FDM Group Interview Questions & Answers

The phone interview took 15 minutes asking questions such as why you want to work in the IT industry; what attracts you to FDM group; and general questions to gain a quick insight into basic competencies to assess your suitability for FDM.

If you were successful you would be invited to an assessment centre which included 3 separate tests and 2 interviews. The interviews revolved around 3 specific themes: FDM and the IT industry; your degree and career history; professional and personal motivations

The 1st interview was with the account manager of Hong Kong (Held over Skype), which was used to assess my knowledge in general topics within project management as well as my competencies.

Whilst the 2nd interview was with face-to face with a UK manager. This was a very relaxed conversational approach towards the interview that felt like they genuinely wanted to get to know me on a more personal level with regards to the themes describled above

What are the most important issues the IT industry is currently facing?
What is the reason for the current oil prices for hitting its current all time low (This question was a real curveball)

To prepare for the tests, you can use google to help to find suitable resources to ensure you are well prepared.
As for the interviews, I would recommend researching their company as best as possible using a SWOT analysis to gain a general background of the company as well as opportunities and threats that can affect the IT industry.
Read up on top news stories within current affairs as a few curveballs could be thrown into the mix.
And most importantly BE POSITIVE!!

Within the assessment centre we were asked to perform 3 tests:
Numerical (30 minutes) - which included basic arithmetic maths
Basic IT aptitude test (60 minutes) - this included situational questions, logical and verbal reasoning, as well as some basic programming questions
Venn diagram test (60 minutes)
For the most part these tests aren't too difficult as long as you spend a minimum of 2-3 days preparing for them to familiarise yourself with the terminology as well as how the questions are asked, though its important to note they are a tad tricky.

The interviews were conducted between three members of staff, each of which asked four scripted questions. The interviewers were thus not expanding on their questions that is up to you to do. Each of the three has a specific topic, your university degree, why you want to work for FDM and in the I.T sector, and personal questions about you as an applicant.

Typically, the questions were easy to answer and designed to show your personality. The hardest of which was the question "would you miss a a deadline if sticking to it meant compromising on quality" obviously there is no perfect answer to such questions.

Each interview lasted between 5-6 minutes depending on how long you as an applicant talked for and expanded on your answers (some people had as little as 2-3 minutes).

Would you be willing to miss a deadline if meeting the deadline meant compromising on the quality of the finished project?

And:

What would you do if we locked you out of the office for 2 hours and were not allowed to work?

Ensure you revise your maths skills a lot before hand. While the maths is not hard if you have not done any mental arithmetic for some time you will not score well. The venn diagram and set notation test can be learned in an afternoon and once you know it it is very easy. The interviews are difficult to prepare for so go in with some preparation but be willing to think on your feet.

There were three exams, maths (30 mins), aptitude test (1hr) and set notation and venn diagram (1hr). The hardest of which is personal to you, I found the maths test the hardest having never particularly been very good at it but the second two relatively easy.

I applied in January and my application was deferred to March. First of all, I had my phone interview which was based on my knowledge of FDM and the IT industry, my academic history and some personal competency-based questions. Having done a bit of research on the company, it was fairly easy to pass that stage of the interview. It lasted about 15 minutes.
I was fortunate enough to get an invite to the assessment centre in the Manchester academy on 31st March. There was a group of about 8 people attending, I was the only girl, although in the IT industry a minority of girls is common! The day started off with presentation of the company and the graduate scheme, each candidate had to give a short introduction about themselves, and the route they were interested in applying to, i.e. Technical or Business. I recommend researching your preferred route in advance to the interview! The unpaid training process of 2-3 months was also explained. We then had three separate 5 minute 1:1 interviews based on the same general areas as the phone interview. In preparation, I had a look at YouTube on how to answer interview questions, which might sound a bit daft but it really benefited me as someone who has not experience in professional interviews. I also developed a SWOT analysis of FDM for an insightful overview ot the company.
We then had three tests: 1) IT and Aptitude (1 hour), 2) Maths - Mental arithmetic to GCSE standard (1/2 hour), and 3) Venn Diagrams (1 hour). My advice on these is to put a good amount of revision in using the information they send by email. As someone who doesn't come from a strong IT background, I definitely recommend doing a bit of additional research on the basics, such as common IT abbreviations, e.g. http. The Maths tests was pretty straight forward, know your basic long division and multiplication, fractions, ratios, Pythagoras, etc. I've never come across Venn diagrams until this interview either, and yet again, they're not complex providing you do a bit of a brush-up on them, although they do provide a booklet on them to support you through the test. Whilst these tests do sound daunting, I was advised that only a 50% pass mark is required.
The assessment centre started at 9am and finished early at 2:30pm. We were told that we would hear if we were successful or not by email within 48 hours. I heard back the next morning on 1st April with good news. I'm now awaiting a phone call to arrange a start date.

What do you think of organisational change? What is the best way to learn?

Perhaps I'm stating the obvious, but prepare!!! Know the company, and know what you want from the company. In your responses to the interviews use your experiences and give suitable personal examples!

Introduce yourself in morning presentation.
IT and Aptitude test
Mental Maths test
Venn Diagram test

I was one of the first candidates to experience the new interview process.

I originally applied in January, but my application was deferred until May because I don't finish my course until September. However, they have start dates throughout the year and they suit it to what is best for you.

I applied through graduate-jobs.com and then a recuiter rung me shortly after. I had my telephone interview in May, which was more of an informal chat explaining what I did my degree in and what work experience I had. Then I was invited to video interview.

The video interview is a new process they've introduced and it's quite strange. I had never done a video interview before, so I found it quite daunting, especially because there is no one else at the other end of the video. You have 45 seconds thinking time, then the video will automatically start recording and you have 60 seconds to answer the question. There are only 6 questions and it's all over quite quickly.

I was then invited to the assessment centre in London. There was a tour, brief introductions, then a presentation about FDM. After that we had a Venn Diagram/Set Notation test (1 hour) and an IT aptitude test (1 hour). We had a break for lunch, then came back to do the maths test (1/2 hour) and then had the three 5 min interviews. They ask you 4 questions in each interview, such as "Why do you want to work for FDM?", "Why did you choose your degree?", "What is the best way to learn?" and "What are the most important issues the IT industry is currently facing?"

They will get back to you via email within 48 hours. I found out I was successful the next morning :)

What are your thoughts on organisational change?
Would you sacrifice quality to meet a deadline?

Make sure you prepare, learn statistics about the company and learn about their core values, their clients and their culture.

They're all really friendly, so it's not daunting.

The three 5 minute interviews went so quickly. But make sure you give examples and expand on your answers because they don't prompt you to. So don't just give yes and no answers!

Venn diagram and Set Notation Test for 1 hour - they give you a booklet to help. They basically want to see that you can follow instructions and to see if you looked at the YouTube video links they give you in the Assessment Centre Guide.

IT Aptitude Test for 1 hour - this was not as bad as I was expecting. There were some IT questions that I had to guess, but as it's positively marked, you can't lose marks for answering a question incorrectly, so it wasn't too bad. It's a combination of logical reasoning, IT and business questions. There was a weird one where you had to guess what the word "sleepily" meant in a language they made up. But other than that, they were relatively straight forward.

Maths Test for 1/2 hour - I was most nervous about this because if you fail this test you have to retake the whole assessment centre. However, they give you links to BBC Bitesize to help. You need to know Pythagoras' Theorem, long division, long multiplication, simultaneous equations, square roots, cube roots and basic arithmetic. But it's honestly a lot easier than I expected and it's only GCSE level.

Very easy, very standard phone interview. Basic questions, why FDM and why PMO. Followed with a few competency based questions. Lasted 10-15mins

Followed on with a numerical reasoning test which was fairly straightforward.

After completing this i was sent a programmer proficiency test. This was not assessed as i was not applying for a programming role but was supposed to be to give a base set of data for future results.

None. All as expected

Brush up on your simple mental maths and working out sums on paper. Also study venn diagrams and the different way these can be used.

For the programmer questions read the instructions and just try to follow these as accurately as possible. I have never done programming but must have done well enough!

As previously said, be as clear and concise as possible in the interviews and make sure that you answer the questions before the time runs out.

Finally, when shown the contract try to have a good read of it. They do explain it to you but it is still best to have a good read through yourself so that you understand all that it involves.

There were maybe 9-10 of us all applying for different roles and the day started off with a video introducing the company.

Following this there was a HR talk about the company and the contract. This is important as in this role and most with FDM, you have to commit to 10-12weeks of unpaid training in one of their offices. Following on from this you must work for FDM for 2 years otherwise you have to pay them back for the training which equates to about £20k. They lay this out pretty clearly and it is a win win situation as you get training and two years experience in a good role and they get cheap employees for two years.

After the HR talk there were quite a few tests. These consisted of simple numerical reasoning tests but also programmer aptitude tests and a test on venn diagrams. Each one lasted approximately 1 hour and were fairly challenging as you couldn't use a calculator.

We then had a break for lunch after which we had interviews. These interviews were split up into 3 separate 5 minute interviews with different interviewers. Each interview focused on a different set of competencies and probed deeply into your examples. In each interview you were asked 4 questions in the 5 minutes so you had to be clear and concise with your answers. If you do not get finished in the time limit they will stop you and move you on to the next interview.

There were three five minute interviews that consisted of 4 questions each. Interviewers were all friendly but did not prompt you for anything on your answers to the questions.
1 interview was about my interest in the company/IT
1 was about my degree
1 was about my and my qualities e.g. is change always a good thing?

Would I sacrifice the quality of my work in order to meet a deadline

Be confident and friendly. They were all friendly so it's good to be relaxed with that to show your true personality. One guy pointed out a mistake on the presentation given by the centre manager...don't do that as she wasn't impressed.
Take lunch or take money to buy lunch from the station.

There were 13 of us but we weren't competing for a set number of places. 3 interviews, a 1 hour aptitude test, 30 min maths tests and 1 hour Venn diagram test, you were given a booklet on how to answer in the format of these. Lunch was not provided but got an hour to go out and buy something.

The initial telephone interview was only about 20 minutes and was with the graduate recruitment team. It was a general and casual conversation asking questions like "tell me about yourself" and talking through experiences on my CV and also because it was a graduate position there were mostly questions on my degree and also my motivations of choosing my degree and if I would have chosen something different. It wasn't difficult as I had a relevant degree and modules it was natural to describe why I wanted to join the graduate programme.

In terms of difficult questions there wasn't anything that stood out to me as particularly challenging as the whole conversation was focused on my motivation for the role and how my degree choice reflected this. I found that the most difficult questions for graduate interviews are not competency questions, but those asking what influenced your choice in applying for that position or the industry and how this can be demonstrated in your CV. This can either be through degree subject or past work experiences and Internships.

For the general interview it's always a good idea to know your motivations for applying for the job and what you have in your CV that supports this. Not only does it answer the direct question of "Why did you choose your degree" but also reflects in the other answers candidates may give. For graduates, our biggest asset on our CV is our degree and we should be enthusiastic about where this leads us.

The assessment centre came after the successful phone interview and it took place at their London offices. It was a group of about 14 candidates (only about 3 girls). It was initially a group exercise which was to prepare for a presentation. We were in a group of 4 and were given the days copy of City AM and the task was to pick and interesting article and present it back to the team as a discussion. What I found interesting about this was that the task highlighted the different backgrounds which our team members came from. We had someone with an International Management, Computer Science, Psychology and Mathematics. This influenced which article we chose to present. The International Manager headed towards financial and economical news - which was surely a topic the other teams would go for. This was a problem because the rest of us had problems understanding the language in the article and seemed difficult to present on a topic 3/4 of the team had no knowledge about. In the end, we settled on the article which was discussing the issue around shops opening on Sunday during the Olympic Games. Instead of just reciting the article our group split up to argue the case for and against opening on Sundays.

My initial telephone interview was with a member of their graduate recruitment team which lasted 10 mins. We had an inital chat about my CV and why I applied for the company and the interviewer questioned whether I would like to work in the Asia Pacific area.
After a few hours, I was told I passed the phone interview and was put to the next stage which was the assessment center.

On the day of the assessment center, there were eight of us and we were all waiting in the same area and room. During the time, we were either waiting or having our interviews. Interview consisted of one sype interview with an account in hong kong and the other interview was a face to face interviewer from the UK. The UK interviewer was asking basis questions in regards to your CV whilst the other skyoe interview was based on the job and why I wanted a position there and which role I thought was suitable for myself.

After the two interviews we had our numerical test. This was basis maths such as subtraction and multiplication and factors. (nothing to complicated) After this test we had the HR talk in regards to our contract and what they expected from us an what are the consequences.

We had lunch after that and straight after lunch we had two 1hour exam. One was based on questions about IT and the other was based on Venn diagram.

Finally we had a tour around the office.

I got my reply the next day that I was successful.

Describe was your weakness is and how you overcome it?

stay professional, no slang words invoid. Talk to other candiates. Talk as much as you can and sell yourself. Smile to anyone that passes you. If in doubt ask as many questions you want. Be prepared to sit all day.

individual assessment based on maths, IT and venn diagrams

Applied online and received a callback almost immediately.

Organised a 10 minute phone interview which consisted of very typical questions about why I wanted to work for FDM and what my degree was etc. Received an invitation to an assessment centre a few days after this.

The assessment centre started at 8:45am and finished at around 3pm. It consisted of a logical test, a maths test, a venn diagram test and a set of three 5-minute interviews

Would you compromise the quality of your work in order to meet a deadline?

What does success look like?

Read up on the company beforehand and prepare yourself for a lot of time 'learning without earning'. The 'deal' here is that you receive up to 16 weeks of unpaid (!) training, after which you will be placed with one of FDM's affiliated companies. On the day you start your placement, you enter a two year contract with FDM, during which time you may potentially be relocated anywhere within the UK. You are given a £500 bonus upon the acceptance of your first placement but as far as I can gather you receive no further financial help if you need to relocate again. Cancelling the contract can also incur a fine of up to £20,000 which they claim is the cost of the training. They aren't trying to catch anyone out and are very upfront about these terms, but it still seems like a bit of a rum deal.

Practice your mental maths, make sure you know basic computer-related acronyms (HTTP, HTML, SQL etc).

The three interviews are only five minutes long but consist of scripted questions. This means the interviewers will not ask you for further information about anything you mention, so make sure you embellish! They also won't have read your CV (for fairness, apparently) so make sure to point out anything that was on there that is relevant to the questions.

The assessment centre began with an introduction to the company, followed by a logic test lasting around an hour. The test was for both technical and business streams and so there was a range of questions. Some were flow-chart/pseudocode based, some were definitions, one was an anagram!

The test was followed by the interview stage. There were three separate rooms with three separate interviews, each focused on a different aspect of the job. One was about your education and degree, one was more about FDM and why you wanted to work for them and one was more situation-based, posing hypothetical workplace issues and asking how you'd deal with them. This was followed by a lunch break

After the lunch break, there were two more tests. One was a set notation and venn diagram test and mostly involved shading in the correct region of venn diagrams. There was an instruction booklet that came with this, if needed. There was also a maths test based at GCSE level to be done without a calculator, involving questions on Pythagoras' theorem and simultaneous equations etc.

After an initial application, there is a short 15 minute telephone interview clarifying details and assessing interest in the company/ sector/ role. My assessment day was two days later and comprised of two five-minute interviews, a numerical test, a test on set notation, and an aptitude test. The two interviews were standard and friendly, and were focussed mainly on personality and approach.

Would you sacrifice quality to meet a deadline?

Do plenty of prep before hand, the questions aren't hard but it's definitely worth a look over! It is also important to be open, friendly and enthusiastic. The training scheme means you can pick up any technical knowledge you need so their real focus is on hiring those with great inter-personal skills and an ability to learn fast. The technical and business pathways are assessed together but not ranked together meaning there is no need to panic about not knowing all the technology ins and outs.

The numerical test is GCSE maths, the set notation test is given alongside an instruction leaflet and the video provided before the day is very useful. The aptitude test has some basic coding questions, some logic puzzles, and a number of IT questions (inc IP4vIP6, SQL, bits in a byte, etc.). A little Google research was enough to get through this!