Online Application
This will take around 15 minutes to complete. It requires you to fill out your personal details, education history and attach a CV.
How to respond for success
Cummins looks at your CV and hence it is important to make sure you make a tailored CV towards the specific values of Cummins. You do not need relevant experience, but having some experience with financials, whether it be through trading societies, treasury roles, spring weeks, would be a bonus.
Naveed made sure to mention the applicable skills he developed from his managerial roles as Kiosk Manager. Make sure to quantify your results, for example, one of their key values is ‘Excellence’ and Naveed made sure to mention how many workers he trained, how much he increased efficiency etc. Furthermore, he made sure to highlight the strong accounting grades he’d achieved in his first-year modules.
Expect an immediate response before progressing to the next stage.
Online Tests
You will be faced with 2 types of online assessment. A numerical, and situational judgment test. The whole process took around an hour and you can do these tests in your own time within a week's deadline period.
Example task
For the numerical reasoning test, a lot of the questions focused on percentage increase and decrease, reading tables and extracting values. For the situational judgement test, there are around 40 questions where you have to rank 1- 4 each question based on which response would be very likely, likely, unlikely, etc.
How to respond for success
For the numerical test the key word is practice. You will figure out the pattern and realise that these tests are not difficult if you are able to pay attention to the detail. This is the key skill, which Naveed emphasised. He mentioned, you cannot waste time going back to slides and finding the information, you need to be able to recall the information. With the SJT, Cummins is testing to see how you would react in difficult situations. The key is to answer each question honestly but also keep in mind their core values.
Expect a 2 to 4-day wait before progressing to the next stage.
Online Tests
You will be faced with 2 types of online assessment. A numerical, and situational judgment test. The whole process took around an hour and you can do these tests in your own time within a week's deadline period.
Example task
For the numerical reasoning test, a lot of the questions focused on percentage increase and decrease, reading tables and extracting values. For the situational judgement test, there are around 40 questions where you have to rank 1- 4 each question based on which response would be very likely, likely, unlikely, etc.
How to respond for success
For the numerical test the key word is practice. You will figure out the pattern and realise that these tests are not difficult if you are able to pay attention to the detail. This is the key skill, which Naveed emphasised. He mentioned, you cannot waste time going back to slides and finding the information, you need to be able to recall the information. With the SJT, Cummins is testing to see how you would react in difficult situations. The key is to answer each question honestly but also keep in mind their core values.
Expect a 2 to 4-day wait before progressing to the next stage.
Interview
The first interview is done over Zoom given the current climate, and is competency based interview + a 10 minute presentation. They will send you the date and time via email but will also call to confirm your availability. The first part of the interview is a 10-minute presentation about yourself. After this, you will be asked a few questions about your presentation and then a competency-based interview will commence. This process will be in front of 3 - 4 Finance managers from several departments.
Example task
The presentation should last no longer than 10 minutes and they do not mention what they are looking for but from Naveed’s experience, their key focus is on how you got interested in Finance. Make sure to mention your hobbies and interests outside of your studies.
With the interview questions, they focus on the generic competency questions and are looking for answers that highlight their core values. Such questions can include: ‘Tell us about a time when you failed or made a mistake. What happened? What did you learn from this experience? and ‘’Describe a situation in which you got a group of people to work together as a team. Did you encounter any issues? What was the end result?’’
How to respond for success
Make sure you dress appropriately. Naveed wore a dark navy suit with a white shirt and navy tie. The key thing is to practice beforehand several competency questions. You do not need to remember a script, but make sure you understand your past experiences and know your CV inside out. For the presentation, make sure you have a story and it flows well with your presentation.
Naveed split his presentation into several sections such as Education, Key achievements, Interest in Finance and Hobbies and Interests. It is vital you ask them questions at the end, they did not ask Naveed ‘Why Cummins’ but he was keen to ask them what they enjoyed about Cummins and showed a keen interest in their respective roles.
Expect a 2 to 3-weeks wait before progressing to the next stage.
Final Interview
This stage usually lasts around 45 minutes. You will have another competency-based interview with 2 Finance managers (different from the first interview) and have to answer 8 questions.
Example task
They will ask more difficult competency-based questions, however, the underlying answers they are looking for do not change. They want to hear answers tailored towards their core values. An example question is ‘describe a time when you were proactive about a problem at work or university. What was the issue and how did you respond to it?’ They will also give you time in the end to ask any questions.
How to respond for success
The key to this interview is to understand what Cummins does as a whole and read up on their current projects. They want to see a strong interest to work for a manufacturing company. Use this knowledge to ask questions at the end of the interview and this will automatically make you a strong candidate as you have shown a real interest.
As well as this, make sure you follow the STAR technique to provide a coherent and concise response to each question. Although they have 8 questions that they will ask you, they will ask further questions which are more strengths related.
