Hi all. I've been offered a place at Capgemini on their graduate CDC scheme & just received an e-mail saying that there will now be another intake for "March/April 2006" instead of my current start date of September 2005. I am tempted to defer to this later date so as to go travelling, but was wondering how this might impact on my career progress - might there be problems with timing of appraisals and salary reviews? Would it be the main intake in September with those joining in March seen as subsidiary? Any help from people with similar experience would be incredibly useful. Cheers
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Hi Steve,
I'd take the opportunity to go travelling. Don't worry about the appraisals, salary reviews etc they'll still happen, you'll just be six months behind the september 2005 intake and six months ahead of the september 2006 intake. When I joined there were two intakes and it didn't matter which one you opted for... the only reason they moved to one intake per year was because of the cr@ppy market during 2002 and 2003. The only risk of deferring is they withdraw the offer while you're travelling...unlikely considering the current climate but not impossible.
Ken CDC vet
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Cheers Ken. I am going to opt for the later start date as I would love to do 3 or 4 months of travelling with the promise of work to come back to. Need to let them know by noon tomorrow and only got the e-mail yesterday! Thanks again, it confirms what I thought and have been told by recruitment. Steve
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Do you want to work for a company that gives you 24 hours notice on that kind of decision?
They bumped my date after making me an offer- I have since left.
If they had work they would be taking you on now. Most consultancies are actively recruiting at the moment......
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I agree the time was short, but it's an indication that they are opening up new recruiting avenues - it was merely an option not an imperative that I start in March. This surely indicates that they are a firm doing well and needing more staff on their books, a fact backed up by Top-Consultant's monthly newsletter.. Sorry to hear that you had a bad experience with them, hopefully it was something of an isolated case in more difficult times. Steve
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Steve, I was wondering if you could tell me more about the final round assessment at CG. What does it actually entail etc. Congrats on job offer
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Steve- you've made the right choice! there's plenty of time to wory about work,appraisals and the like, but having the chance to travel doesn't come around too often.
CDC's also an excellent community - whenever you join. there's loads of work around at the moment and they're one of the most utilised groups of the year. look forward to meeting you next year,
ex-CDCer
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The next stage is a mini assessment day (much shorter than those at Deloitte, IBM etc: 4 hours vs 7) with 3 other people. Here you go through a group exercise, case study and one-on-one interview with a senior person at the firm and then you get the chance to meet others in the CDC.
The partner interview is lengthy - mine was about an hour and a half. The first half of this is about a case study which you receive prior to the day, and then the second half is about you, what motivates you, why consulting, why Cap in particular etc etc. There were a number of completely random questions that you can't prepare for, that show how you react to new and ambiguous situations. Good luck whenever yours might be.. Steve
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