Monkton Senior Careers Day

Despite the best efforts of the seasonal snowy weather along with the closure of most other schools in the area, our Year 12 Senior School careers event went ahead as planned. The aim of the day, to demystify the recruitment process by putting students through a mock assessment centre, was received tremendously by participating students along with a breadth of knowledge imparted throughout the day.

Broadly themed on the graduate recruitment process for firms such as PwC and Aldi, our students were first put through their paces with psychometric testing and situational judgement tests. These were run and fed back on by a team of organisational psychologists from Graduates First, who design recruitment processes for large firms. With this method of testing better understood and some personal feedback delivered, they moved on to consider how firms use workplace personality testing and game based assessments to determine organisational fit, before finally giving these a go for themselves. 

Next up was a change of tack, taking on an assessed teamwork exercise to plan a major event for the school. They were tasked with planning and pitching their schedule on a tight deadline before being questioned on it by Monkton staff with experience of running such events and a professional recruitment consultant.

The day’s activities, combined with CV writing and mock interviews through PD over the preceding week, mean that Year 12 have now experienced and had feedback on the full recruitment process- much of which they will be putting into practice over the next few weeks as they consider the job descriptions, craft applications, and prepare for interviews as they look to take on leadership roles next year.

Other parts of the day were given over to guided careers and work experience planning, the opportunity for career coaching, as well as a talk on the UCAS university application process. Students ended the day with a fresh perspective on the wider world of work and a further instilled confidence in their abilities to approach their next big steps.