TSR Wiki > Careers > Graduate Employers Guides > Sky
Employer Information
- Application deadline: Ongoing until all positions filled
- Starting salaries: Competitive
- Regions: London; Scotland
- Industries: Technology, Communications
- Website: http://www.sky.com/
- Email: N/A
- Telephone: N/A
- Address: N/A
What is Sky?
Sky is a leading provider of technological services, telecommunications and broadband internet. By mixing a business ethos of putting their customer's needs first, and always being at the forefront of new technological advances, they have established themselves as an innovative and important technology firm, featured in the FTSE top 50 index. Sky boasts more than 17 million viewers in over 8 million UK homes.
What roles are available at Sky?
Customer Operations, Finance, Marketing, Technology.
Application process for Sky
Apply online.
Entry requirements and type of person suited for Sky.
Sky looks for graduates with a 2:1 degree or above in any discipline and 300 UCAS points. Discipline is an essential characteristic, in addition to good communication skills, problem solving abilities and excellent ambition. As well as good academic abilities, Sky is looking for friendly, irrepressible and fun graduates to join their ranks.
Future prospects and training at Sky.
Training involves on the job experience and mentoring schemes, so graduates can gain first hand experience whilst developing their communication skills at the same time. Alongside this, Sky's personal development programmes ensure graduates develop essential skills in all areas, making them as qualified as possible to becom a key employee for the company. Completion of the training programmes can see graduates progress in their chosen field if they show the desire and ability to succeed.
Other comments about Sky.
Experiences
If you have applied to Sky, we would like you to hear from you. Please use the following form to detail your experiences of application, to aid those interested in following a similar career path.
Position applied for: Technology Graduate
Year of Application:2007/08 (August 08 intake)
Region:London
Educational Background:BA Economics and Politics (BA[ECON]) Manchester University - 2.1, Reading Boys - A2 - AAB, Economics, English, Maths, AS - B, Latin, GCSEs - 8xA* 3xA, 1xB
What were your experiences of the application process? - The application process was a little better than some of the other grad schemes and general jobs that I looked at - most of them were the same thing again and again, on this application there was a question about (iirc) how you think changing technology would affect BSkyB asking for a few paragraphs. Once I'd finished the application I was contacted (can't remember how soon after) to arrange a telephone interview. Tel. interview took place when arranged, it was pretty short so at the end I asked a couple of questions trying to sound intelligent, one about how advertisers have reacted to Sky+ allowing adverts to be skipped easily. After that I was contact in about a week or so to ask me to attend one of the assessment centres. We were given a choice of assessment centre dates. At the assessment centre we had an introduction to the scheme, then two tests, one maths and one verbal reasoning. The maths test I found fairly easy, probably GCSE/A-Level standard, but pretty time pressured, didn't quite complete everything but other people seemed to struggle more than I did. Verbal reasoning I generally find easy, although I got one of the 'example' questions wrong at the start so was a bit worried. After that we had three different interviews, a standard sort of interview with stuff like 'explain a time when you've had to... etc', I tried to keep things interesting rather than having stock responses. Another interview was 'diagnostic' and involved interviewing a staff member about their job at the end you had to identify the main problems the person faced and suggest how they might deal with them - having spoken to some staff members involved in this process now, it is a pretty hard interview to 'pass' and apparently most people don't get the 'right' answer, but that isn't the sole assessment criteria. The third interview (not necessarily in this order, I did Diagnostics first) was 'Biographical' where basically they ask you all about yourself and your interests etc, it was quite relaxed and informal. I think what helped me a lot on the day was that I had been at an assessment centre for another job two days before and been told on the day I had got it, so I was relaxed because I at least had a job lined up and actually wasn't expecting to get the one with Sky. Anyway, they called me up a few days after all the assessment centres had finished and told me I'd got on. They sent the contract through fairly promptly and I returned it. We were also assigned a grad 'buddy' from the previous year's intake to ask any questions of, and a couple of months before the start of the programme we had a 'welcome day' where we found out more about what we'd be doing and went over admin etc, it was a tiring but fun day.
What is it like working for Sky? - I've been here a year now and am on my third placement. Some of the things I like best about the programme and Sky are how relaxed it is, no formal dress code, not petty or strict on little things as long as you are applying yourself, and there is lots to learn. It isn't all brilliant though, there isn't always enough work of the right level (especially for non IT specialists) on some of the placements, like the SNS (broadband) ones which they were starting for this year, but from the experience of some of my friends on other similarly structured programmes Sky is certainly not unique in this failing. There are work socials etc, went to a nice one last week in Piccadily Circus. Oh and free Sky+ HD, which my family appreciate a lot more than I do.
How has it compared to your expectations? - Up and down, to be honest - you have to make the best of your placements yourself and manage expectations - if you prove you can take on responsibility for something, you'll get it but it is sometimes hard to get into that position. Feedback is varied across placements and managers, but some of the compliments I've had from people on this placement have been nice and they are feeling confident enough to let me run with things (test placement, so not too technical all the time)
Where do you see yourself in 5 years time? - I really don't know yet, ask me again when I've finished the scheme. I have one more placement to go, Business Analysis and I think that may well appeal to me, but then I really really liked the team I did my development placement with and would love to go back into it, but to do that as a java developer I would probably need to put in quite a bit of effort outside of work to get my skills up to scratch. From the sounds of it most of last year's lot went into analyst roles. Also, there are so many different areas, Web where you produce customer facing products, Corporate where you work on internal projects, etc etc.
Finally, any advice you would give to potential applicants? - Be relaxed. Try and demonstrate a clear enthusiasm for technology and how it applies to a media/entertainment company like BSkyB. Brush up on your maths + verbal reasoning for the tests.
