Episode 4: Preparing for a typical graduate recruitment process

the hospitality industry is a thriving place for graduates in this podcast graduates in hospitality with hilton we gathered together graduates and alumni from across the region to share their experiences and advice all to help you get ready for your graduate career and to decide if hospitality is right for you in episode four lamar george and grace are at hilton dubai palm jumeirah they talk about how to prepare for a typical graduate recruitment process so let's get started just wanted to get your feeling i know it's sort of fairly recent for you guys as well that you've just sort of gone through the graduate recruitment process um but i just look to get your sort of view on it in terms of how how does it feel to go through that process and what does a typical graduate process feel like um from my experience it's usually four stages four to five stages depending on the company that you're with and after the screening of your cv i wouldn't consider that a stage because i think it's with everything you first apply with your cv and then hopefully when you get that next email that you cannot do the psychromagic tests afterwards you usually have interview that you're talking to a screen with pre-recorded questions hopefully you're not nervous because it's this question that you saw on the screen and you get a few minutes to answer it and you always have a retry if you felt like the first time wasn't working out followed by i would say now depending on the company that you with either telephone call from someone with a company or face-to-face via teams or any other platform that they use if you make it through all these stages you now get to the event for a suspense center which could be a day or two and then you get to the event for a suspense center which could be a day or two and then that requires a lot of your effort in time and setting a part-time for preparations for that so i think yeah mind you it's not in one week it's months and months of recruitment there's definitely parts that you start to kind of go down a funnel almost so most applications i made you're making a large amount of applications to start with and you kind of get lost in them because you're applying to so many different companies they're all looking for very similar kind of soft skills within yourself and it's then starts to narrow down to what you need to know more and more about the company i think the time you invest the longer you go down the process of application really increases proportionally it's a long process but i think when you finally get a job it's very rewarding and if you had advice for any sort of current graduates out there looking to apply to any graduate program out there what would it be and i know you know a lot of the time people tell you try to be your authentic self but at the same time it's like you know driving a car and taking the test you know you're always doing your 110 best version in terms of driving that car but how do you what advice would you give then to other graduates out there i think the best advice i would be is research like research the type of company that you want to work for the type of role that you want to work for because as you're saying being authentic self you would not apply for a job that you actually desire to be part of and as you go through the recruitment process it's way much easier because you really enjoy and you're trying to get this job and it's not as i'd say troublesome because if you're trying to tick off tick something off a box it would be now more painful as you're going through the process but now it's like if you do the research and realize okay this is a company this is the type of culture that i want to have this is the type of skills that i need to have for this job do i meet this is this the type of job because sometimes you even find out as you're applying for the job actually the questions that they're asking me and the things that i align to are not really fitting in together i'd rather now go look for a different job so it's like my job is a different job so i'd rather now go look for a different job so it's like my biggest advice would be research like that's the main part i second what grace said also i you've got to be pretty tenacious um like i touched on earlier it's a tough experience um and you can really have some get really invested in stuff and try not to let that hurt you and even if you're not getting feedback you can understand within yourself you know okay did i really give a hundred percent i know you say we should you always give 110 but all of us are guilty of occasionally falling off the mark a little bit so really making sure that you're reassessing your application and was that really what i should be showing the skills in myself and sometimes it's not down to you sometimes it is just on the day there was other people that they wanted it's not actually that you were wrong and i remember at university i had an assessment center i got onto the assessment center and got told no you haven't got the job with no feedback and um again i spoke to the recruiting people at university and asked for some advice and they said it probably wasn't actually that you were doing much wrong it's just that there were other people on the day that they preferred so kind of just keep going as long as you're confident in what you're doing just keep going so part of this you know graduate programs and their sort of recruitment process is that there's multiple stages and each stage is linked to the previous stage if you're successful in the first stage you go to next stage so to speak so how do you pass that first gate how do you open the doors up pass the first stage and move on to the second so i would say it's a matter of practice in some regard it's understanding what a company is looking for and showing how you resonate with those skills not just going in blindly with i'm this i'm this but firstly making sure that you do resonate with them and that this is the right job for you and then secondly showing clearly how you resonate to them because even if you might feel that you resonate to them it might be you can't just say directly i resonate to these skills you've got to show examples and show where you fit in with the kind of company culture anything to add to that case i think we can totally agree with you with that so considering that you're just a fresh graduate you don't really i would say have a lot in your bag to really showcase but like throughout your i'd say university or your spare time you were able to do other events and activities that you will be able to showcase during that first stage it's really i'd say a skill that we're all learning and usually universities always have like career guidances as you mentioned before that can help you to be like how can i best stand out for this and it's like really i'd say resonating with the job and being like i really want this job and i think i have the skills to demonstrate it and you will be able to think from your previous experiences to be like from this i know i can achieve this job so i think so both your amazing personalities what do you think resonated the most in the in your first steps what made you so unique from everyone else what do you think it was it's a good question i think probably my determination the fact that i felt like i could lead i really felt like i could resonate with leading i had luckily had opportunities already to lead companies and lead teams and businesses and i think that was something firstly that hilton offered to me as an opportunity i saw it as a great opportunity to kind of hone these skills and it's something i also knew i enjoyed doing so i knew it was worthwhile kind of pursuing a career in that aspect so i think for me it was really the leadership skills and wanting to be able to show that i could lead well and also learn more about leading i think for me it was my willingness to learn like i think i really showcased that i hope i did because i'm here now it was that thing my desire to always want to learn more i think i've mentioned it more than several times i was very interested in the fact that this was a program that allowed me to learn on the job not just push me and do the work but actually learn what i'm actually doing better understand it so i really hoped i showcased that very well so that's what something i think resonated best for me so we've spoken a bit about the first stages of the um graduate recruitment process now let's talk a bit about the back end of it um how do you prepare for the final assessments you know when you're going to be with other people other graduates all looking for the same opportunity you know how how do you prepare do you look into the mirror and and you know hype yourself up uh do you you know start singing songs or how do you do it from my experience i think okay with also the format that it was in it was online so first of all i think i had to make sure i had good internet to make sure that i wasn't losing connection so i think that was my first step i don't know how helpful that can be with someone else but trust me good internet makes or breaks this experience for you because that removes i think a lot of nerves rather than having to go to the assessment center you now have this great area to try and find the good camera angle so that they can see you without having a glare behind you and i would say being kind to yourself you can do this you've gotten yourself this far you have the skills that they're looking for now they just want to for you to showcase those skills now in a practical sense because they give you activities of the skills that they showed you in the job description like we want this type of person and this type now you've been given the opportunity to showcase that you when you're applying you i had these skills you've just been given the platform to now present those skills outside so i think trying your best to be true from the first stage to the final stage hopefully you were i'd second what grace said but i'd also kind of add for me when i got to the assessment center that's when i kind of knew that was my time to go for it i knew that i could speak to people i was confident in going to the group activities and i think a bit like you said when you were in the assessment center saying grace kind of let yourself be competitive in some ways don't shy to the back because there's going to be people that want to push and let them push because no one wants to be the bully in the group but also show that your skills be confident that you've got there for a reason and then let those skills kind of shine really show them and show why you're there i think it's really nice that you know you're talking about being kind to yourself being authentic in nature um and one of the things i wanted to touch on then going going back to to that grace was what happens if you don't get the role how would you afford because you know you've gone this far and we're talking about being kind to ourselves being authentic and then what happens if you don't get the role how do you feel how do you manage that or what how would you have managed with that i have had that experience i did have that experience during my application process multiple times and it's one of those things where it's a bittersweet experience but you've got to pick yourself up because i've always been a bittersweet person and i've always been a bittersweet person and i've always been a bittersweet person and i've always been a bittersweet person and i've always been a bittersweet experience but you've got to pick yourself up because i've always been a bittersweet experience but you've got to pick yourself up because i've always been a bittersweet person and i wouldn't be here now and in some ways try not to be too harsh on yourself because the likelihood is you've gone through thousands of applicants to get into that last however many make it to the assessment center so just because you didn't make the job you probably did do quite well to get there and it probably wasn't that you were a completely wrong fit it was probably more just the fact that you weren't right on the day and you didn't fit exactly what the company was looking or you didn't meet what they wanted so don't be too harsh on yourself pick your chin up get going keep going again um second to that i would like to add as well learning from the experience learning perhaps that day as you said like it wasn't your best day why wasn't it your best day like were there some skills that perhaps didn't really come out to light and usually i remember one of my feedback for one of the jobs that i didn't get he was like always remember you got to the stage for a reason you just weren't able to showcase those skills on that day if you could work on this and after that i remember saying okay this were my weak spots let me work on this like practicing with other friends other colleagues that i could find around me and be like okay i've noticed i i need to work on this especially if i'm in a group setting it doesn't come to light but now i know the next time it does i don't want this to be one of the things that are holding me back also adding the feedback point thing really right kind of taking it on board and sometimes it's easy to be i didn't get the job they didn't want me just throwing it away but actually when you've calmed down and accepted you haven't got it actually reflecting whether that was they were right or whether you think that wasn't a skill a skill you didn't have or it's a skill you had but didn't show properly what final bits of advice would you give to people watching and listening into this i'd say my top three would be be determined keep going and be true to yourself make sure that you're a applying to a job you want and b apply in the way that you want get there the way that shows who you are because if you end up in a place that you've got there without showing who you truly are you're never going to grow in that career i think my advice would be first i think i said it before research like i think that's the biggest part and be prepared it's not something that's just going to come and fall in your lab you have to actually be prepared you have to put in the work it's easier said than done but it does require your time and effort so it's also another thing that you really need to invest your time in thank you for listening to graduates in hospitality with hilton if you enjoyed the conversation we have more episodes for you you can also learn about graduate careers at hilton via the link in the episode description