How we group-interviewed for a multidisciplinary training program

We’ve recently launched our brand new Client Liaison program! Our assessment days were last week and we’d like to document how we chose to run them and how they went.

What is our program?

The Client Liaison program was specifically designed for people looking to develop new skills or try a new role they’ve never tried before. It’s centred primarily around our Operations department, including Project Owners, Account Managers and Project Facilitators, but we’re eager and open to using it for other roles too! We have different programs and opportunities for those.

The training is different depending on your background, but it takes a minimum of two years and a maximum of four years, if it’s done as an apprenticeship. Once accepted onto the program, trainees spend time in a variety of departments, making them an absolute expert on our company. People who engage fully and enthusiastically will finish with all the skills they need to flourish in their chosen role.

How to apply for the program

All we need is for you to fill out a super brief pre-interview questionnaire and attach your CV. We use this to find applicants who show a great desire and capacity to learn, as well as ones who possess particularly advantageous past experience or education.

Our program has just completed its first intake and is currently closed, but keep an eye on the website for it opening back up again.

The first assessment day

Kick-off

We started with some icebreakers to warm up our applicants and try to stop the day from feeling too formal and stuffy. We wanted to see the best of our applicants in the most natural way; and to do that, we wanted to make them as comfortable as possible. Formal interviews don’t tend to put people at ease! We chose a simple game that’s good for a laugh for this.

After that, we gave the applicants an introduction to Codeweavers, including our background and all of the roles available through the Client Liaison Program. We also explained the Apprenticeship version of the course. All in all, this took around an hour. Just one hour for the ice to be broken and for all the applicants to understand who we are and what we do. Easy!

Teamwork exercise

We won’t spoil the fun, but after a quick break we did a couple of exercises followed by an awesome teamwork activity that really gets the mind going. This portion of the day was designed to look at creative problem-solving skills, and see how everyone worked together. It’s really fun and our applicants really enjoyed it!

Logic diagram

After lunch, the next activity was logic-focused, putting the applicants on a real-world scenario that often occurs involving our business. This included presenting what they came up with to the rest of the group. Sounds scary, but it was really valuable!

One to one interviews

Our one-to-one interviews tried to maintain the fun, casual feel of the whole day. It’s important to us to get our company culture and ethos across, because as much as we’re interviewing candidates for our program, candidates were interviewing us in a way as well. They wanted to know how awesome a place Codeweavers is to work, and we were happy to demonstrate.

During the interview we chatted to them about what sort of area they’d eventually be interested in specialising in, went over their answers to the previous activities during the day, and answered any questions that might have cropped up for them. We made sure to get feedback from them about how the day went so we could make any improvements on the day in the future.

How it all went

We were over the moon with how our assessment days went and our range of candidates were very strong. We met and got to know some really great people, resulting in five hires that we can’t wait to set up for their first days. Our feedback from applicants was strong and positive, allowing us to make our next applicant days even better.

One thing everyone agreed, though: interviews aren’t good interviews without laughter and lots and lots of pizza.

Codeweavers

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