If your looking to start your career in software engineering and want to work for a great company, then Travis Perkins offer a well structure graduate program that will open up new doors for you and your career.
Usually the starting salary is around £25,000 PA, and you will be among the best and brightest of graduates working on some truly exciting and engaging projects. But you have to be prepared to work hard in a fast paced environment, and adhere to deadlines to complete the work that you are given on time.
If this has interested you then you should look online for the Software Engineering graduates Schemes and when they are available (usually in the summer).
There will be a series of screening processes starting with your application and then if they think you have the right stuff for their company, they will give you a telephone interview and ask you informal questions about who you are as a person and what motivates you. After this there will be a more formal telephone interview where they will ask you about your skills in brief and why you want to work for Travis Perkins (this may have changed since 2013, so the structure may be different when you go through the process).
Once you get past the screening processes you will be offered to attend an assessment day and will be tested through a series of activities and also your mannerisms. They will always be monitoring you and even have some paid employees pretending to be graduates there for the open day to test how you are with other people when the Consultants and other Travis Perkins staff are not in sight.
There will be a one-to-one interview that is both formal and informal, followed by an written & multiple choice test that will often be unrelated to what you know; this test is designed deliberately to test how you react under pressure when your put in a difficult situation where you don’t know something, and there are cameras that are secretly hidden when the instructor leaves the room to monitor how people behave when left alone with just the other graduates (whether you cheat, get angry, get up and pace around, or whatever; they will be monitoring you).
Finally the hardest part of the assessment will be the team test where they test how you can cope when working with others in a team; the test is not Autism/Asperger’s friendly so if you have poor social skills be prepared to be judged based on that. Fortunately your in luck, as you can counter this test because one or more of the graduates involved in the team exercise is also an actual Travis Perkins Employee, who will deliberately talk over other peoples ideas and attempt to force his own views forward. So you have to learn quickly how to put your ideas across but not be too controlling or threatening, and also not too weak and submissive as you will fail; you have to find the middle ground and effectively work well with others in the team to succeed.