6 reasons you could have been rejected

You’ve just spent hours upon hours applying for graduate jobs around the country and have lost count of how many times you have resaved your CV and cover letter. If that rejection email comes through, it leaves you feeling disappointed but mostly disheartened. Don’t wrack your brain for hours on end causing endless worry and…
My Placement Diary – Miranda Williams

Miranda is a BA Business and Management Undergraduate at the University of Reading. She recently started a Step sandwich placement with Coppenrath & Weise, Europe’s largest producer of frozen desserts. We know interns can have a range of feelings at the very start of their placement as they are often entering the world of work…
Drawing out & developing skills – Chloe Agron
Our guest blog is written by Chloe Agron, an Interior Architecture graduate from the University of Westminster, who took on an internship that has recently turned into a Design Technician permanent role at Benchworks; a specialist interior contractor based in Kent. My internship was a constructive and valuable experience as I learnt so much. Within my first…
From placement to permanent – the Cherry on top
Our guest blog was written by Cherry Mallam, an Information and Communication Technology student from Southampton Solent University. She was placed as a support desk administrator at a software company for her year in industry placement and is now in a permanent position until she goes back to university. My role is support desk administrator at a software company. The company customises…
Graduates, innovation and growth
One of the main issues raised by clients when discussing their future talent needs with us is the increasing challenge of finding suitably experienced hires. As a result, more and more are looking at new graduates as a part of a longer term strategy to support their business growth plans and related skills needs.…
The keys to graduate success…
‘My degree is next to worthless’… Well at Step we tend not to agree. This BBC article reports on the fact that it is not always possible to find a job directly related to your course of study, resulting in a feeling by some forlorn graduates of it all having been a waste of time.…
A positive environment – Charlotte Hewitt
Our guest blog is written by Charlotte Hewitt, an Environmental Monitoring, Modelling and Management Masters graduate from King’s College London. She took an internship with Avondale, who provide vegetation management solutions for high risk industries, and has recently secured a permanent role. I started on my internship as a trainee ecologist with Avondale Environmental Services a month after initially…
Honesty is the best policy!
I’ve lost count of the amount of times I ask why someone is interested in a role, and they respond “I have always wanted to work in that” This really gets my goat! Why? Let’s take a recent example of this where someone had a first degree in a completely unrelated subject to their masters…
Planning for the difficult questions – making use of your experience

Interviews are an art form in themselves and as we enter the time of year when graduates are entering the job market, it’s important to maximise every opportunity you have. Here are some tips on competency based interviews based on feedback from our own experiences as account managers here at Step. Many competency based questions…
10 Steps towards stress-free (ish) exams
I know personally that exams can be a really hard and stressful time of the year at university, but if you think about what you’re doing, prepare and look after yourself during this time, you’ll feel a lot better about it. These are just a few tips that I picked up over my three years…