Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
The answers you need to know
Entry requirements
We’re interested in people with diverse backgrounds and encourage students from all degree disciplines to apply to our programmes.
For our Graduate Programme and Straight-to-Desk, you must
- Be in your final year of study for a university degree or higher, or have graduated, and
- Have the permanent legal right to work in the country you’re applying to.
Exceptions
- For the UK and UAE, we consider candidates requiring visa sponsorship, but in the UAE, priority will be given to UAE nationals.
- For graduate roles in US, we will not consider applications from candidates seeking Optional Practical Training (OPT) or Curricular Practical Training (CPT) employment.
We’re interested in people with diverse backgrounds and encourage students from all degree disciplines to apply to our programmes.
For our Internship Programme, you must
- Be in your in your penultimate (second to last) or final year of study of your bachelor or post-graduate degree.
- Have the permanent legal right to work in the country you’re applying to, for the full duration of the internship.
- The Bank does not sponsor work permits for Internships.
Exceptions
- For UK and UAE, we consider candidates requiring visa sponsorship, but in the UAE, priority will be given to UAE nationals.
- If you’re required to completed mandatory National or Military service after graduation, we will accept applications from final year students.
Academic criteria
- We’re looking for potential, which means we won't look at your grades, but we’d like to see that you’re committed to learning and development, which could be through traditional education, but doesn’t have to be.
- If you have a degree or are currently enrolled at University, you’re unable to apply for this programme, but you can apply to one of our Graduate opportunities.
UK Apprenticeship Funding
- To be eligible for a Government funded apprenticeship you must have lived in the UK or European Economic Area (EEA) for the last 3 consecutive years.
Not at all. We welcome students from all degree disciplines and encourage applications from students from all backgrounds.
No you don’t. Work experience can help provide practical insights into how a bank operates and the type of work you might like to do, but we don’t expect previous work experience.
Eligibility
For our Graduate roles you must
- be eligible to work permanently in the country that you’re applying to.
Exceptions
- For the UK and UAE, we consider candidates requiring visa sponsorship, but in the UAE, priority will be given to UAE nationals.
- For graduate roles in US, we will not consider applications from candidates seeking Optional Practical Training (OPT) or Curricular Practical Training (CPT) employment.
For our Internship roles
- You must have the legal right to work on a permanent basis in the country for which you’re applying for the full duration of the internship.
Exceptions
- For the UK and UAE, we consider candidates requiring visa sponsorship, but in the UAE, priority will be given to UAE nationals.
- For US, we will consider students in their sophomore or junior year for our summer internship program.
- If you’re required to completed mandatory National or Military service after graduation, we will accept applications from final year students.
For Apprenticeships
- The Government’s Apprenticeship funding requires candidates to have lived in the UK/EEA for the last 3 consecutive years
- If you’re enrolled at university or have gained a degree or higher qualification, you’re not eligible for our Apprenticeship Programmes, however we encourage you to apply for our Internship or Graduate opportunities.
Application Process
We can't give you an exact timeframe because every role is different. However, we'll try our best to keep you informed about your progress as much as possible. You can learn more here
We receive a large number of applications each year and we make every effort to reply to each candidate as soon as possible. The time this takes can vary depending on the time of year you applied, the programme you applied for, and how many applications have been received for that role.
Unfortunately not, you must choose one business area, when you make your application. To help you make this decision, we recommend you read about our different business areas in before applying. If we read your application and think you’re a perfect fit for a different business area, we’ll give you a call to have a chat.
Yes, but you’ll have to wait 6 months from the date you originally applied, before re-applying.
If you try to re-apply before this date, you’ll receive an error message. We take any attempts to circumvent this policy very seriously.
If you successfully progress to face-to-face interview stage, the first person you will meet will be a member of our Early Careers team. You can explain to them that you’d like to make a change, and they can explore if it’s possible.
You need to find a job you’d like to apply for. You’ll then be guided through our recruitment process. This will include uploading your CV/Resume.
Yes, visit our experienced professionals careers website.
We encourage early application. Student applications area seasonal.
All countries, excluding Africa and the Middle East:
- Vacancies open: 1 September onwards
- Vacancies close: Most roles don’t have a set closing date, but by February we typically close roles, which is why we encourage early application.
For Africa & Middle East
- Vacancies open 1 January
- Vacancies close 30 April, each year.
No. Some of our roles have deadlines, but most are rolling recruitment.
Our Programmes commence 1st September each year.
The International Graduate Programme is an 18 months Programme.
Special Requirements
We want all applicants to feel able to perform at their best throughout our hiring process. We’ll support you with reasonable adjustments or accommodations.
Start by contacting us here - graduate.technical@sc.com.
- We’ll need you to contact us, before starting any assessments
- When you email us, include the role you’re applying to (the job title and job ID)
- Describe the support you need and we’ll get back to you
Any information you provide, will be treated with complete confidentiality.
Read more about Recruitment Privacy Policy
Technical Assistance
There are a few things you can do yourself first, including reading other questions on this web page.
If you find your question isn’t covered, you can email your question to graduate.technical@sc.com
When you email, please include the job title, job ID you’ve applied to, and the email address you used in your application. This way we can find your application to help you.
This can happen quite a lot. You can resolve this yourself with these steps.
Go to the Job Search page on the careers site.
Step 1 – Click on ‘My Jobpage’
Step 2 - Accept the privacy agreement
Step 3 – Click either ‘Forgot username’ or ‘Forgot password’
Step 4 – Follow the steps to resolve.
You’ll need to use the email address you used in your application to retrieve your username.
For pymetrics game-based assessment and video interview login details, please see question 27 below.
Assessments
Find the email that included a link to your assessment. This is how you can get back to your online assessment.
If you’re unable to find the original email, or you’re having a recurring technical issue, please do the following:
Email us - graduate.technical@sc.com
- Explain the issue
- Share the email address you used for your application
- Share your candidate ID
- Share a picture of the error message
This will help us resolve your issue.
When you’ve finished your assessment, you’ll receive an email notification that confirms we’ve received your completed assessment.
- To find any emails from us, visit our careers portal, and go to ‘My Job Page’ and view all emails from us.
Please email graduate.technical@sc.com
Make sure you include:
- your full name,
- email address you used
- job requisition ID
- candidate ID
With this information, we’ll be able to help you.
New York City Local Law Int. No. 1894-A is currently pending with the New York City Department of Consumer and Worker Protection (the NYDCWP). Once activated, this law will provide job applicants and employees in New York City with rights pertaining to the use of certain automated tools in employment-related decision making, including those that utilize artificial intelligence (AI). This page will be updated as necessary should the NYDCWP activate the law. In the meantime, please direct any questions to ER.Americas@sc.com
pymetrics Games
The pymetrics game-based assessment helps us to determine your suitability for the Early Careers role you’ve applied to.
- Help assess a range of cognitive, social and emotional attributes. They include memory, attention, risk tolerance, perseverance and many more, in a fun and easy format.
- Are used to help us objectively understand the extent to which your cognitive, social and emotional profile is aligned to what is most important to be successfully in the role.
- Help us, and you to make sure the role is right for you.
We’re committed to making recruitment decisions that are fair and consistent, which means:
- The tool uses automated decision-making, without human intervention and reduces the potential for recruiter bias or error.
- Automated decision-making also enables us to practically manage large application volumes, by quickly identifying applicants who best fit the role, and delivering timely decisions to our applicants.
- You’ll be invited to play 16 short, online games
- They’ve been developed and refined in academic research labs around the globe over the course of the last several decades
- Your gameplay data will be used to automatically evaluate your suitability for the role you’ve applied for
- The games help by assessing the extent to which your attributes align to the ones the role needs
- Your score will automatically determine if you progress to the next stage of the recruitment process.
Depending on the outcome of your assessment, you may be considered for a different graduate role, if there is availability. You’ll be asked for consent to take this forward
We use automated decision-making because it allows for greater consistency and fairness in our decision-making process. For example, it helps to reduce the potential for human error and bias.
It's also faster, more comprehensive, and more precise than human decision-making, which increases the efficiency of our process. This means candidates receive feedback more quickly and can also apply for jobs elsewhere in a timely way.
The pymetrics assessment is being used to support our global hiring of Graduates, Interns and Apprentices. For our early careers programmes, we receive large application volumes and automated decision-making helps to manage this process.
The pymetrics assessment will
- Automatically assess responses in the games against the pre-determined answers relevant to the business function applied to
- Automate an output to determine whether to progress the application to the next stage of our recruitment process, for that business function
- Make a determination, that is solely automated (so-called ‘automated decision-making’) and without human intervention.
If the score is unsuccessful for the business function originally applied for, there could be circumstances, where the score is suitable for an alternative role. If this happens, your application will be reviewed by a member of our Early Careers Talent team, who will contact to talk through and gain your consent to transfer your application to an alternative role.
You’ll receive an email invitation to complete the games. Please follow the instructions and create a new pymetrics account, directly with pymetrics.
The account you’ve created with us, will not work with pymetrics. You must create a new account.
You can email pymetrics for support here - support@pymetrics.com
If you already have a pymetrics account, you can still use the link to pymetrics we share via email. When you get to the pymterics login, you should use your existing pymetrics account details. You do not need to create a new account.
If further support is needed, please contact support@pymetrics.com
We're unable to help you, you’ll need to contact pymetrics directly.
You can email them at support@pymetrics.com
Please contact support@pymetrics.com
Unfortunately, you’re not able to preview the games before playing. Don’t worry though, you don’t need any previous knowledge or experience to play the games. We recommend you complete them in a quiet environment, free from interruptions.
The games take about 35 minutes to complete. You don’t need to play all the games in one sitting.
Yes, each of the 16 games are individually timed. Each takes around 1-3 minutes. You can take as much time as you need to review the instructions for each game before you start.
You can’t pause the games while playing them. Each one lasts only 1-3 minutes, so please plan your time.
pymetrics allows candidates to play the games once every 330 days. If you’ve completed any of the games within the last 330 days, you won’t need to replay them.
If you have previously completed them:
- At the point of login, your existing gameplay data will be re-assessed. (A pop-up will confirm that your results have been submitted)
- If you’ve previously completed only some of the games, you’ll be asked to complete the specific games you’ve not previously completed.
If you completed the games more than 330 days ago, you’ll be eligible to replay, which means at the point of log in, you’ll be given the choice to either
- Resubmit Results, or
- Replay Games
Selecting resubmit results – means your existing gameplay data will be re-assessed.
Selecting replay games – means you’ll be directed to complete the games again and once completed your new gameplay data will be assessed.
You can view the languages the games support here.
Valued Behaviours Assessment
Please refer to the Valued Behaviours Assessment FAQ here.
pymetrics Video Interview
Our video interview assesses a number of attributes important for all Early Careers roles with us. They include your motivation for applying to us, key skills we’re looking for aligned to our skills framework.
Your completed video interview helps us understand if you’re the right fit for an Early Careers position in an objective and standardised way.
It’s important for us, as well as for you, that you’re the right fit for the role.
- The video interview is one-way.
- You’ll be asked to record a video of yourself, responding to a series of questions.
- You have the flexibility to record responses at a time that suits you.
- We recommend you take the video interview as soon as possible once you’ve received the invitation.
- Once you’ve completed the interview, your responses will be reviewed by a member of our early careers team and they will let you know the outcome as soon as possible.
- Desktop: Chrome, Safari, Firefox and Edge are supported
- Mobile: iOS 11 for Apple devices or 4.4 for Android devices, or newer
- Tablet devices are not supported.
If you’ve having pymetrics technical problems, contact support@pymetrics.com
Yes, you can complete the practice question as many times as you like.
We recommend doing this to familiarise yourself with the format and experience of the video interview, to make sure you feel comfortable.
Yes, you can complete the practice question as many times as you like.
We recommend doing this to familiarise yourself with the format and experience of the video interview, to make sure you feel comfortable.
No, you can’t pause during your preparation or recording time.
If you have a technical issue or are unhappy with your first response, you will have the opportunity to re-record your response only once.
Yes, you must submit a video recording. If you prefer not to see yourself while recording your responses, you can hide the camera.
If you need an accommodation or adjustment to be made to help you complete the interview, please contact us at graduate.technical@sc.com before starting the interview.
When contacting emailing please include
- The role you’ve applied to
- The email address you used when applying
- A description of the change you need
- Which assessment stage you’re at
Yes, you’ll have one opportunity to re-record your response to each question. You must submit your second attempt as your response.
The video interview will be presented in English. Please submit your response in English.
General queries
Yes. We offer apprenticeships in a range of different businesses across our markets. You can find out more here
For any employment verification, please email AskHR@sc.com with the ex-employee’s consent. If you're a former employee needing to confirm an employment verification letter, please email to AskHR@sc.com.
Please refer to our Recruitment Privacy Statement, which is available at here.
Ready to apply?
If you’re looking for a career with purpose and want to work for a bank making a difference, we’d love to hear from you.