The results are in for The Graduate 2012

Donald Whyte has been announced as the winner of The Graduate 2012, hosted by West Yorkshire Branch of BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT.

Donald from Leeds University was presented with his prizes - £500 in Amazon vouchers (sponsored by Yorkshire Water) and a one-day Personal Impact course (sponsored by QA training) - by Roger Marshall, Deputy President, BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT.

Chris Cahill, Chair of BCS West Yorkshire Branch, said: 'I am really pleased Donald has won The Graduate 2012, he is an exceptional IT candidate and showed real potential to the judges throughout the course of the day.'

The event, aimed at current IT students and recent graduates throughout the UK, gave applicants the chance to see how a real recruitment process might work and understand how to utilise their skills to secure a role. A number of organisations sponsored the event including Yorkshire Water, Deloitte, Graduates Yorkshire, IBM, KPMG, Capgemini, 4it Recruitment, and QA.

Donald said: 'I am delighted to have won The Graduate 2012. Having spent the day with all the other finalists I knew it would be a tough competition. The event has given me some real insight into what to expect when applying for jobs in the future and has been hugely beneficial in helping me work on my interview technique - I definitely have more confidence having been to the event.'

Alongside Donald, the runners up included Adam Meet and Danny Bullock, both from Leeds Metropolitan University.

Chris Cahill continued: 'The Graduate 2012 is a great opportunity for both employers and potential employees to network. Last year’s event saw many of our applicants being recruited as a result of the event and I have every confidence that this year will be no different.'

Roger Marshall concluded: 'It is a great honour to be asked to present the awards to such an outstanding group of people. I have been very impressed by the calibre of applicants and those who won should be extremely proud of all they have achieved.'

Source: Bcs.org, Tuesday 20th March 2012