The interview was assessment centre style, through UKESF for a year placement at the office in Solihull. There were about 10 people in the assessment group.
Starting the day with introductions, classic icebreaker of: name, what you study, fun fact, that type of stuff. Then they talked a bit about the company and the opportunities, some facts about the company.
Next we were given lunch, where we sat with existing employees. A lot of these people were there to interview us later in the day, so it didn't really feel like it was a break, more of like another way for them to observe us.
After lunch we had the group activity. The activity was "The Hat Game" we were split into 3 groups and given an hour to design a hat that was made of A4 paper, Sellotape and Paperclips. The hat had to fit a certain specification, two key ones being that it must stay on the head in a strong breeze for 30 seconds, and it must be made at a profit.
The design had to come with detailed written instructions and a cost breakdown. With a budget of £400, the price of the materials were: paper = free, paperclips = £1 each, Sellotape = £30 per inch, and most importantly, time = £1 per second of manufacturing. So if you specified that the hat was to be made in 5 minutes, that would cost £300 out of the £400 you have.
During designing, each group was placed in separate rooms with some observers there to watch and make notes. After the hour, all of the groups congregated and weren't really allowed to talk about it. Then, group 1 was called up, given group 2s instructions and dedicated resources, and had to make group 1s hat from their instructions, within the time given. After that time, the hats were "tested" with an office fan, and compared to the actual hat from group 1. This was repeated for every groups hats.
After the group activity, we split into two, half went on a site tour led by the interns that currently worked there, and the other half had interviews. As the interviews were conducted by different people, each interview was quite different with different focusses. Some people had the classic "strengths and weaknesses" type interview, others had a lot of technical questions with some programming questions, classic circuits, microprocessor knowledge and questions on project and group work. I believe everyone was asked about a project they did and a time they did some form of leadership.
After both groups were done with interviews we had a time to ask questions and then we left.
