pleasant staff who put you at ease. Two interviews, one competency and one technical. Competency is fine as long as you think through the answers, technological is a bit harder. They ask things like, what do you know about citi? why do you want to work in tech? what is your favourite piece of tech? This is followed by a group activity which isnt too bad if you think quickly and try to keep the format of conversation well organised

The position was for new graduates especially, or for career changers who wanted to learn the ways of this company and their programming tools, to prepare them for a career at Citi or for any future software development or application support role. The job was advertised on NIJobs.com, requiring a CV and cover note. They called me one week after applying to ask a few questions about my CV, then called me a few days later to invite me to an assessment centre which was scheduled for a week later. This lasted nearly 5 hours. There was a technical test (numerical/logical reasoning questions, not specific to any job, just fun) where each of the thirty questions had a time limit of three minutes. Then there were two interviews, one technical and one about competencies. Technical interview was about technology, my educational background, the company, the job and general questions about me. The competency interview was where they asked all the "What would you do if... ?" and "Tell me about a time when... ?" type of questions. They seemed to really be looking specifically for answers in the "STAR" format, which is written about on t'internet. Finally a group exercise, where the other interviewees and I had to discuss hypothetical solutions to a fictional business problem for about 45 minutes, while some people listened and wrote things down. On my day there were between 5 and 10 candidates present. From what I can remember, they were looking to hire a total of about 20 new people, from an unspecified number of candidates. Every employee I spoke to was very nice and the interviews were comfortable. The premises were nice too, with a front door, a ceiling and several light bulbs. Every man was wearing a suit which is the norm for an assessment centre like this, it seems. They called a few days later to offer me the job and to say a few things about how the academy would be structured and what the salary would be. They did not require me to accept/decline right away as some companies do, permitting me to leave it for a few days if I wanted to discuss things with other potential employers, but I accepted right away. This was about a week ago. They have yet to ask for references or evidence of qualifications, but that will probably happen in time.