I applied online. I interviewed at Capita (Manchester, England) in Feb 2023
Interview
I interview for the Capita Novus Graduate Program. I don't typically write interview experience, but this one deserves warning. The hiring staff are unprofessional. I got a call the day after the assesment center, but I couldn't take the call since I was working. They didn't bother me phoning the day after to inform me of the AC outcome. They phoned the day before training starts to ask me about my experience with the application process. They proceed and inform me I'm rejected from the program. They didn't bother to email at all, which they could of easily done as I was not able to take the initial call. Additionally, I was not made aware during the interview process that we were not being paid during the 3 months training. When I raised the question at the assesment center Infront of everyone they avoided answering it. The starting salary is £24,500 and progression wise it goes up every 6 months up to £30k at the end of the two years. They didn't mention anything about location bias, as you'd usually expect London bonus if you get placed with a client in London. That salary is not enough to sustain that.
Additionally, after the assesment center I was accused of using chatGPT to write the essay questions below. I did not. I used my A-level notes and Grammarly to spell check. The person marking my questions said this played a factor is the final decision. It's unacceptable to make such a claim without strong evidence supporting it. This is an academic offence, and people can be expelled from university for this. It is not nice being accused of this, especially when you have not done it.
Lastly, I want to say that this program is intentionally made to exploit talented graduates. They have been sued twice for asking graduates to pay out £20k for dropouts from contracts. You could fund yourself almost a full master degree instead of 3 months training. I'm glad I did not get selected as I would not have taken it anyway, let alone apply again.
Interview questions [3]
Question 1
Q: Team exercise on picking 10 out of 20 given items you would pick to survive in a plane crash at the dessert
Assesment center: Q1: In SDLC, what is requirements gathering, what method can be used, and what document is the most important at the completion of this phase and why? Q2: A client lost all its data stored on magnetic tape for back ups. Hypothesise what caused the issue, and suggest how data can be recovered. Q3: Provide benefits and drawbacks to using Agile when building a complete software solution for another client Q4: Program Fibonacci sequence in a language at your preference Q5 Write Pseudo code for solving Fibonacci sequence.
Assesment center interview: Q. General questions about my CV? Q. What is the link between data base and a central program? Q. Competency based question about teamwork.