Reckitt Benckiser does not only produce great household and pharmaceuticals products: we are also create leaders and entrepreneurs for the future – and in some cases the leaders of the present.

In Wednesday’s edition of the London Evening Standard there was an interview with Nick Varney, the CEO of the Merlin Entertainments Group.

Nick Varney - Merlin Entertainments CEO

The Merlin Group is number 1 in Europe and number 2 in the world, behind only Disney in numbers of visitors.
And their numbers have been growing strongly: 16% rise in sales to £769 million, 16.6% rise in profits to £239 million and 10% jump on visitor numbers to 38.5 million.

The man behind these numbers is described as a “determined, in a bulldog, wanting-to-get-on way” by the article’s author, Chris Blackhurst.

But what is most interesting, is when you read on it turns out that one of Nick Varney’s first jobs was with RB!

This “determined” style is one of the characteristics you will find in most of RB’s people and in our great leaders, like our own CEO Bart Becht (recently named one of the 100 best performing CEOs in the world by Harvard Business Review).

So, if you recognise any of these traits in yourself and are a determined person who wants to be a leader of the future then RB could be the place where you will find this sort of challenge opportunity.
Here your ambition is encouraged and you will be given the opportunities to achieve the sort of career path you are searching for.

Want to know if you have got what it takes to make it at RB? See how far you can go in our Virtual Career Game.

Five years after going through the RB Graduate Assessment centre myself I participated as one of the Assessors yesterday. It felt odd being on the other end of the process but I thoroughly enjoyed it and it gives me great satisfaction to know I’ve inputted into this year’s intake.

We deliberated hard on a couple of the candidates (in this photo) but we found what we were looking for.

I have to say it really is a gruelling process for the candidates to get onto the RB grad scheme. Before this final RB assessment centre they all had to go through a telephone interview and previous assessment centre with our recruitment agency, and this day was very stretching.

From 9am to 5pm the day was back to back with a mixture of assessments, both group and individual exercises and interviews. Each exercise is designed to test a specific RB competency and the day is scheduled to allow all the assessors to see all the candidates to ensure a fair decision is made.

It’s critical that we get the highest possible calibre of graduates into the business as we are looking for our future senior leaders so expect to be really pushed!
If youre coming to an RB assessment centre my tips would be:

-Relax, it’s your time to shine and we want you to succeed, so don’t let nerves get the better of you.

-It’s a cliché but be yourself and act naturally. Its very obvious when candidates try to second guess what we are looking for and then ‘perform’ to deliver, and it always goes against them

-The harder you find it the better youre doing as we will keep challenging you to see how you perform under pressure. Take it as a compliment and thrive under the challenge. You shouldn’t find the day easy!

-Take each exercise as it comes and again, try not to second guess the competency being tested. Some candidates yesterday second guessed and then underperformed. It was a shame as had they not had this in the back of their mind they would have excelled

-You’ve worked hard and achieved a lot to get to this stage, enjoy it!