I applied online. The process took 3 weeks. I interviewed at BAT (Auckland, ) in Aug 2008
Interview
Post application there are a total of 4 rounds of testing and interviewing. Following a psychometric test, a telephone interview is conducted. On being selected, the candidate is invited to participate in an Assessment Centre which involves spending a full day at the company in simulated situations making decisions as part of a senior management team. On being selected from this process the candidate is then invited to a final interview. The maximum age is 25 with a minimum requirement of a university degree. There is no work experience required although the assessment centre is quite hard, of not impossible, for those who have never worked before. There is no request for grades as the process rewards ability and soft skills.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Being successful in the Assessment Centre is not enough. Displaying the same confidence in the pressure of a final interview is necessary. One question that is asked is to describe examples of when you have been in a leadership position, which can be quite difficult to answer when you are under 25 and have not played a leadership role in sport.
The process took 4 weeks. I interviewed at BAT in May 2009
Interview
Several weeks after I submitted my CV on their online recruiting page, I was told that I made it to step 2 of the process. Step 2 was a numerical and verbal test (20 minutes each) which were easy but you had to be quick to finish them on time. Step 3 was a competency based phone interview with questions like "tell us about a time when you had to work in a group", "A situation where you had to adapt quickly", " A hard decision you had to make" etc.. and why I wanted to work for their company.
Step 4 was an assessment center which actually took place in another country (candidates were screened for similar positions in other countries too).
To be honest the people there (there were HR people but also from other departments such as marketing and finance) did not strike me as anything special. We, the candidates, had dinner with them the night before in order to get to know them before the assessment day. All of them were very happy with their work and very enthusiastic but they did not strike me as very intelligent or interesting. Oh, and none of them had any ethical issues tied to the nature of the business of their company.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
The assessment day consisted of a group discussion (with other candidates), a presentation, role play exercise (where you needed to interview an assessor in order to get the necessary information to answer predetermined questions) and another group exercise at the end.
