Online tests and motivational questions successfully completed in September, got a phone call 3 days after completing them (others waited months to hear back: must've done well in those tests!), then attended an assessment centre. Now considering that most of the other applicants were blissfully unaware of the fact Rolls-Royce and the Rolls-Royce cars were two separate entities, you'd think I would've had a decent chance.
Spent the night in a hotel provided by them and didn't get any sleep after hearing somebody walking the up and down the halls on the phone all night long! In the morning the taxi that was meant to take me to the interview didn't show up! Having found another applicant who was also waiting for the taxi, we somehow made it to the assessment centre on time (some very nice Rolly-Royce employees offered us a lift when we mistook them for our taxi). There we met the other applicants, were introduced to the interviewers and were split into two groups.
For me, the moment the taxi didn't show up is where it all went down hill. I got put into the group that repeated the numerical reasoning test on paper which was a LOT harder than the online one. Then interviewed with competency questions based around my CV/asked to give a presentation on myself. Only one interviewer was present, but they said there could've been more. Then the group assessment: half asleep me wasn't very motivated and was a bit too quiet, and the others seemed to be a overly enthusiastic (which is probably what they were looking for) - we had to build a free-standing structure that could hold a half litre bottle of water using paper, plastic cups, selotape and a few other materials given a budget and time limit. We had about 8 people sitting in front of us and observing. Obviously, this wasn't structure wasn't something that would work and we were asked about how we found the task at the end.
After lunch, we then had our second round of interviews. This was more technical-based and the interviewer had my CV in front of him the whole time. I applied to the program on the basis that A-level Mathematics students were welcome and it wouldn't be all that technical (as in they would teach you about this). How wrong was I. The interviewer was nice at first, and asked about how my stay at the hotel was and I explained what had happened. He seemed sympathetic, and also mentioned people tend to do 10% worse on the psychometric tests in the assessment centres compared to online. I was asked about the supply chain process and what you would find inside the factory (my lack of very specific voabulary to describe this didn't seem to go down too well, as the interviewer kept saying "Oh you mean the ____"). He then decided to ask me a lot more company-specific (VERY specific) questions - unfortunately not the sort about the sectors they operate in.cs.
I asked the others what sort of questions they got, and it seems the interviewers were a lot nicer with them. Finally, we got a tour of the Rolls Royce Museum. All in all, this being my first assessment centre ever and as a sixth former, it was tough and very rigorous (understandably so as they're promising to put you through Uni and essentially set you up for the next 5 years).
The snide remark of "oh, we're paying for the hotel too?" from the interviewers did say a lot. I didn't feel all that welcome, and I recognise I may not have been best suited for the position, but some of the interview questions I got asked were really unfair. Other candidates weren't asked these questions, nor did they know the answers when I asked them about it. I was offered feedback having been rejected 2 days later, but it was honestly such a horrible process/embarrassing interview, I really didn't want to know.
Hopefully this will help somebody prepare as when I applied, there were absolutely no reviews and I had no idea what to expect! Their website seems to indicate the process is the same as when I went through it, and I admit HR were really friendly and very efficient. So if you're doing your A-Levels, know you definitely want to do this and are very well-informed about Rolls-Royce and the manufacturing processes, this is where you should apply! I did feel like maybe they were expecting a bit too much from just-turned-17 year olds though.....
