1. Phone interview
2. Open Day
3. Face to face interview
4. Assessment Centre
5. Interview with manager/director of a department
1. Phone interview was very simple. Competency and CV based.
Questions: give two examples when I have done something and succeeded, what do i hope to gain from my internship, what do i know about hays, talk to me a bit about your studies
2. The Open day was mainly for the applicants to see if they really want to work for the company before processing to the rest of the application process. We did 2 group exercises that although were supposed to be just for fun and not assessed, the HR people were taking notes, so don't be fully relaxed, they do notice what you do/say
The day: presentation on the company (take notes), Q&A sessions (make sure you do ask questions, their favourite value is being inquisitive!), brief presentations from employees and interns, 2 group exercises: 1 presentation on a theme chosen from the previous presentation on the company (that's where you'll need the notes from before) and scanning a CV/job description and at the end we walked around the office. The atmosphere is really relaxed, make sure you talk to the recruiters and you are friendly, even though it is not an assessment centre, it's your chance to make a good first impression and have a head start.
3. Face to face interview with internal recruiter. CV based, so we went through my CV and asked me talk in more detail about my university and work experience.
Other questions: why hays, why recruitment, what do you wanna know about hays, what do you know about recruitment, what do you think you will be doing on a day to day basis, what motivated you to apply, where do you see yourself after graduation/do you have any specific career plans
We also did a role play: they give you a situation and you have to say how you would deal with such a situation - the key for this part is to bring in hays core values into your response. As the example situation they give you relates to one of their four values. Mine was a business development call to a client - make sure you sell the company and ask A LOT of questions, be pushy but polite and make sure you make the client to agree on meeting you in person to discuss more. The interview overall was relaxed and I really enjoyed it, don't stress they're just trying to understand the real you, not put you in a difficult position.
I had the interview just today so I haven't heard back yet. My interviewer told me that the next stage would be assessment centre and then an interview with a managing director of the department they will place me to recruit. (During the assessment centre they try to understand your personality in order to place you to the appropriate industry/employment sector where you will be recruiting)
Hope all these helped! Good luck to any of the stages you are, make sure you research the company (!!) and show (with your tone of voice and body language too) that you are passionate about recruitment and Hays and that you are excited to work there!