By the way, just to save repetition, Toni-Marie Lowney has written a great post on the stages and the timelines in the MACH application process, so if you’re looking for specifics, check it out! I’m just going to tell you my experience of the application process, how I felt at each stage and of course, the happy ending (or beginning rather!).
It was July 2010, I’d just arrived back having completed a year-long internship in Paris and was wondering where on Earth my life was going after university. Having worked for a telecommunications company, I realized my passion was in the digital industry, in either marketing or advertising (nothing related to my degree by the way). Heading into final year and the inevitability that it would be all over in a short few months (and those months did fly by, I still can’t believe I’m working here now, Uni feels like such a long time ago), I thought I’d better do something about it. A friend of mine had been accepted onto the NHS graduate scheme the previous year and the idea of graduate schemes appealed to me. Speaking to my university careers advisors, I decided to make a list of companies that I was interested in and went about my research.
I still have no idea to this day what made me do this, but I decided to type Microsoft careers into a search engine and “graduate” came up. Curious, I clicked on it and after combing the site through for all its possible information, I thought, well why not; it’d be worth a shot – as it is such a prestigious program, honestly I didn’t feel like a stood a chance of getting on it! I hadn’t even known until then that Microsoft even had a graduate program! So I completed the application form online (I cannot stress enough how important it is to spend time on a graduate application, if you want to be considered, be sure to do you research, bring your personality into it. They will know if you’ve just cut and paste the same generic responses that you’ve written for other applications!). I didn’t give it much thought as I’d sent it off over a weekend and university assignments were looming.
So I remember feeling surprised but elated when I got a speedy response from the graduate recruitment team within 2 days, inviting me to the next stage of the process, which was an on-line test. I had to complete it within 5 days, so having done the practice tests, I decided to go for it and complete the test by Microsoft. Another piece of advice I’d like to share at this stage is that only do the test by Microsoft if you’re getting at least about 80% of the practice questions correct. I was about half way through the real test when my mind went blank and I just thought to myself “Oh no.” So with time against me, and a couple of educated guesses, I completed it and went to sleep. Or tried to. I was feeling annoyed at myself and almost certain that I’d blown it.
You can imagine how I felt the following day when I got an email back from Microsoft inviting me to a telephone interview (which was within a week of doing the online test – me thinking to myself, that’s not enough time!). I researched the company as much as I could – the annual report, the graduate website, the official website, Microsoft press archives, newspaper/magazine articles where Microsoft was mentioned, you name it, I exhausted all avenues of sources of information, as well as interview techniques. http://prospects.ac.uk became my best friend. The interview lasted around 35 minutes for me. Nerves had been present the entire time as I tried to answer each question as concisely as I could, but channelling that into positive thoughts, thankfully, saw me through that call!
The first three stages of the application process went extremely quickly (they all happened within two weeks for me), so the month-long wait was pretty tough. So I was air-punching when I found out that I’d gotten through to the assessment centre. You’d have knocked out about 90% of the competition by this stage, so well done if you manage to get this far!
I had a week’s notice to prepare for the assessment centre (although it varies), so I brushed up on what I’d written in my application, more research on the company, did practice interviews with my careers advisor at the university as well as getting advice on assessment centres.
These are your (potential) employers, so look the part and dress as though you mean business! Try to get a good night’s sleep as well as the assessment centre is a long day and it can take a lot out of you, so being well-rested means that you are on your game. Even though you may be a bag of nerves, turn this into adrenaline.
Assessment centre done and dusted. I waited. And waited. Then finally… I still haven’t forgotten that call that I received from Microsoft when they told me I had been accepted onto the MACH scheme. Although that’s about all I remember as excitement and elation took over and my mind just went blank.
Dawn E.
Be Your Future 