Was approached By James Price through LinkedIn. Process from submitting my CV to AC took around 1 month. After responding on LinkedIn, was invited to an informal, mostly informational phone call which if, like me, you had no prior knowledge of the company was useful in learning about what rentalcars.com is about and getting some background on Priceline Group - the conglomerate that is responsible for other brands such as booking.com, Agoda & Kayak as well as rentalcars.com. I don’t this is assessed, but is more about the recruitment team making sure you’re not a robot and to give you some background on the company. Shortly after this, I submitted my CV and received the invitation for AC around a week and a half later. The AC consisted of a tour, company presentation, lunch, 2 interviews and 2 tests. The tour of the Manchester offices was the only AC tour i’ve done that wasn’t awkward or boring. I think this is mostly due to the office space; every boardroom and floor has a different theme which represents something car related. E.g. I think the 3rd/4th floor was based on Route 66 with each room on the floor a different pit stop on the journey. As my AC fell in December, some of the floors had Christmas decorations up. The company presentation was was more background on the company, but if you get invited to the AC (and prepare, i.e. research, appropriately) there shouldn’t be anything during this session that surprises you. All I would say is be sure to note down any juicy facts about where the company is headed in the future and know about the values, connection to Priceline Group and the company mascot (‘Guru Glen’). Also, note that the logo represents a car, upside-down smiley emoji and (when you disregard the dots) an upside-down location indicator like on Google Maps. Lunch was great. They have a catering team that prepares the food and I can recommend the Chicken tandoori. The cafeteria also serves free breakfast and subsidized Starbucks coffee. The cafeteria is themed like a beach, and I think the whole idea behind this and the rest of the office spaces is to give employees a place to get away from work without having to leave the building so that they can come back recuperated. Also, it seems to be part of the innovative culture, which encourages experimentation and creativity. Although all the candidates were placed at a table in the corner, we were free to move around and talk with people who were still on the grad scheme or had recently finished. The interviews were definitely not as intimidating or grilling as traditional ACs for finance/banking. I was told there could be a mix of case-study and formal interviews, but I had formal questioning interviews for both. Most of the questions were motivational/ competency and it seemed like they were really trying to suss out whether I would fit the culture and get on with the people there more than my technical ability. The CEO of rentalcars.com (Ian Brown) walked in during my interview and offered Christmas-themed chocolates. If this doesn’t speak volumes about the friendly atmosphere in the office, I don’t know what does. I will say that for the interviews you should be really clear on your motivations for wanting to work as an analyst and why specifically at rentalcars.com. The tests consisted of a 20-minute numerical test and 20-minute critical reasoning test. Both questions had 30 questions and were negatively marked in the case of an incorrect answer. I found the math test harder than the other candidates but I think this was due to the fact everyone apart from myself was from a Maths background – this seems to be something the company is looking for judging by the concentration of Maths students at my AC. The critical reasoning test was comparatively easier and has a lot of questions that ask you to find the major weakness of one side of an argument. Similar to the Maths questions, I think they are assessing your discipline to leave difficult, time-consuming questions and come back to the end alongside the accuracy of your answers. After this we regrouped at reception and were told the AC had finished. We were also told we would receive the results in a week or so. The only negative thing I can think about the whole experience is the entry doors for each floor, which use fingerprint recognition. We had to move between the two buildings and multiple floors throughout the AC and having to wait for someone to come pick you up and move you between the different stages of the AC seems cumbersome and a waste of employee. A simple idea like a visitor card that permits access to each floor required for the AC or a centralized area for all the assessments come to mind as solutions. Although, to be fair, they were having a quarterly update video filmed on the same day which I imagine made the AC difficult to organize. I am still waiting on the result of the AC and will update once I find out.