National Grid and Transitions recruitment pilot programme

Graduate recruitment pilot programme:  National Grid and Transitions

For further information contact Sharon.Goymer@nationalgrid.com, Graduate Resourcing Manager, National Grid and Sheila.heard@transitions-london.co.uk, Managing Director, Transitions.  

What are we trying to achieve? A fair, competency based, competitive pathway for national grid to recruit strong graduate candidates with a refugee background for graduate jobs as part of the rigorous national recruitment process. It's not about giving refugees an advantage over other applicants. It's about looking at how the competency based selection system can work better to find good candidates from this group of applicants, who have been given safety in the UK. 7 out of 10 refugees remain out of work, when many of them have high level skills and experiences. 

This is a loss to the UK jobs market. 

Successes National Grid have recently recruited an Eritrean Engineer for the Graduate Programme and have assessed three experienced Iraqi applicants with career gaps due to war, for the Engineering Training Programme and are setting up 3 electrical engineering paid internships in January 2013 to assist them with preparation for the graduate training assessment centre.   

What problems are we trying to address? 

Miscommunications at an early stage of application.  

• o Refugees do not require a visa and can work. This was initially a miscommunication.

• o An application from a refugee professional is rarely a 'neat fit' 'mainstream ' application with a continuous professional development flow of education and experience commensurate with their life stage. Instead it is often punctuated by change and gaps, especially their UK profile. 

• o Most refugee professionals are not aware of how a UK competency based selection system works and often understate their skills, miscommunicate and fail in written applications and telephone and spoken interviews

• o Staff may misinterpret cross-cultural miscommunications as competency issues.

• o Transferability of overseas Qualifications and experience: the UK system is quite unregulated which can both assist and inhibit decision making about experienced professionals from overseas with limited UK experience. 

• o Most refugee professional applicants are not selected for jobs in the UK, in spite of being skilled and experienced. There is a need for a bridge to allow the competitive process to work for this group. 

    

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What are we working on? 

• ¬ Internships: Refugee professionals almost universally require a 3-6 month orientation internship in order to be able to present themselves competitively  

• ¬ Careers Advice and Portfolio building: enabling candidates to present their profile more effectively in applications and interviews

• ¬ Assessment Centre preparation: Practice sessions to prepare candidates to be able to compete effectively with other candidates.