BP Tests

Careers at BP

BP offers a range of career options for those interested in the business, engineering, science, supply and trading sectors. It also offers a variety of graduate schemes within these areas, which provide an opportunity to work alongside key experts within the global energy industry.

Unsurprisingly, competition to work at this prominent global company is strong, meaning that as a potential candidate, you will need to seriously compete with thousands of others for a position.

Recruitment for careers at BP requires candidates to sit through a multi-stage recruitment process, which will involve various psychometric tests, a technical interview (which will require a role playing scenario between the candidate and interviewing panel), and a day at a BP assessment centre, where you will be given a mix of individual and team activities to complete.

For graduate and intern opportunities, any application to BP will start with matching your degree qualification to the disciplines, roles and opportunities that you are entitled to apply for at this stage in your career.

Each year, there are approximately 300 places available on different BP graduate schemes, with other professional positions appearing as the need arises at the company.

For recent graduates, there is also a specific 2–3 year ‘Challenge’ programme which will act as a gateway to more opportunities within BP. This is not specific to any particular field of specialism, so whatever your field of interest, you will be able to extract skills and experience from this programme.

Online application form

BP currently operates across the board with its Core Values at its heart. These are:

• Safety
• Respect
• Excellence
• Courage
• One Team

This is the first part of the recruitment process, and is therefore also the first impression that you will be presenting to the recruiter. Therefore, it is important to remember the Core Values of BP, and to keep them at the forefront of your mind when you are answering the various questions on the application form.

This means that when referring to specific achievements, projects or job roles that you have been involved in, it is important to link them in some way to the Core Values.

A commonly used technique for communicating yourself to a recruiter in a positive way that is conducive to showing yourself in your best light is STAR (Situation, Task, Action, Result). Further information on this technique can easily be found online.

Online aptitude tests

Once you have completed and submitted the online application form, you will be contacted by the recruiter to progress the rest of your application, depending on whether you have so far been successful in your submission.

The next stage of the process depends on your performance in BP’s own specialised aptitude tests. These may include a numerical reasoning test, a verbal reasoning test, and a logical reasoning test. The difficulty level of the tests will be reflected in the area of business, and the level of the role that you have applied for within the company.

There will be information and instructions about the aptitude tests on the invitation email sent from BP to you. These aptitude tests are carried out online and are provided by the Saville Consulting group.

BP verbal reasoning test

BP’s verbal reasoning test functions as a reasonable indicator of a candidate’s ability to make rapid sense of a previously unseen piece of text, and to extract the key information from it. As part of this test, your competence regarding word meanings and written comprehension will also be assessed.

The test centres on a paragraph of information that you will be given to understand and deduce the relevance from. Once you have read the passage of text, you will be asked a series of questions regarding it. You will be given the choice of answering ‘True’, ‘False’, and ‘Cannot Tell’ to these questions.

You will have roughly 45 seconds to answer the questions given, so make sure that when you are practicing that you do so under timed conditions to get used to answering accurately and rapidly.

BP numerical reasoning test

To be at your most adept and proficient during the numerical reasoning test assigned to you, it is paramount that you practice under the same timed conditions as the real test itself.

You will have less than a minute to answer each question; therefore the focus for this particular test is less on your actual numerical ability, and more on your speed of approach.

Although the test will be multiple choice, it is also advised that you do not try to randomly guess the answers in a show of rapidity, as it will show up on your accuracy score. However, it will be possible for you to make a best guess estimate by putting the answers that are clearly incorrect to one side.

The numeracy level required for this test is of a general standard, involving common calculations involving addition/subtraction, multiplication/division, percentages and fractions.

You will be allowed a calculator for the test, so remember to practice with this too.

BP diagrammatic reasoning test

BP’s diagrammatic reasoning test may also be referred to as a logical reasoning test, or an inductive test. This test will be different to the previous numerical and verbal reasoning tests in that you will not be required to make sense of data or text; this time it will be all about understanding abstract patterns.

During the test, the nature of how abstract these patterns and trends can be is unlimited; this task is designed to challenge you. The best way to prepare is to familiarise yourself with practicing.

Over time, it will feel more and more natural to be able to find patterns within size, arrangement, movement and colour of different shapes.

It is also strongly advised that you also practice under timed conditions, as your time during the tests will be limited.