Engineering opportunities for graduates

As the new academic year begins, final-year undergraduates’ thoughts will be turning to applying for that vital first job. Companies, meanwhile, are embarking on the process of turning this year’s intake of fresh graduates into productive employees and team members.

Graduate development schemes are the mechanism by which forward-looking employers seek to do this. Senior managers of such firms describe the importance of their schemes in vivid terms: ’The scheme is recognised at all levels as absolutely key to delivering on our business plans’, said one. Another said: ’Our functional heads describe the graduate stream as our lifeblood.’

Typically, schemes open to applications in September or October. An online application form, perhaps with online tests, is the start of a process of filtering, which culminates in an assessment centre and, for successful candidates, a date the following September on a graduate induction course.

Assessment centres can start as early as November: BAE Systems, for example, likes to get many job offers out before Christmas so candidates can concentrate on their studies, and aims to close its recruitment by around Easter. Meanwhile Rolls-Royce is moving towards a more ’rolling’ approach to recruitment with two intakes, one in September and one in March.