was very demanding but definitely worth it.