There's never been a more exciting time to start your career with Rolls-Royce. In this episode, you'll hear about their 24-month graduate programme, which offers rotational placements across the engineering lifecycle, with opportunities in mechanical systems, software, manufacturing, materials and more
Participants
- Emily Slade - podcast producer and host, Prospects
- Ellie Long - global head of emerging talent, Rolls-Royce
Transcript
Ellie Long: We've had someone teaching assessor how to do the Rubik's Cube. We've seen Lego models. We've seen, my personal favourite, we've seen people doing a presentation on Taylor Swift. Like you can genuinely make this really personable.
Emily Slade: Hello and welcome back to Future You, the podcast brought to you by graduate careers experts, prospects. I'm your host, Emily Slade. I'm joined today by Ellie Long, Global Head of Emerging Talent at Rolls-Royce. Hello. Hi, thank you for having me. Of course. So when people hear Rolls-Royce, they think cars.
Ellie Long: Yeah. What actually is it? So really simply, we've got 3 core divisions, aerospace, power systems and defence. So not the cars.
Emily Slade: Not the cars.
Ellie Long: Not the cars.
Emily Slade: Perfect. So we're going to talk about the emerging talent that can come in to this company. So we'll start with why should an 18-year-old consider Rolls-Royce if they've never thought engineering was for them?
Ellie Long: So I guess the first myth I would dispel is we're not just an organisation of engineers. So actually, even if you think engineering is not for me, then that's absolutely okay because you've got lots of different roles. But I would say think about the types of organisations that you want to work for linked to your purpose, your values, what interests you and excites you. We spend more time. at work than we do at home, sadly, most weeks. And therefore you've got to be in an organisation or you've got to be working for something that excites you and gets you out of bed in the morning and gives you that sense of purpose. And if you can figure that out, and then you think actually an organisation like Rolls-Royce is going to link to that, our purpose is about powering, protecting and connecting people everywhere. So if you think, oh my gosh, actually what really excites me is solving some of the problems that Rolls-Royce is working on, or what really excites me is the fact that they've got these fantastic STEM engagement enrichment or whatever it is, work that bit out and then you can start to think, actually they're the types of roles or career paths that I might want to take.
Emily Slade: Yeah, amazing. So. You've already mentioned that there's plenty of roles available outside of engineering, so it's not just for people that are brilliant at maths and physics.
Ellie Long: Absolutely, I'm terrible at maths and physics, so yeah, please don't worry about that.
Emily Slade: So can you run through a few more of the roles available? Is there like designer roles, digital roles, marketing roles?
Ellie Long: Yeah, so in its broadest sense, you could probably categorise things into engineering and business type roles, but within engineering there's a number of different options, whether you're joining us through an apprenticeship programme or through a graduate scheme or a career changer programme. We've got, I guess, more engineering roles that are based on the shop floor. So things like welders, machinists, fitters that are really hands-on with the engines and the products. Equally, we've got engineering roles that might be more of a design space, mechanical engineering, nuclear engineering, lots of different, I guess, types of more traditional engineering. type opportunities. And then there's the kind of world of business, which includes things like digital and IT, but also things like commercial, project managers, purchasing, procurement. We need people to work out how we're going to buy the stuff that the engineers are going to need to make things, human resource type roles. So yeah, depending on the level, what it is you want to do, whether you want to go to university, you want to join us straight after school, whether you're a career changer, there's lots of different routes that you can join us and lots of different functions.
Emily Slade: Incredible. So many opportunities. So many opportunities.
Ellie Long: Yeah, and I think. really exciting is the way that the world of work is changing is that we're not kind of bound by traditional functions or jobs that you might have done in the past. So I also encourage people when they're thinking, particularly as they're starting their career, what are the skills that you want to develop and what types of roles might they take you into? Because actually you'll find some of the skills overlap different functions or different career paths. So if you're working commercial and sales, for example, those skills could be really useful in a finance context, but they could be really useful in a strategy context or they could be really useful in that purchasing procurement context. And so actually you can create really interesting career paths. So also think about it in a kind of a skills context too.
Emily Slade: Absolutely. In terms of location, we're currently in Derby. Are there other locations available?
Ellie Long: Yeah, absolutely. We're obviously a global organisation, so we've got roles across the world. But yeah, in the UK, our main sites, Derby, kind of Bristol, Birmingham, but we've got opportunities up in Chinning in Scotland, Thurso, we've got places like Rotherham, we've got a site just on the outskirts of Newcastle. So yeah, lots of different We're.
Emily Slade: Going to head now into questions that have been provided by recent cohorts of the types of things that you're probably going to want the answers to. So what does the typical day look like?
Ellie Long: That is a very hard question to answer because again, you can imagine we've got lots of different roles, programmes. predominantly if you were say an apprentice, your day would either be based somewhere at one of our sites working in your placement or your gig is what we call it. So you'll be doing some of your project work or you might have certain tasks you might be completing. Likewise, you could be doing study because obviously as an apprentice you're gaining some form of qualification. So it could be at one of our training providers or it could be kind of study or training that you do on site. Graduates obviously don't have that that part or interns. So your typical day would be based in your kind of location working on your project activities. But it could include all sorts of different things. I mean, I see them all having breakfast in the morning together or lunch. There's lots of kind of different social activities that happen. They might kind of be doing a lunch and learn session or you might have a networking meeting during the day that we've organised for you to meet people or it could be a day where actually you've blocked it out because you really want to get some of your project work done and you're going to kind of sit quietly. and we're in our million tunnel library at the moment so you could be in here doing some research. It could be all sorts and I think that's what's really exciting is that no one day genuinely feels the same. And on all of our programmes, you rotate round. So even if you're kind of in a role where you think, oh, this one's not what I thought it would be, or I want one that gets me out closer to the product a bit more, or I want travel, or actually I don't want that and I want an office-based role, you'll probably experience that at some point in your programme.
Emily Slade: Yeah, fantastic. If we take the apprentices as an example now, how heavy is the workload alongside university?
Ellie Long: I'm not going to lie, you are working full-time whilst doing potentially a university degree. in some context. So I'm not going to sit here and say it's freezing. Yes, it is hard work, but I think rewarding hard work. Again, it depends on the programme you choose, depends on the structure. Some are done in what we call module blocks. So you might go to university for kind of a block of time and then you come back and do kind of placements and work. Others you might be kind of on more of a day release. Some of our programmes, your first year is very intense in the university, all kinds of college learning and training, and then it actually slows down in the other years. When you do your dissertation actually that's a lot more self-reliant on you doing research and so it comes in different ways and suits different people's learning styles. I was a bit of a nerd at school so I was one of those people that would have sat and done work every single evening but some of our apprentices don't, they block out time on the weekends. We support you as part of our team and making sure that you've got a good structure in place to help balance that kind of work/life. balance but the apprentices find a way of doing it and you've got buddies and mentors and people like that there to help you too.
Emily Slade: Amazing. Sort of looking at all of them if you can, what does the career progression look like?
Ellie Long: I think it's one of the things I love about seeing our apprentices and graduates is the places they go and what it is they go and do. We've got some fantastic stories of apprentices that maybe have done an engineering degree apprenticeship programme and now they work in project management and then they've gone and worked in commercial and then they've gone back to it. So again, you don't stay necessarily linear to what is you've done and you can create what that is. Just because your programme has ended doesn't mean the development and the career progression stops with that. There's no one right route is what I always say to people. It's how you want to learn, it's what your style is, it's what your interests and motivations are. But we will support you into what that role looks like post programme and what's right for you and what interests you. And then you can continue to shape what that career path is.
Emily Slade: Nice, perfect. So you've briefly mentioned work-life balance for the apprenticeships. How is the social life? across the board really and the work-life balance.
Ellie Long: I would say seeing some of our grads and apprentices, they, if you think of apprentices, they don't miss out on what the university social life would be. Yeah, they are, we have some formalised clubs for want of a better word, so we might run certain social activities. It's actually induction week at the moment, they're all going bowling tonight. So yeah, we will organise things throughout the years, whether that kind of be professional, social, things like a lunch and learn or a networking with a senior leader. Equally, it might be something a little bit more fun or engaging. But then they also have their own kind of graduate apprentice associations that will organise things like, they've done ski trips, they have a Christmas ball, there's lots of different things happening. And then there's Rolls-Royce social clubs. So we have things like the Rolls-Royce geography team. Some of our sites have on-site gyms. So again, there's lots of things kind of happening and going on that you can be part of.
Emily Slade: Can you speak to the eligibility and the competitiveness as well facing anyone that's trying to get on to any of these programmes?
Ellie Long: Yeah, no, absolutely. And it actually I would say really, what it does, it really upsets me when I hear young people saying, well, I've not applied because I think it's going to be really competitive and I'm never going to get in. Because one of the things I'm really proud of is that we've designed our total kind of assessment approach around allowing a young person to be their best self and demonstrate who you are. So we don't want cohorts of copycat individuals. We do have for some of our programmes educational entry requirements, but that's because we want to set you up for success. If you're going to university, you're going to need certain either grades or certain subjects, but I wouldn't say they were any more competitive or higher placed than another organisation or getting into one of the universities that we work with. And then yeah, our end to end assessment process has really been designed around getting the best out of that individual. We don't use CVs, that's really important to me. We ask questions to understand what your interests and motivations are. And again, scoring and guidance is all on the careers website. But what we're looking for is what makes you, and that's okay that that's really different to the other five or six candidates that we might have also been looking at that day. Because we want people to bring out who they are. And as part of the assessment process, we ask questions about the things that you've learned and the things that excite you. And we ask what your values and your interests and motivations are. And you see some fantastic kind of stories or insights coming out from young people. One of our activities is doing a presentation on something that you've kind of taught yourself, and why that interests you, and how that links to Rolls-Royce, and I'm kind of paraphrasing, but kind of bringing it out. But we deliberately don't want you to pick something that you studied at school or university. It needs to be something that's kind of non-academic because we want to learn about your hobbies and your interests and your motivations and we see some brilliant presentations and stories. We get young students bringing in musical instruments and playing them as part of the assessment centre. We've had someone teach an assessor how to do the Rubik's Cube. We've seen Lego models. We've seen, my personal favourite, we've seen people doing a presentation on Taylor Swift. Like you can genuinely make this really personable and I think that's really important to me is that we're not looking for a certain mould or a certain kind of result. Actually, we want lots of young people from lots of different backgrounds to come and be passionate and excited about what Rolls-Royce is and the skills that they can develop here.
Emily Slade: Fantastic. And can you tell us about the onboarding process and any wider development as well that's available?
Ellie Long: Yeah, so I think one of the things that's really important to us at Rolls-Royce is that we try to help set you up for success on day one. We call it kind of getting work ready. So if you were going to university or you were kind of going to college or something else, they would have lots of different kind of meet and greet sessions or they might invite you in to do tours and that kind of thing. So we mirror that process as part of our onboarding. So really simply, once you get your offer and we've kind of let you settle down and hopefully do something really fun to celebrate, you'd have what we call a candidate care call. So we talk a little bit about whether you might need any adjustments, whether that be some kind of a disability perspective or a learning perspective or actually even just financial support, something as simple as that. And then we kind of build that journey with that in mind. But you get added to an onboarding platform so you can chat to other apprentices or graduates when they're starting. You can read more about your programme, there's videos, there's kind of content. We run kind of coaching sessions so you can attend some kind of almost like learning days before you join where we tell you a little bit about communication or teamwork and we start to introduce you to the Rolls-Royce values and behaviours. And then we obviously also do our kind of full induction programmes. So you'll get the chance to kind of visit sites either as part of your assessment process or as part of onboarding. And then again, in induction, you'll get to start to see where you're going to work. You'll get to meet your manager, your buddies and other people. But we really like to bring all of our graduates and apprentices together so you feel like you're part of that cohort. And something else we also run as part of induction, but then it runs through your programme is what we call Outward Bound. So you get the opportunity to go somewhere really cool, places like the Lake District, do lots of outdoor activities. But again, learn about yourself, your teammates, your colleagues, learn about the Rolls-Royce values, behaviours, things like how we act safely, understanding our environment and our products. And that's something that runs throughout the programme and kind of into some of the wider development opportunities that we run. And again, we look for opportunities that we can bring our graduate apprentices together. So whether that's a course on something that's quite Rolls-Royce specific, so we're teaching you about a product or you're learning more about our strategy, or actually we're running things that are around something like mental health or wellbeing or personal brand, workplace resilience, a lot of those softer skills that actually we understand you might need to help learn and develop as you go through the programme because we don't expect you to be perfect on day one, you're joining us on a development programme and therefore that programme is about developing you as a person. So yeah, there's lots of different elements there throughout the totality that hopefully start to then set you all for success for whatever that role is after you finish with us.
Emily Slade: Yeah, amazing. And finally, if someone's thinking about applying before they start, what prep can they do?
Ellie Long: Great question. I think my first point would be please don't overthink it or panic. I think quite often we put a lot of pressure on ourselves and again I don't mind sharing. I think I applied for like 45 grad schemes because I was so paranoid I wasn't going to get one, fully stressed myself out and actually you don't need to. Do some good research and go back to that purpose point. Who is it you want to work for? I really hope you're excited and engaged and want to work for Rolls-Royce. We've got some fantastic resources on our careers website so we've made public all of our assessment materials We've made public interview questions, all of the questions that we ask you as part of the application process. So we don't ask for the CVs, we want to make the process really simple and smooth. So it's just understanding what your motivation is. So all of that's on our careers website. There's loads of brilliant resources there. So carve out a bit of time on a Sunday afternoon get yourself a cup of tea and a biscuit or something and have a read and kind of watch. Social media is another great place to look at because you can watch kind of reels, you can hear from some of our apprentices and then see if the site that's local to you is doing an open evening or an event or if there's a kind of, we're coming to visit your school or something like that because we do so much in the local areas where we've got sites and opportunities. There might be something where you can kind of come and talk to people and ask the questions that you really want to do. The other fantastic resource we've got is something called Discover on Demand. So it's our digital work experience and skills platform, which again is on our careers website. It's accessible to anyone, anywhere, it's free. And you can do career tasters and kind of simulation exercises that are based around our different apprenticeship programmes and the different roles. So actually you can be a nuclear engineer for an afternoon and genuinely see what it's like. And I think that's a fantastic opportunity so you can understand more about what the role actually is. And that can then help you in your application when we say, why do you want to be a nuclear engineer? Actually, you've experienced what it's like completely.
Emily Slade: That's brilliant. Thank you so much for your time today.
Ellie Long: That's all right. Thank you for having me.
Notes on transcript
This transcript was produced using a combination of automated software and human transcribers and may contain errors. The audio version is definitive and should be checked before quoting.
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