First I had to complete the application form. Questions included: Why have you chosen to apply to Mars and the Mars Management Development Programme? Please tell us about a time when you have completed a challenging task. What action did you take to overcome any obstacles? What did you learn? Please give us an example of when you found it difficult to build a working relationship with someone. What was the situation? What action did you take to ensure the outcome was positive? Please tell us about a time when you have influenced others to change the way they were completing a task. What did you do? Why was it important to change the way they were working? OR Please tell us about a time when your skills in motivating others really made a significant change in behaviour of a team or individual. What did you do? What was the outcome? Then I had to do some online tests. Then I had a telephone interview, which had fairly standard competency questions - when have you led a team etc etc. I was then invited to a first interview. I had to do a case study and give a 10 min presentation on it, then answer ten minutes of questions. Then I had a short interview, which asked "How do you think you did on the case study?" "What do you think I was looking for?" "What areas are you interested in?" "Why do you want to work for Mars - and why are you good for it (implied)?"

There was the standard online application that asks why you want to work for Mars and then gives several competency questions to be answered. I would make sure that you give detail about the actions that you took to pass this stage. This was followed by online tests and then a phone interview. The phone interview involved asking why I wanted to join Mars and then why I wanted to join the programme, followed by 3 competency questions based on management skills.