Issue #4: What 25 top firms actually put in front of you, and how to spend 140-to-1 odds

We read the published selection process of 25 of the most-applied-to UK graduate employers. The headline: the classic timed numerical and verbal battery is now the exception, not the rule, and what replaced it differs sharply by sector.

Big Four: immersive, game-based, mostly untimed

• Deloitte: a Cappfinity immersive assessment where you rank responses to workplace scenarios, then a video job simulation and a final stage. No standalone timed battery
• PwC: the Career Valuation situational test plus Career Unlocked, an Arctic Shores game-based assessment. Numerical and logical reasoning sit inside the games
• KPMG: two scenario assessments (Transforming Small Businesses, then Delivering Outcomes) built from videos, voicemails and reports, then an on-demand video interview and an in-person Launch Pad day
• EY: the EY One Assessment blends strengths scenarios with a time-recorded numerical section, then an Experience Day and a strengths interview

Magic Circle law: Watson Glaser, with one famous exception

• Clifford Chance, Freshfields and Linklaters all use a Watson Glaser critical thinking test. Linklaters adds an untimed situational test first and makes you re-sit Watson Glaser on the assessment day
• A&O Shearman has folded everything into a single 45-minute online experience assessment with no standalone Watson Glaser
• Slaughter and May uses no tests at all: CV, cover letter, then one interview day with a written commercial exercise and a partner interview built around a current-affairs article

Consulting: a game or a case, rarely a test

• McKinsey: the Solve game (Redrock Study and Sea Wolf, increasingly a third module), then case plus personal-experience interviews
• Bain: a Sova online assessment covering numerical, logical and personality, speed-scored without a visible timer
• BCG: varies by office. London's stated screen is a short numerical test; the Casey chatbot case goes to selected candidates
• Accenture: a single gamified Digital Assessment on the Cappfinity platform, then HireVue, then a virtual assessment centre
• Oliver Wyman still runs a classic numerical-heavy online test

Banks: games and one-way video, timed tests by division

• JP Morgan: pymetrics games, then HireVue, then Superday
• Goldman Sachs: HireVue, then a Superday of two to five interviews; engineering adds HackerRank
• Citi: the Plum Discovery Survey, about 25 to 30 minutes, not pymetrics
• Barclays: a Business Insight assessment (numerical, verbal, inductive plus a values element), then HireVue, then a case-based Business Meeting
• Morgan Stanley: the most traditional of the group, with a numerical test and a situational element before HireVue and a Superday

Public sector and tech

• Civil Service Fast Stream: an untimed online stage completed inside a seven-day window, then video and a half-day assessment centre
• NHS Graduate Management Training Scheme: one blended 45-minute Future Potential Assessment, then a recorded video and a virtual centre
• Bank of England: Korn Ferry Talent Q, including a 21-minute combined verbal and numerical test
• Google: no aptitude tests at all; structured interviews scored on four attributes, and since 2025 at least one round in person
• Amazon: an online assessment of coding, a work-style questionnaire and a work simulation, then four or five interviews built around its Leadership Principles

How to use this: practise the format you will face, not the firm. If your list is law, critical thinking is the skill; if it is Big Four, it is scenario judgement under a soft clock; if it is banking, it is numerical speed plus a camera. Our practice hub works in the style of Watson Glaser, SHL and the immersive formats above, with firm-specific packs for each of the 25.

The Institute of Student Employers' Student Recruitment Survey 2025 put the average at 140 applications per graduate vacancy across 155 employers, a record. That number is not a reason to apply to more schemes. It is a reason to apply to fewer, better-chosen ones, properly.

A working system for the next six weeks:

1. Cap it at three finished applications a week. Quality holds at that pace and collapses beyond it. Three good ones a week from now to mid-November is roughly 25 applications, which is more than enough if the list is right.
2. Spend the first hour on the licence, not the cover letter. One in four openings in our index sits with an employer that already holds a sponsor licence. Start there.
3. For any scheme that says nothing about sponsorship, ask. 102 of the 212 schemes we checked publish nothing. Silence is not a no, and the answer by email is usually more specific than the website.

The email that gets a straight answer, three lines, to the early-careers inbox:

I am applying to the [scheme name] for a September 2027 start and will need Skilled Worker sponsorship at the point of joining, most likely under the new-entrant rate. Could you confirm whether this programme can sponsor, and if so for which business areas or offices? I ask now so that I only apply where it is possible.

Why that wording works: naming the route and the new-entrant rate signals you understand the salary rule, which is the reason most schemes cannot sponsor. It moves the conversation from "do you take international students" to "can this specific role clear the threshold", and that is the question the recruiter can actually answer.

Keep the reply. If the answer is yes, it is a reference point at offer stage. If it is no, you have just saved yourself a week.

The register lists 126,631 organisations as of 8 September, 121,352 of them on the Skilled Worker route. Finding a name on it is step one. Reading the entry correctly is step two, and it is where people get caught.

• Route. Only the Skilled Worker route matters for a graduate hire. An employer licensed solely for Temporary Worker or Global Business Mobility routes cannot sponsor you into a permanent job, however large the company
• Rating. A means the sponsor is in good standing. B means it is on a Home Office action plan and cannot sponsor new workers until it earns its A back. As of this week, 121,296 Skilled Worker sponsors are A-rated and 54 are B-rated, so a B is rare, and worth noticing
• Name. The register carries the legal entity, not the brand. A company you know by a trading name may appear under a holding company, and one brand can map to several licensed entities across different offices. We keep an alias table for exactly this, so a search for the name you know resolves to the entity that holds the licence
• Town. The town on the register is the licence holder's registered address, which is not necessarily where the job is. A London-registered sponsor can hire you in Leeds

And the line that matters most: a licence means an employer can sponsor, not that it will. The licence removes the legal barrier. The salary floor and the team's willingness are separate hurdles, and the email in the section above is how you test the second one before you invest a full application.

If you hold one of 13 nationalities, there is a way into UK work that needs no employer sponsorship and no salary threshold. The Youth Mobility Scheme gives two years of open work rights, and most international graduates have never checked it because it is not marketed to them.

• Who: nationals of Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Japan, South Korea, India, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Iceland, Monaco, San Marino, Uruguay and Andorra
• Age: 18 to 35 for Australia, Canada, New Zealand and South Korea; 18 to 30 for the rest
• How long: two years, extendable to three for Australians, Canadians and New Zealanders only
• 2026 places: Australia 38,500; Canada 10,000; New Zealand 8,000; Japan 6,000; South Korea 5,000; India 3,000; Hong Kong, Taiwan, Iceland, Monaco and San Marino 1,000 each; Uruguay 500; Andorra 100
• The catch for India, Hong Kong and Taiwan: places are allocated by ballot, so you register in a window and are selected at random, then apply
• What it is not: it does not lead to settlement, does not allow dependants, and does not let you switch into it from inside the UK

Why a graduate should care: two years on Youth Mobility, working for an employer who then sponsors you onto Skilled Worker, is a legitimate route that sidesteps the new-entrant clock entirely. It will not suit everyone, and the ballot is a lottery, but it costs nothing to know your number. Figures read from the Immigration Rules on 8 September; this is information about published rules, not immigration advice.

Everything referenced in this issue is free and needs no signup:

• Sponsor licence check: search the daily mirror of the register, with trading names resolved
• Salary calculator: an offer against the £41,700 threshold, the £33,400 new-entrant floor and the going rate for its code, pro-rated correctly for part-time hours
• Work visa checker: which of the Graduate, Skilled Worker and Youth Mobility routes you can use, from your nationality, age and course dates
• Free CV scan: two scans per email per month, scored by the same engine as our paid tailored scans

And a request. If a firm's format above does not match what you were sent this month, reply and tell us. We update the packs from what candidates actually see.