Graduate Scheme Application Tracker
A graduate recruiting season is a few months of overlapping deadlines, tests and interviews across many employers at once. Organising it well comes down to seeing the collisions before they happen.
Graduate schemes in the UK, graduate programs in Australia and at many US and European employers, and new grad roles in the US all share a shape. Large employers hire a year’s intake at a time, open applications long before the start date, and put several assessment stages between the form and the offer. One application is a project. A dozen running together is a season.
The hard part is rarely a single stage. It is the overlap: three online test invitations in one week, a video interview due the day before an exam, an assessment centre invitation that lands while two other employers are still deciding. Candidates who get through the season in good shape are usually not working harder than everyone else. They can see what is due, in what order, and what each stage needs from them.
This guide explains what the different names mean, how the recruiting calendar tends to run in the UK, Australia and the US, what to log at each stage, how to decide how many applications to run at once, and what to do when the online tests arrive together.
Schemes, programs, traineeships and new grad roles
Four names for closely related things. Knowing which one an employer uses helps when you search, and tells you roughly how the hiring will run.
Graduate scheme
Used in: UK and Ireland
A structured entry programme for recent graduates, often lasting one to three years, with formal training, sometimes rotations between teams, and a cohort who start together.
Graduate program
Used in: Australia, New Zealand, and many US and European employers
The same idea under a different name. Australian programs often include rotations and tend to start early in the calendar year after you finish your degree.
New grad role
Used in: United States
A full-time job for students graduating that year, hired through campus recruiting. Some are structured rotational or leadership development programs; many are standard entry-level roles hired as a group.
Traineeship
Used in: The Netherlands
The usual Dutch name for a graduate programme: a paid role combined with a training programme, often lasting a year or two, sometimes with rotations.
When the recruiting season runs
These are broad patterns rather than fixed dates. Every employer sets its own timetable, and the dates move from year to year, so treat the careers site as the source and your tracker as the record.
UK: early autumn, for the following year
Many large UK employers open graduate applications in early autumn, around the start of the final year, for an intake starting the following summer or autumn. Some stay open into the new year; others close much sooner. Smaller employers tend to hire closer to the start date.
Australia: earlier than you might expect
Many Australian graduate programs recruit well ahead of the start date, often early in the academic year during your penultimate or final year. Summer vacation programs in the penultimate year are also a common route into them.
US: late summer and autumn
New grad and campus recruiting often runs from late summer through the autumn of the final year, around career fairs and on-campus interviews. Many employers also fill new grad places from their own summer interns, so some roles are partly filled before they are advertised.
Rolling recruitment, everywhere
Some schemes review applications as they arrive and close early once their places are filled, whatever the published deadline says. Read the advertised closing date as the latest possible day, not as the target.
The tests used along the way differ by country as well as by employer. See Australian graduate assessments, US pre-employment cognitive tests and graduate assessments in Ireland and Canada.
The stages, and what to log at each
Most graduate processes use some version of these six stages, though few use all of them. The right-hand column is what is worth keeping, because by the final interview you will have forgotten what you wrote on the form months earlier.
Stage
What usually happens
What to log
Application
What usually happens
An online form covering education, experience and motivation questions. Some employers ask for a CV or resume and a cover letter instead.
What to log
The date submitted, the scheme and location you chose, and a copy of your answers. Portals often lock after you submit, and those answers are what the interviewers will have read.
Online tests
What usually happens
Aptitude tests, game-based assessments, a situational judgement test or a personality questionnaire, usually sent within days of applying.
What to log
The provider and test types named in the invitation, the deadline, the date you sat them, and anything that went wrong on the day.
Video interview
What usually happens
Recorded answers to set questions, often with a short preparation window and a time limit for each answer.
What to log
The deadline, how many questions and how long each answer could be, and which examples you used, so later interviews can build on them.
Assessment centre
What usually happens
A half or full day, in person or virtual, of exercises such as an e-tray, a group discussion, a presentation and an interview.
What to log
The date, in person or virtual, the location and travel, the exercises listed in the invitation, and any pre-reading.
Final interview
What usually happens
A conversation with a partner, director or senior manager, sometimes held as the last part of the assessment centre.
What to log
Who you are meeting, the questions you were asked earlier in the process, and when they said you would hear back.
Offer
What usually happens
Often conditional on your degree result, references or background checks.
What to log
The reply-by date, start date, location, salary and every condition attached.
How many to run at once
Any single figure you read online assumes someone else’s course load, job and test scores. A better question is how many applications you can run at the quality that gets you through each stage, during your busiest fortnight. Too few leaves you exposed, because every stage screens people out. Too many, and quality slips first in the motivation answers and in tests sat while tired.
- 1
Start from your week, not the season
Work out how many hours a week you can genuinely give to applications alongside your degree, a job and everything else. Use your busiest likely fortnight, such as coursework deadlines or exams, rather than a quiet one.
- 2
Time one application honestly
Do your first proper application with a clock running: researching the employer, the form, the motivation answers. That figure is your unit cost, and it is usually larger than people guess.
- 3
Leave room for the stages that follow
Every application that goes well creates more work at short notice: tests, a video interview, an assessment centre. Those dates rarely move, so budget spare hours for them instead of filling the week with new forms.
- 4
Submit in waves
Send a few applications a week rather than all of them in one weekend. Test invitations tend to follow soon after you apply, so staggering the applications staggers the tests.
- 5
Adjust after the first results
If you are passing the tests but falling at interview, apply to fewer and prepare more for each. If forms are being rejected outright, fix the forms before sending more of them.
When the online tests arrive together
Because many employers open around the same time and send tests soon after you apply, invitations tend to arrive in clusters. A little record-keeping turns a stressful week into a manageable one.
Log the provider as well as the employer
The invitation or the test platform usually shows who built the test. Two employers using the same provider often use similar formats, so one round of practice can cover both.
Sit them in deadline order, with gaps
Three timed tests back to back means the last one gets your most tired self. Spread them across days where the deadlines allow. If you can, sit the one you care least about first as a warm-up.
A result can travel
Some providers store results against your account, and some employers using the same provider may reuse a recent result instead of sending a new test. That saves time, but a weak result can carry across as easily as a strong one.
Know the resit rules before you start
Many employers do not let you resit a test for the same application, and some ask you to wait before applying again. Treat every sitting as the one that counts.
Write down what happened
If a test crashes or your connection drops, contact the employer promptly with the date, time and what you saw. A note made on the day is far more useful than one reconstructed a week later.
Finding the provider: which assessment provider sent your test. How long a result lasts, and who it travels to: how long assessment results last. Resits: can you retake an assessment test. And for the days before a sitting, the week before your assessment.
See the whole season on one screen
The CogniPrep application tracker is free. Every application, the stage it is at and the next date, with reminder emails, a private calendar feed and a practice plan built around the tests each employer is known to use.
Running the season in the tracker
The tracker lives in your CogniPrep dashboard under Applications. Adding an application takes four short steps: the company, the role, where you are up to, and an optional date.
Six stages, used as needed
Researching, Applied, Online tests, Video interview, Assessment centre, Final interview. Not every scheme uses every one, so each application moves straight to the stage it has reached.
Dates with reminder emails
Application deadline, online tests due, video interview due, assessment centre, final interview, or a date you name yourself. Each gets an email three days before and another the day before, sent in daytime hours in that date’s own time zone.
In the calendar you already use
Connect Google Calendar directly, subscribe from Apple Calendar or Outlook with one tap, or paste the private feed URL into any other calendar app. Deadlines show as free time; assessment centres and final interviews block the time as busy.
A prep plan for each employer
Practice tests for the assessment providers that employer is known to use, from CogniPrep’s sourced employer directory, or for the provider your invitation names. A practice video interview before the interview stages, and the six exercise formats before an assessment centre.
Laid out up to the deadline
Give a stage a deadline and the unfinished practice is spread one task a day up to it. Tasks tick themselves off when you actually complete that practice; nothing is ticked by hand.
A record of every outcome
Mark each application In progress, Offer, Unsuccessful or Withdrawn. Closed ones stay in your list but leave your calendar and stop sending reminders. Up to 40 can be in progress at once.
Each application holds up to 12 dates, each with an optional time, and every stage links to reading plus the employer’s own guide page where one exists. For the interview stages, the early careers interview track is built for graduate schemes: five behavioural questions recorded to camera, with AI feedback.
Frequently asked questions
When should I start applying for graduate schemes?
For many large UK employers, early in the autumn of your final year. In Australia, often earlier in the year and sometimes in your penultimate year. In the US, from late summer of your final year. Every employer sets its own dates, so check each careers site and log the date when you find it.
Is it better to apply early?
Where an employer recruits on a rolling basis, yes, because places can fill before the closing date. Where every application is reviewed after the deadline, applying early may not change your chances, but it does spread your tests and interviews out across the season.
How many graduate schemes should I apply to?
As many as you can do properly in your busiest weeks, with room left for the tests and interviews that follow. Applying to more than that lowers the quality of each one, which tends to cost more offers than it gains. The five steps above give you a way to work out your own number.
What if two assessment centres land on the same day?
Ask one employer for another date as soon as you know, saying briefly that you have a clash. Many employers run several assessment centre dates and would rather move you than lose you, but the earlier you ask, the more options there are.
Can I apply to more than one scheme at the same employer?
It depends on the employer. Some allow only one application per recruitment cycle, others allow two or more. Check the rules before you apply, and log which scheme each application is for.
Does CogniPrep know which tests an employer uses?
For employers in its sourced directory, the prep plan lists the assessment providers that employer is known to use. Invitations are the better evidence, though: if yours names a different provider, tell the tracker and the plan follows the invitation.
Do I have to pay for the tracker?
No. The application tracker is free with a free CogniPrep account. Some of the practice it recommends, such as paid provider games, interview access and the full assessment centre library, needs a one-time unlock.
Prepare for the stages ahead
Employer assessment guides
Company-specific guides to the assessments graduate employers are known to use.
Competency-based interviews
How graduate interviews are scored against a framework, and how to prepare the evidence.
How to pass an assessment centre
What each exercise is measuring, and how to prepare across a full day.
"Why do you want to work here?"
The motivation question every graduate form and interview asks, answered specifically.