Portland Communications Graduate Program Interview Questions
& Process

It started with an online application back in January, and then I got invited to do a writing assessment. After that, I went to their assessment day, which was pretty intense. During the assessment day, there was a timed, fast-paced online math test for my group, and a fire alarm went off while we were doing it. We weren't told beforehand that this would be a factor in evaluating our scores. After the assessment day, I got invited to the final stage, which was presenting my written assessments to a panel of partners. This was supposed to happen in April, but just days before, they told me it was postponed to June. So I waited until June, and then they told me what I needed to prepare for the presentation. I spent a lot of time getting ready for it, and then, right when it was supposed to happen, I got an email saying they cancelled the whole graduate scheme. I get that the coronavirus thing might have made them cancel, but it just seems careless that they told me to prepare a presentation days before cancelling everything, like they didn't care about my time. Given how they handled this, maybe I'm lucky I won't be working there.

The interview process had two assessment days. The first day included a face-to-face interview, a press release writing task, a priority test, a digital research test, and group presentations. This was followed by an evening drinks reception where we could chat with current graduate scheme members. The second day involved a 10-minute presentation to a panel of four people, followed by a 20-minute Q&A session. The presentation topic was based on a critical essay that we had previously submitted. Everyone at the assessment centers was very smart and friendly.

It was a 5-part application. First, submitted my CV and a cover letter. Then, I took some aptitude and personality tests. After that, I wrote a critical essay. The first assessment day was in London and included a media monitoring task, a press release task, a repeat of the aptitude test, a face-to-face interview, and a group task where we had to prepare a comms strategy for a topical campaign (my group was the people's vote). We then had to present this strategy as a group. The second assessment day, also in London, involved presenting the topic of my critical essay and answering questions about it. The first assessment day felt long and tiring but purposeful for a PR role. Questions were reasonable and made you think but weren't tricky. The only downside was the very last-minute invites and info before the first assessment centre.