well on my assessment centre we did NO IQ tests etc. We had to write a presentation on a certain business environment and then present that in front of a panel when a situation then changes and you have to deal quickly with the changes.
I then had 2 interviews, on different things, one on my working past and one on achievements / future ambitions.
Please can you try to accept that your view of IQ tests and logic tests are everywhere is NOT what happens in all assessment centres. I got the job on my first assessment centre but others there had been to others and said that they were all similar and therefore are rather different to the picture that you paint.
We had to write a presentation on a certain business environment and then present that in front of a panel when a situation then changes and you have to deal quickly with the changes.
I then had 2 interviews, on different things, one on my working past and one on achievements / future ambitions.
no, it was a business situation that required action. We had to show what we would do and then think on our feet when our proposals encountered changing events.
Ooooohhhh. You're a programmer. That would explain alot of the issues that you're coming across. There are less programming/technical IT jobs around these days as much of that sort of work is being off-shored. It's a fraction of the price. Primarily the long-term technical roles are within the city trade companies, consultancies and small businesses dotted around.
As a result, many of the big companies don't take graduates on with a view to career long technical roles. When they're interviewing they're trying to identify people with the ability to become future leaders, not to do the role that may first be available.
Yes, companies do go on about the shortage of good technical graduates. Some research I did recently for a project outlined the skills that were considered to be essential for the next decade. Within IT, it was almost entirely business interfacing, strategic, communication and people leadership skills.
It would really help if unis aligned themselves more with what the work place is after. Having done some collaboration work with a uni, it transpired that for them to update their degree courses to align with what employers needed would take 4-5 years. That's 7-8 years until students gradute.
It's less of an issue with the red-bricks because they aim to teach people to think and learn independently. It's a complete disaster for unis running courses that are aimed to prepare people for industry.
I think mrposhman deserves a little more respect than that. Its hardly story telling what he says he had to do.
I would like to ask DC what he would like to change about the education system? Not an independent review what does HE THINK would work in improving the current system?
Agreed. My first interview was 'story telling', too. It is really intense and difficult to work out which parts of your life actually relate to what they're after.
Honestly, it feels like we're going back to the previous system where polys did the vocational courses and red-bricks, the academic stuff. It just seems that they're all being rebranded to support the target of getting x% of people through uni.
It's also incredibly disturbing to find how many unis actually 'adjust' marks in order to help inprove their status.
I think we need definate change to the system i think labour has caused more damage than good in recent years. We now have a system where a degree in some cases only carries a 50% chance of a graduate job. I think we need to make decisions for the futre and before its to late. waiting for a review is not good enough.
We need quality not quantity in HE. 50% in HE is not sustainable.
It would make sense to have 60% of people going through uni if a vaguely similar percentage of jobs actually required degree level education. The fact of the matter is that people don't seem to have a reason for educating the masses to this standard other than to have an educated population.
It's shocking if this is the kind of logic our best educational institutions breeds.
Thanks for the support you guys. Assessment centres aren't easy, the presentation wasn't that bad but when they then change the story, you ahve to think on your feet really fast with the panel staring at you as you try to come up with a business answer that makes sense. Not that easy.
If that wasn't enough there were 2 direct interviews as well though they do allow you thinking time if you ask for it.
back to HE, I totally agree that some unis probably "up" their marks. Why are exam papers at unis marked by the tutors yet teachers in schools aren't allowed to mark theirs? Why aren't all scripts independantly marked? Somehow they manage to mark all school papers in the same time, there aren't as many HE students as in school.
I totally agree that educational places should also be given based on the number of jobs.
DC - Please call for an immediate review of HE policy.
Yes i agree there mrposhman we need an immediate review of HE policy. Also i would like to see DC state exactly what his vision for education and particular HE is to the masses in a speech. There are a number of people just turning 18 who support DC but want to hear a strong education policy to seal the deal. We need to be the party that supports students rather than the party that gives with one hand and takes with the other.
I wasn't saying it was EASY. I was asking if it was RELEVANT?
Many people with great ideas to revloutionise businesses are not given the opportunity to put them into practice because they are not good enough at selection processes.
Oftem which have nothing at all to do with the real world.
There are a lot of companies chasing the small number of people that are good at passing selection processes when others which may have more relevant knowledge are overlooked.
but as you liked to ignore i stated that i was given a scenario (business related) where I had to make a presentation and then after the situation had changed I had to think on my feet to assess what I would do to combat that. I would say thats relevant.
Not including programming then, how would you conduct an interview for say a finance graduate? Would you ask them to draw out a balance sheet blah, blah, blah. No you want to find out how they react in pressure scenarios and what conclusions they come to with regards to data analysis, the rest is ASSUMED knowledge as I have stated.
Interviews for graduates are all abput secondary skills such as communication due to the reason that there is so much assumed knowledge coming from universities.
Degree? Simple. Got an accountant dad? Simple. Email the questions to him, he does the coursework, dissertation, the lot, then hands it in.
So, they have the 2:1 by copying and pasting off the internet and thier dad.
So lets ask them lots of questions, again taken from INSIDE KNOWLEDGE that their dad provides, (that has nothing to do with the job, or rather is management related) and bingo they get the job.
Who cares if they are good at accountancy as long as they can move toy blocks around the room with other people?
It's not about talent, it is an old school network. And it is why working class people do not bother trying at school because they don't have the "inside knowledge" to know how to do these selection tests.
Actually not all finance degrees include dissertations, i had the choice but was never that good at coursework as i would much rather answer a question asked of me rather than create one to discuss.
The only coursework i did at uni was on international marketing.
I'm not sure i really agree as if you have lived off your dad all your life, how could they then even deal with the situation that I have stated above?
If thier dad is an accountant they may have talked about business in general, about different scenarios, you know like "i had this idiot in today and he was about to go bankrupt however I noticed he was due a large rebate from the taxman which he was not aware of because of X".
They will have inside knowledge, whereas if their dad is a greasemonkey (e.g. car mechanic) then even if they have a 1st class honours degree then they may not have the "inside knowledge" to be able to do these tests because they were not "born into it".
A lot of people are employed not on talent but on cronyism, the ability to tell people what you think they want to hear and the ability to move toy shapes around a room.
fine, i was brought up by my mother who was a teacher and my dad was at arms length and I saw him once a monht. He's involved in business but obviously when we did meet up his job wasn't much that I talked about.
I ask you then, where did I pick up this "insider knowledge" then?
or maybe interviews aren't as you say and they actually employ people on merit.
Yes, questions are asked that you may think are irrelevant to the job but just as I and others have tried to tell you, these are probing for answers that may indicate good management potential and based on the assumed knowledge that you should have from your degree should indicate the best candidates.
What I would probably agree on, on the working class front is if you consider the assumed knowledge element. Is well known that less working class students go to the top unis as the unis firstly cherry pick from the private schools and then from the middle class backgrounds as this usually indicates students who would have a better understanding of all subjects, have undergone better teaching etc. Therefore the assumed knowledge that a working class graduate brings may not be seen as as great as a "toff" as you put it.
Cliff - perhaps it would be good if you tried to give people from different backgrounds a break. Yes, the occasional person does cheat during their degree. However I don't think there's any cause to believe that this is class specific. It's starting to sound more like distain of the middle and upper classes than actual.
It sounds like you believe it's employers' responsibility to rectify the imbalances of social classes. Put yourself in an employers' shoes. There are two 1st class hons candidates. One dedicated his entire time at uni towards getting this fantastic degree. The other did his degree, charity work, joined societies and did a summer job with a family friend in the same industry. Why would you choose the first candidate over the second one?
I'd like to suggest that the imbalance is with our parents and our education from the ages of 7-16, not with employers.
You often get people like David Cameron, and a lot of middle class people saying it is a "trajedy" that only so many pupils get a specific amount of "O" levels and qualificatons and complain that working class people do not try.
Yet when they do they often know they are wasting their time and would have been better off dossing around playing football, leaving with no qualifications at all and pursuing a career in retail.
I am trying to explain to Toffs WHY many working class people do not bother.
You are right, employers seek those with management potential. Which generally means an idiot that does not know their subject, is a good blagger and storyteller, and has fantastic communication skills. And who can make up stories of what they did at uni and what social clubs they joined (are they REALLY going to check?)
In your example above I would rather emloy someone who was really interested in the job and subject.
If I was employing a computer programmer I just want to know this - can they program a computer.
I HAVE DONE INTERVIEWING AND CHOSEN GRADUATES TO BE EMPLOYED. One black, one with a "normal" speaking voice, one from a more sophisticated background. I did this solely on what talent I thought they had, not on management potential, storytelling or other nonsense. I tried to do it based entirely on their technical knowledge of the subject.
Not once did i ever consider things like what they did outside their studies, who cares?
Call me stupid or an idiot, but I just wanted to konw if they could do the job.
Workers are rubbish managers and managers are rubbish workers.
Example. We employ an artist to paint our Bouncy Castles.
He has an art degree. Before this he was a builder on a building site, and is very working class.
However, he clearly has a passion for art and when he is not painting our castles he does a lot of paintings which he sells at art galleries. He clearly has a passion for art and when you consider he did this as a mature student, this in my eyes shows even more commitment.
Does he have any management potential? I don't know. Is he posh? No. Is he a thug/chav? He seems respectable for a working class person.
Will he ever get the chance to put into practice any management skills at our company? Unlikely. Any career progression at our company? Unlikely, we want him to paint castles and he can.
Now if he had spent a lot of his time on his degree doing things unrelated to art I would question his commitment to the subject. Sorry but that is how I am.
And for many jobs when you are employing workers who cares about management progression? Those with the drive to make it will be off in 3 years anyway, for somewhere else with better pay.
You also get the opposite with people like Alan Sugar blatently discriminating against Toffs in the Apprentice.
He hates Toffs because they would not give him a chance so he doesn't see why he should give thme one.
Often he would "fire" people in series 1 & 2 NOT because they were rubbish but because they were "too much Cartier" or something. I actually felt sorry for the Toffs on it as they hadn't got a chance.
The first 2 jobs given on the Apprentice were booby prizes. Absolutely rubbish jobs.
It wasn't until series 3 when I think Alan learnt his lesson that he finally decided to give a chance to a Toff. And try and give them a worthwhile job.
As David Cameron is a Toff and the conservative party has often been known as the ToffParty, I wanted to try and explain a different perspective.
I don't think not providing information is helping anyone.
Often Toffs in politics want to know why not enough commoners are doing ToffJobs.
I have tried to explain why.
Companies are more interested in management potential than those that can do the job they are applying for.
to be honest cliff i find you very pompous who has yet to read anything that anyone else has posted.
you have contradicted your point by stating about the apprentice, you keep stating that toffs "can't do the job" and working class people can. Well it looks as if Alan Sugar has been big enough to accept that his same view was tainted, will yours change?
By the way, you are affectively saying the following about me
Quote:
You are right, employers seek those with management potential. Which generally means an idiot that does not know their subject, is a good blagger and storyteller, and has fantastic communication skills. And who can make up stories of what they did at uni and what social clubs they joined
Well thanks for calling me an idiot but i have just been offered a permanent job in the business before the grad scheme is over.
do you also know what goes on in accounting jobs with the big 4 accounting firms. They employ more than they need and over a year analyse who is good, who can pass exams and if you think that auditing isn't doing real work then your clearly stupid.
It still strikes me that your argument is still based on only what you know, ie. computer programming, and takes NO account of other degrees that people study
In your case I would rather employ someone who knew about accountancy and who could do it rather than someone that could talk about organising trips abroad.
What is your view on a working class jailed fraudster presenting TV shows whose theme has traditionally been middle class.
Antiques.
Who cars if he can organise a charity trip or not. Does he know about Antiques or not?
What i am trying to say is that graduates, especially with degrees in finance / HR / marketing etc all have assumed knowledge and hence the reason that they search for management potential as they expect them to be able to do their job due to the degree they have taken.
BTW in the Antique example, I was refering to David Dickenson, who has been to prison for fraud and was brought up in a working class environment.
Quote:
all have assumed knowledge and hence the reason that they search for management potential as they expect them to be able to do their job due to the degree they have taken
This is the problem.
GCSEs & A Levels? People make them up/got their parents to do the coursework.
Degree? Copy & Paste it off the internet.
Why waste time LEARNING THE JOB when they are better off learning IQ tests, personality tests, the meaning of most of the words in the English Dictionary, and how to answer irrelevant questions like "can you describe a situation where you have had to win"?
Absolute rubbish. I assume you are talking about a dissertation. There are 3 years at uni and only a small part of that is a dissertation. I took 4 subjects every 6 months so 8 exams a year.
Out of 16 that are taken into account for the degree (first year does not count), 2 of these may be made up of your dissertatioin which is just 12.5% of your degree.
Accountancy may be different but when i did my computer degree 1/3rd of it was a project, a few more marks on the dissertation, the rest was exam all in the final year.
But I think all passed this (especially as they were OPEN BOOK exams so you could take anything in) so the project & dissertation made the most difference.
In thoery you can cheat on dissertations & project work if you want to.
For example, once a HOSPTAL manager in charge of the ENTIRE HOSPITAL was given the job because he claimed he had a 1st class hoonours degree. In fact I believe he had just 6 o levels and a couple of A levels.
The court heard Taylor had previously worked as a medical manager at the North Hampshire Hospital in Basingstoke before becoming head of the Royal Orthopaedic Hospital in Birmingham.
There, he was described as a "first class chief executive" and also praised for his "sound leadership".
In April 1999, Taylor successfully applied to be chief executive of the Royal Shrewsbury Hospital and the following year became acting chief executive of the Princess Royal Hospital in Telford.
Under his direction, the two rival hospitals merged. One colleague, a clinical director and radiologist at the Royal Shrewsbury, praised his "dynamism, intelligence and 'softly, softly', non-confrontational approach".
She added: "I don't think any other personality could have achieved it."
i'm not really sure what the relevance of this article is as you ahve shown above that he did not have a degree, can you clarify?
I would agree that your degree did appear to have a range of areas open for manipulation however, I had a few open book exams in my first year (not part of my degree results) and actually found these harder than closed book exams as you don't do as much revision, the timing is difficult and there are generally marked tougher.
I think from what you have said, your worries may well be confined to the programming industry as i'm sure a lot of other degrees are taken in the majority through exams.
The point I was making was that he got a top hospital job (he was in charge of a trust) by BLAGGING IT.
He CLAIMED to have a ddegre in something he did not and was given the job as a result of this.
He was possibly not given deep probing questinons about medicine or business or whatever he claimed he had learnt.
Instead he would have been asked lots of irrelevant personnel questions.
Quite simply, to get a lot of top jobs you have to be a good LIAR.
You talk about someone who organised a trip abroad. Well, how do you know they did?
Maybe they know someone else who did, and they talked a lot about it. But at an interview they claim THEY did this.
He got the top job because he was a storyteller.
Jobs should be about talent, not the ability to blag it.
It should be possible in any industry to do a "Cherie" or a "Thatcher". Come from the bottom and be provided with the tools to make it to the top in any profession if people want.
It should be ILLEGAL to ask someone what their parents do for a living.
It should be ILLEGAL to discriminiate on social background.
If you think I am being radical, consider racial discrimination.
Many black asians that came over here were bus drivers, shop owners, and people that were not very clever. Sorry but they weren't.
However they encouraged their families to spend all hours god send studying to be medical doctors, lawyers and the like.
Because they are black, they have special discrimination protection. If they are not employed and they can prove they had better qualifications than a white person given the job they can claim discrimination.
If they have an asian accent and were rejected for this reason they can claim discrimination.
If they are a muslim and have a beard and are sacked for this reason they can claim discrimination.
White working class people cannot make such employment claims. Class discrimination is the new black.
If a black asian whose parents did working class jobs can become lawyers and doctors, why cannot working class people achieve the same?
Cherie blair is a top solicitor despite sounding "common" and her mum worked in a fish & chip shop.
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