Grad Schemes

[Wintom]

How many did your DC apply for?

Were they successful? How many were they offered? When did they hear about any offers?

What has their experience been like?

DC has applied for about 15, done endless numerical tests, situation judgement tests etc. This is all new to me, so just wanted to learn a little more about the process.

Yes, engineering is long. In fact this year my sons are finding a lto fo their friends from school are qualifying into various things - they all left school in 2017. My twins qualify as solicitors in January. Their friend has just qualified in dentistry and started his first job last month. Their accountant friend has just done his last exam (although he has been in the job and being paid for the last 3 years as accountants train and do exams on the job with a salary so different from law and dentistry). If they had a medical student friend that one would be going on to the next stage too in these professions with very long qualification periods.

They also had other friends who applied for grad schemes when my sons were at Bristol in things like banks and who did get jobs from when they graduated although it is terribly competitive. One friend has just started his training contract to become a solicitor as it took a couple of years to get that whilst he worked as a paralegal which adds even more time on.

My 2 eldest dc both got their first jobs via specialist agencies and from there applied for promtions within the organisations and its partners and having leapfrogged the 'official' trainees and tgat is still tge case at 7 and 10 years later. So im not sure whether graduate teaining schemes are the best route for smart, hard working proactive people

@curaçao , you make a good point. Many grads will forge successful careers outside of grad schemes. My Oxford grad DD didn’t look at any traditional grad scheme jobs and joined an environmental NGO straight out of uni last year. She has recently been approached by a large London consultancy firm offering her a salary in excess of those in the second year of their official grad scheme.

Update: For others going through the same process, DC got offered their first grad scheme today. It is management and operations. They applied on 4th November.

Well done to your DC @Wintom ! Great news!

Well done to your DC @Wintom.
My middle one does operations management.

Great update Winton, he can now totally relax and enjoy his time in Asia!

Well done to your ds @Wintom . Great way to end the year and a new beginning for next yr. Very timely.