Becoming the graduate scheme MVP
Highlight reel
Widen your remit - find a way to complete the core tasks efficiently to get involved in the projects which really make the difference
Sit down with each team member to find out about their career so far as well as what they do
When problems arise always bring your suggested solutions to your manager, this helps you hone your decision-making skills
Put time in the diary with every team member
It’s essential when you first join a team to put a calendar invitation in the diary of every team member to find out about their career so far and what they do in their current role. You’ll get tips which you can implement straight away and everyone will be impressed from the get-go. This also helps you fit in and get involved in the group chat rather than sitting there in silence.
Don’t just flag up problems bring solutions
Almost every day you'll need to go to your boss with a problem. If there were no problems to solve none of us would have a job. Since you're on the grad scheme you may not have the level of autonomy to make a call on how to get around it but what you can do is provide a suggested solution - this helps you practice how to solve problems in a controlled environment so when you have more responsibility you’ll be ready. Managers also love this because it makes their jobs easier and saves time.
Widen your remit
The most important secret in dominating the graduate scheme or placement is to widen your remit. You need to find a way to efficiently tick off the core tasks quickly to free yourself up to ask for more responsibility. Carrying out the basic grad tasks isn’t going to help you stand out as MVP. If you're interested in going in a certain direction that isn't your core responsibility, now is your chance to get involved in that area. The aim is to rack up projects which you contributed to end to end and can easily call out on your CV. Imagine you only have 2 sentences to explain to someone what you've accomplished. This is the best method to guarantee that you’re a highly desirable candidate with multiple teams offering you permanent roles at the end of the scheme.
Jump around
This should happen naturally as part of your scheme but if it doesn’t, push for it. If you can, resist the urge to roll off the scheme early, this will be very tempting since it’s a permanent role with a higher salary but the best candidates don’t need to settle for short term gains, it’s a marathon not a sprint. This will give you a great breadth of knowledge and help indicate to you which roles you might be suited to in the future and most importantly, it helps determine what you don’t want to do.
Take every new project on confidently
Don't be scared about failure when given a new project. If you can’t manage that, fake it til you make it. Every new project is another opportunity to stand out and rack up wins for your CV. Take them on confidently and then if you run into issues you can always ask for help, that's what your team is for and they can quite often escalate to solve the issue. With every new project, you knock out of the park the more confident your manager becomes in your ability. These wins are also going to be key in helping you negotiate a new salary with your current or next employer more on that here.
Add value to the team vibe
Become known amongst the team by adding some value. If you're a social butterfly organise some socials for everyone to get to know each other better, you will be thanked. If by moving around on your rotations you've met someone in another team who has knowledge that might be useful for the team, organise for them to drop in and give a presentation.
Don’t let your attention to detail slip
Every project is incredibly important and significant mistakes threaten to set us back after all that good progress. However, when these inevitably occur - don’t try to cover them up, this makes the situation worse (always). Minimise mistakes as much as possible to give your managers great confidence that you’ll succeed with every task they give you.