The whole process took about a month.
Let me just mention the important things first. The graduate scheme provides you 12 weeks of training and then lease you out to their clients. After 14 days of training, you are committed to the scheme for 2 years and could be fined for 20k for breaking the contract. As to whether if the training if worth 20K or not is up to you, but you should be careful since they have an awful lot of power over you once you commit. It is also worth mentioning that you most likely will not be placed straight after your training. There is a 90 days period for them to find you a placement, during this time, you still have to come to the office. (I’ve seen a lot of graduates just sitting around on Facebook.) Both the training and placement seeking period are unpaid, which could be up to 6 months. They don't mention these in the presentation and I would encourage you to ask lots of questions on things you are not sure about.
I initially applied directly through their website online and received a call from the recruiter the next day, just an informal chat about the grade scheme. We then arranged a telephone interview.
The telephone interview was standard, lasted about 10 minutes. The recruiter doesn’t give you any cues.
What do you know about FDM?
Why did you apply for FDM?
What do you know about our training program?
What do you know about production support?
What do you know about the finance industry and investment banking?
I was invited to an assessment day a few days later and received some very helpful advice from the recruiter. I would advise you to go through the emails they send you in details.
The assessment day was from 9:00AM - 3:30PM, but we didn't finish until 4. Remember to bring three documents with you: passport, degree evidence, and proof of address. It started with a presentation about the company and the scheme which lasted for more than an hour. Followed by three 5 minutes interviews. Each interviewer asks about a different aspect, in the form of four questions.
Interviewer 1
Why did you choose your degree?
Would you do it again?
Tell me three things that would make you great for this company.
Interviewer 2
How could FDM help you with your career aspirations?
Give me an example where you made used of IT?
Tell me something you heard in the new that is IT related.
Apple or android?
Interviewer 3
Deadline vs quality of work?
Which of the FDM value do you align with?
As to the Apple or Android question, I pointed out that it was an illegitimate comparison, as Apple is a company and Android is an OS, I don’t think she was happy about my reply. After the interviews, we had to take a notation/Venn diagrams test lasted for 60 minutes. All tests were done on tablets. This is followed by an hour for lunch, which was not provided. In the afternoon, we had to take a math test (30 mins) and an IT aptitude test (60 minutes), followed by a tour of the office.
The Venn diagrams tests might catch you off guard if you don't know about it, but it's pretty straight forward for the most part. The math test is sub-GCSE and felt like a complete waste of time. The IT aptitude test is poorly written in my opinion, one of the questions is “which question is the penultimate question in the test?” It is, however, useful to know what SQL, HTTP, UNIX, C++, and Java are.
I received a rejection email the next day, it was only three sentence with no reason for rejection and zero feedback. They hire about 1000 graduates a year, so I appreciated how difficult this might be. At the end of the day, the whole process was a waste of time in my opinion, as it is not clear to me as to whether if I failed the interview or one of their tests. All the efforts spend into the preparation and travelling to London condensed into a single sentence rejection and I have gained absolutely nothing to help me to continue my job search.
