Rolls-Royce plc

Graduate jobs explained

Rolls-Royce ranked 53 in the 2011 Guardian UK300 list of graduate employers. It takes on around 300 graduates and undergraduates each year, with around 170 of those in its graduate programmes.

There are two entry routes for graduates, with several different options available in each. The leadership programme is designed for people looking to take on business management roles, while the professional excellence programme is aimed at technical specialists who want to hone their expertise in their subject.

Rolls-Royce leadership development programme

Composed of three or four placements of 6-months each (including at least one overseas), followed by two longer placements of 18-24 months. The scheme aims to help graduates get into management positions within 5 years. Business areas:

• Customer management Placements include business improvement, commercial, marketing and sales support.
• Health, safety and environment Placements can be anywhere across the business, working to improve HSE performance.
• HR Placements include business partner roles and other specialist functions.
• Engineering Placements in any of 21 disciplines such as aerodynamics, control systems, design, engine and aircraft performance, experimental, mechanical, nuclear and thermodynamics.
• Finance Placements include business assurance, treasury and time in operating units.
• Operations management Covers all aspects of manufacturing, purchasing, and supply chain planning and control.

Rolls-Royce professional excellence programme

An 18-month programme composed of four to six placements of three months each. Specialist areas:

• Commercial This can be in either analysis and evaluation or contract management.
• Engineering Placements can be in aerothermal fluid dynamics, component and system design, controls and instrumentation systems, development and services, electrical systems, manufacturing or production repair and overhaul, materials, mechanical integrity and stress performance, or nuclear.
• Project management Placements are in various business areas including engineering, finance, HR and purchasing.
• Purchasing Placement work includes research and evaluation of new sources, working with established suppliers, and work on other stages of the contract negotiation process.
• Supply chain planning and control Includes work on resource management, implementation of new strategies and reporting on processes.

Future roles

As graduates are taken on as fully-fledged members of staff, they should be able to move into a permanent role on completion of the graduate scheme. There are numerous opportunities available, in one of four main business areas:

Engineering: aerodynamics, control systems, design, electrical, hydrodynamics, measurement systems, safety case, and test.

Manufacturing: business improvement, facility management, supply chain, and health, safety and environment.

Business: customer management, customer services, programme management, purchasing, and sales and marketing.

Corporate functions: business development, communications, finance, human resources, information technology, legal and quality.

Work experience explained

Two different types of work experience are available at Rolls-Royce: summer internships and longer placements of 6 to 12 months.

Around 150 undergraduates are taken on in work experience positions each year.

Types of placement

Summer internships
These tend to last between 10 and 12 weeks, and usually take place during the summer academic holiday. Placement areas include:

• Commercial
• Customer management
• Engineering
• Finance
• Human resources
• Manufacturing leadership
• Project management
• Purchasing
• Supply chain planning and control

Longer placements
Longer placements can be either part of a sandwich degree course or as general industry experience, and can start at different times of year depending on university schedule and availability. Areas include:

• Engineering
• Finance
• Project management
• Purchasing
• Supply chain planning and control

Entry requirements

Applicants for both summer and longer internships should:

• Be in their second or penultimate year of study.
• Be on track to achieve a 2.1 in their undergraduate degree, or studying for a masters in a science or engineering discipline if applying for the engineering programme.
• Have good English language skills.
• Have a strong pre-university academic record (Note: no specific requirements are identified).
• Finance scheme only – have an A-level grade B or higher in a numerate subject.

The company also lists key competences (called the ‘core behaviours framework’), which applicants should be able to demonstrate. These are:

• Breadth and business understanding: commercial awareness and business knowledge.
• Courage, integrity and leadership: commitment to ethical practices.
• Delivering and managing work: leadership skills.
• Influence and working together: communication skills.
• Judgement and common sense: ability to analyse and reason.

Benefits

Participants in the company’s work experience schemes receive a starting salary of £17,850 per year, and have access to a number of other benefits such as 25 days’ holiday, flexible working, bonus schemes, subsidised gym and sports facilities, and company events and parties. There is also a chance that work experience can lead to a place on a graduate programme and a £1,500 bursary, although this depends on performance during the placement.

Training and development

Training is overseen by the company’s learning and career development team, which helps employees (including graduates) plan their career progression and monitor their performance.

Rolls-Royce invested £33m in learning during 2010.

While the type and amount of training will ultimately depend on the role and business area, all members of staff set their own career goals when they join, and are given a set of technical and behavioural competencies they must demonstrate in order to meet these goals. Their progress is reviewed at regular performance meetings.

Graduate scheme training

As is the nature of graduate schemes, much of the training at Rolls-Royce is on-the-job. However, graduates across all of its programmes are also required to complete various specialist modules, which may take the form of training courses or self-directed learning.

There is also some job-specific training in each programme, designed to develop skills that are essential to the function. For example, in the finance scheme, graduates will work to build accounting, analysis, sales finance, strategic planning, tax and treasury skills.

Graduates on some programmes will also benefit from being coached and mentored by a senior manager. These include

• Commercial
• Customer management
• Manufacturing
• Project management
• Purchasing
• Supply chain planning and control.

Professional accreditation

The company says that all of its programmes are ‘appropriately accredited’ (for instance, the supply chain planning and control scheme is accredited by the Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport), and many graduates will work towards professional qualifications as part of their training. Schemes that are professionally accredited as standard are:

• HR (Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development).
• Purchasing (Chartered Institute of Purchasing and Supply).
• Project management (Association for Project Management or Project Management Institute).
• Engineers will work towards professional qualification with the relevant professional association for their discipline.

However, this is not an exhaustive list; graduates on other schemes (particularly those in the leadership development programme) are also likely to work towards professional accreditation during the scheme.

Ongoing training

As previously mentioned, all of the company’s employees have access to its training and development framework, so training will not stop once the graduate scheme is over. According to Rolls-Royce, it invested £33m in learning during 2010, and over 94,000 days of training were undertaken by 34,000 employees on its online learning system alone.

Formal training for managerial, professional and technical skills is conducted both in-house and through external training programmes. The company also has its own online learning portal called MyLearning, which offers hundreds of different courses on subjects such as corporate responsibility, diversity, ethics, and health, safety and the environment. This system also sets out definitions for the technical and behavioural competencies employees are expected to meet.