Graduate Quantity Surveyor, Commercial at Costain

The following is a Graduate Review for Costain.

Costain scores 3.6/5 based on 358 reviews.

All reviews are based exclusively on results of feedback from employees from Costain. Employees are asked to rate Costain on a wide range of work place topics, which is broken down through star ratings on the right hand side.

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What are the Best and Worst things about your job?

Best

The jobs variety is great for keeping you interested and continually learning and developing. It is constantly challenging which is really good for personal and professional development.

Worst

On a joint venture project you can sometimes get lost or forgotten about as you may not have day to day contact with someone from your parent company! A good way to combat this is involve whoever your day to day manager is in your goal setting and reviews etc and also have regular catch ups with your parent company line manager.

What is the annual salary for this role?

Starting salary: £27,000 - £29,000

Current salary: £29,000 - £31,000

What hours do you actually work, on average?

Start: 08:00

Finish: 17:30

What advice would you give to someone applying to this role?

Try and get as much experience as you can throughout university or college by undertaking internships / summer placements and placement years. This experience will make you stand out as everyone applying will have good qualifications!

Do you have any interview tips?

Firstly; research the company (this goes for any interview)
- Who is interviewing you?
-What sectors do the company work in?
-What recent projects have they had? what projects interest you and why?
-Company strap line... it's a question companies like to ask knowing most people won't know!
Secondly; use the STAR approach to interview prep! (google it...)
- Focus mainly on AR, what actions you undertook and what outcome that came up with!
- This makes sure are on topic.
Finally a couple of things
-Get some good questions together about the interviewer(s) e.g. about their job progression - this shows you are already thinking about progression! Maybe ask about projects they have enjoyed? Also questions about the company... This is something you can think of as you are researching. And ALWAYS ask about the support they offer you to become chartered... if a company doesn't offer you good support, don't bother wasting your time!
- Finally take your time, don't rush answers! I forget how many times I got asked a question paused for 5 second to think and then answered, it shows you are trying to think of a good example! or said "I Know I have a good answer for that, I've just gone blank, could we come back to it?". This all shows that you think things through and won't just jump to an answer that may not be right!