School leaver application process

What do we look for?

We’re looking for outstanding candidates – the kind of people who’ll help us to keep delivering the expertise and excellent service we’re known for around the world.

If you’re confident and reliable, and you have the drive and resilience to handle the pressures that come from working and learning at the same time, you could be perfect for a school-leaver programme at CGI.

As users of the disability confident scheme, we guarantee to interview all disabled applicants who meet the minimum criteria for the vacancy/ies.

The requirements for our apprenticeship and degree apprenticeship programmes can be found below. Please do take a look before you apply.

Online application form

Assessment centre

Induction

Apprenticeships

To have or be predicted to achieve at least 64 UCAS points across two A-Levels (or equivalent qualification) at grade C or above (excluding General Studies) including a computing/IT/STEM subject gained in the same academic year or a completed Advanced IT Apprenticeship. Also a minimum of five GCSEs grade 4-9 (A*-C) or equivalent qualification, including English and Maths.

Degree apprenticeships

To have or be predicated to achieve at least 120 UCAS points across three A-Levels (or equivalent qualification) at grade C or above (excluding General Studies) gained in the same academic year (or equivalent) or a completed Advanced IT Apprenticeship. Also a minimum of five GCSEs grade 4-9 (A*-C) or equivalent qualification, including English and Maths.

Application hints & tips

We assess each candidate consistently against our requirements, your strengths and motivations and our core competencies, listed below. The better you can communicate your strengths, passion, motivation, skills, knowledge and experiences during our assessment process, the greater your chances of going through to the next stages.

Communication skills

You can show us these in your writing, at interview and in the group exercise during the assessment centre. 

Collaborative working

Think of examples of when you’ve worked well in a team, perhaps at university, at school or socially, or how you’ve motivated and inspired others. 

Applied intellect

You might have demonstrated your ability to analyse and solve problems through your studies or your knowledge of technology. 

Resilience and commitment

We’re looking for times when you’ve shown drive and determination, perhaps when you had to deliver something to a tight deadline, set tough goals for yourself or dealt with adversity. 

Commercial acumen

You might have developed this by working in a business environment, perhaps during a placement year, vacation experience, summer job or voluntary work, or by working in a family business. 

Knowledge of CGI

Demonstrate your knowledge of what we do and the competitive environment we operate in. 

Application form

Our application form is relatively short, as we prefer to get to know you personally. It checks you meet our minimum requirements, captures personal details so we can contact you, and gives you the opportunity to showcase your key skills, abilities and capabilities. A member of our Student Recruitment team here in the UK screens the application form against our business requirements and the competencies listed above.

Our top hints & tips are;

Be honest – we’ll verify all results and statements of achievement during the process Be inclusive – we’re interested in all your skills and experiences so don’t just write down the ones you think we’re interested in; we want to know everything about you Be passionate – we want people who want to work for us, so use the application form to show why you’ve chosen CGI over one of our competitors Be thorough – please check for mistakes in spelling and grammar before you submit your application. This may be pointing out the obvious but every year we receive a significant number of application forms littered with spelling mistakes and grammatical errors. Although the online application doesn’t have a spell-check facility, you can type the details in a Microsoft Word document or similar and use the checking facilities available. Remember sometimes even these will not pick up words spelt correctly but used wrongly so do please read your form through first. If you’ve spent some time working on the form have a break before proofreading, or perhaps ask a friend to read it so you get a fresh view.

Assessment centre

Written exercise

You’ll complete this exercise at the Assessment Centre. It’s a timed, hand-written assessment designed to assess your written communication skills. You have 30 minutes to complete the exercise by answering one question using a report format and a structured argument.

There are no right or wrong answers; we are looking at the way you present your work and the argument.

Remember to plan your exercise so that you finish the test within 30 minutes and to check spelling and grammar.

Interview

The interview is a two-way process. While we want to get to know you, it’s also your opportunity to get to know us better too. Interviews work best when candidate and interviewer are equally enthusiastic about the role. We’re very enthusiastic about recruiting; new innovative minds are central to the future success of our business. So show us why you’re enthusiastic about working for us and being the brains behind the next big thing.

The interview, which is part competency, part strengths, is conducted by a senior member of staff with a vested interest in student recruitment. They may be Business Unit leaders or Project Managers who employ many students in their teams. Some may have come through the same recruitment process as you, and others will have experienced very similar processes. So you can guarantee at some point they were in your shoes and know exactly how you feel.

It’s entirely normal to be nervous before an interview, but you can learn to control these nerves by practising for interviews and making sure you can answer the following questions articulately:

Why have you chosen to apply to CGI? What is it about a career in IT that interests you? How will you manage your work and studying at the same time?

Along with other candidates, you'll be asked to read some information and work as a group to come up with a solution to a problem. There's no right or wrong answer - it's more about seeing how you work in a team. You don’t need to come prepared with any specific knowledge before hand.

You may have a couple of group exercises during the day varying in activity.

You may also have a peer interview from someone on our School Leaver Programmes. This will be to explore your motivations and capability and for you to have to time to understand what they do.

Although our Assessment Centres are designed for us to assess whether you are a right fit for CGI, we encourage you to use the day to see whether CGI is a right fit for you. Please ask questions and engage on the day.

Group exercises

Our business values collaboration and cooperation. They help us deliver the most competitive and innovative ideas to our clients. At the Assessment Centre, two to three interviewers will observe and assess these skills against our competency matrix.

Documents to bring to assessment centre

This page contains information about items you must bring along with you on the day of your interview.

Identification

Sections 15-25 Immigration, Asylum and Nationality Act 2006 require all employers in the United Kingdom to make basic document checks on every person they intend to employ. We will therefore carry out this check as part of the interview process. Please bring documents from one of the three lists below to the interview with you:

List 1
UK passport; or 
European Economic Area or Swiss passport or national identity card; or 
residence permit, residence card, Biometric Immigration Document, passport or other travel document that has been endorsed to show that the holder can stay indefinitely in the UK and is not restricted from taking up employment.

List 2
Document showing your National Insurance Number plus: 
full birth or adoption certificate (showing at least one parent's name); or 
certificate of registration or naturalisation as a British citizen; or 
Immigration Status Document or letter issued by Home Office or Border Immigration Agency indicating you are allowed to stay indefinitely in the United Kingdom.

List 3
Passport, travel document or Biometric Immigration Document indicating right to stay in the UK and do the type of work in question; or
work permit or other approval to take employment plus passport or travel document endorsed to show the holder is allowed to stay in the UK and take the work permit employment in question; or
certificate of application issued by Home Office or Border and Immigration Agency stating the holder is permitted to take employment (must be less than 6 months old) plus evidence of verification by Border and Immigration Agency Employer Checking Service; or 
residence card or document issued by Home Office or Border and Immigration Agency to a family member of an EEA or Swiss national; or
Application Registration Card issued by Home Office or Border and Immigration Agency stating that the holder is permitted to take employment plus evidence of verification by Border and Immigration Agency Employer Checking Service; or 
Immigration Status Document or letter issued by Home Office or Border and Immigration Agency stating that the holder can stay in the UK and do the type of work in question plus an official document confirming your National Insurance Number.

If you are a Polish, Lithuanian, Estonian, Latvian, Slovakian, Slovenian, Hungarian or Czech national and have been working in the United Kingdom during the last 12 months please also bring a copy of your current workers registration document.

If you are a Bulgarian or Romanian citizen please bring a valid accession worker authorisation document.

Educational attainment certificates

Please bring all certificates from completed qualifications.

Please Note: If you are unsuccessful at Assessment Centre, the scanned copies of your documents will be destroyed

CGI school leaver brochure

From the moment you join CGI as a school leaver, you’ll be playing a vital role in the services we deliver to our clients.                                                                                                                                                               

 

Download the brochure