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The 10 most wanted IT skills for grads

Thu, 29 Sep 2011 10:54:08 +0100

The top ten skills for IT professionals are: SQL, C, C#, .NET, SQL SVR, ASP, Java, Java Script, HTML and Linux, according to e-skills’ latest bulletin. Get the low-down on the most marketable skills for IT graduates.

C - Seasoned and steady

C is a good language to learn, not only because it’s a perennial favourite with recruiters but because of its familiarity among other programmers. There’s a ton of source code around to learn from and lots of free tutorials. Because it’s been knocking around for 30 years, C is the optimum language for expressing common ideas in programming in a way that most of your peers are comfortable with.

“C is a very versatile language and that’s why it’s popular with IT departments and recruiters. There are many advantages of C: best of all says, Tripod, “you can learn the essentials of C programming in three hours.” Search and apply for C jobs.

C# - The sharp new sibling

C# builds on the syntax and semantics of C++, an object-oriented extension of C. The sharp new version enables C programmers to take advantage of .NET and the common language runtime. While the transition from C++ to C# should be a smooth one, there are a few ‘gotchas’ to watch out for. Search and apply for C# jobs.

.NET – Window onto the Web

The framework for web-based client development provides the means to build graphical user interfaces with HTML controls Web server it provides cross-language interoperability and cross-platform compatibility.

For new jobseekers on the block, there is the added appeal of its relative youth, which brings recruitment pluses: there aren’t enough .NET developers to go around and because of this shortage, long-time experience in recently emerged .NET is not expected. Search and apply for .NET jobs.

SQL- Makes data accessible

Structured Query Language is a programming language for managing data in relational database management systems (RDBMS). The shorthand version is that it’s the international standard for database manipulation. Database management is complicate, but it’s been considerably simplified by the SQL programming language.

All this back office-stuff may sound deeply unsexy, but SQL remains an old favourite, thanks to the rise and rise of the World Wide Web. The spread of dynamic websites is largely down to the fact that their content can be handled through databases. Search and apply for SQL jobs.

SQL Server – the Microsoft one

A relational database server, developed by Microsoft, its primary function is to store and retrieve data as requested by other software applications. True to its namesake, Microsoft SQL Server's primary query languages are T-SQL and ANSI SQL.

There’s a handy certification to be studied for that is dished out by Microsoft. Apparently 43% of respondents reported salary increases as a result of having Microsoft certification”, according to a Redmond magazine survey. Search and apply for SQL Server jobs.

ASP – Server-side scripting

Active Server Pages, more commonly known as Classic ASP, is Microsoft’s server-side scripting engine that enables programmers to build dynamic and interactive web pages. These web pages are not affected by the type of browser the website visitor is using.

ASP hides only a few Internet details such as headers and redirection, unlike its more abstracted successor ASP.Net. Why would you choose ASP over the newer ASP.Net? “For the most part an ASP developer is on the Internet and close to the wires”, says blogger, Michael D. Kersey. Search and apply for ASP jobs.

Java – The origin of cool

Java made its name by being portable across virtually any platform, and was the language devised by Sun Microsystems, to bust proprietary limitations. For these reasons it was embraced wholeheartedly by the corporate world, which still needs and recruits armies of Java programmers. Its appeal has been refreshed remains by its ability to create programs to run within a Web browser and Web services.

Search and apply for Java jobs.

JavaScript – enhancement in a browser

A prototype-based scripting language that, contrary to appearances, is unrelated to Java. It is implemented as part of a Web browser in order to provide enhanced user interfaces and dynamic websites. Microsoft, Facebook, Apple and Google all use JavaScript to make great things and, perhaps because of this, it’s very much in vogue. The appeal of JavaScript is that you can work for anyone and do amazing things. You can do it instantly on any machine.

“JavaScript is an incredibly diverse language, much larger in application than you think. There are a large amount of ‘gotchas’, some great new APIs, and it’s in constant development,” says The Nerdery. Search and apply for JavaScript jobs.

HTML – Mark it up

The ubiquitous language for writing content for the website – hyper text mark-up language. One of the most commonly asked questions is: ‘Why should I learn to write HTML code manually instead of using a WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) editor?’ The best thing about HTML is that you're not limited to the number of functions that the editor has to offer. You can always create your own customisable functions and code, which will look and feel exactly as you wish them to do.

“If you're working for, or trying to catch a client, knowing HTML gives you credibility,” advises HTML Quick. Search and apply for HTML jobs.

Linux – born free, popular pick

Is the popular and free variant of the operating system Unix, conceived and nurtured by the Open Source World. We’re living in an era of austerity so it’s hardly surprising that the only way is up, for Linux. The UK government has pledged to use more Open Source software and Linux usage in the public sector will expand on the back of that.

For newcomers, the beauty of Linux, and indeed any Open Source software, is the community that maintains and develops it and is a rich source of tutoring. Search and apply for Linux jobs.

Certification for IT graduates

Tue, 27 Sep 2011 10:06:36 +0100

A professional IT qualification shows you can hit the ground running and impresses potential employers. There are plenty to choose from so pick the one that suits your IT interests – and will land you a job.

Don’t forget that joining a professional institute also instantly makes you part of a giant network that will be invaluable during your career.

Service management

This field is a potential growth hotspot for graduates as more companies, both supplier and user, offer software as a service. ITIL (Information Technology Infrastructure Library) is the de facto standard for service management.

Eddie Kilkelly, COO of ILX Group reckons it’s possible to secure first and second jobs on the back of an ITIL qualification. “We have graduates who take the ITIL qualification and get jobs as help desk analyst, infrastructure managers and “, he confirms.

Foundation level certification covers business processes, what a service looks like and how to implement and operate a software service. Study for the foundation level can be completed in 12 hours of e-learning.

Search for Service management jobs

Support

CompTIA A+ certification has launched many IT careers, and typically leads to first jobs such as IT technician, enterprise technician and desktop support. The training provides foundation-level knowledge and skills necessary for a role in PC support.

"My first CompTIA certification took two weeks of solid study to complete. I finished the exam in 20 minutes, 23-year-old consultant, Dujon Walsham, told Computer Weekly.

Walsham has since worked on high-profile projects such as the IT infrastructure to capture programmes for ITV Player. His current job involves helping companies adopt cloud computing systems.

Search for Support jobs

Security

Security is such a broad discipline nowadays that it’s impossible to learn everything on the job. If you join a team as an apprentice, there’s a chance that knowledge gaps could be exposed in a way that could hurt the business.

Accreditation demonstrates to an employer that you have the necessary knowledge – in a recognisable standard. CISSP (Certified Information Systems Security Professional) is the one for graduates to go for.

The wisdom to apply knowledge in order to make risk judgments comes with experience that can be measures and ratified with accreditation.

Project management

Prince2, the UK Government’s project management method, is the gold-plated standard of the software world. It offers basic ‘how-to’ building blocks for project managers and is delivery-focussed.

If you have your sights set on foreign travel, the Project Management Institute offers five certification options, recognised worldwide. Closer to home is the UK’s Association of Project Managers, starting at elementary certification.

Online communities are another valuable resource worth visiting that can help you do the day-job when you’re starting out. Linked-in, Yahoo and Google groups are very open and accepting.

Search for Project management jobs

Business analysis

As IT has to deliver more benefit to the business, graduate business analysts are in demand. The UK’s BCS’ Information Systems Examination Board (ISEB) offers a qualification at foundation level for aspiring business analysts.

And, if you have some experience under your belt, the International Institute for Business Analysis (IIBA), offers the Certificate of Competence of Business Analysis (CCBA).

The IIBA has its own UK chapter for BA members to meet, network and swap ideas while the BCS has specialist groups in business change, requirements engineering, and consultancy.

Search for Business analyst jobs

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Glad tidings for graduate IT jobseekers

Mon, 26 Sep 2011 18:02:02 +0100

A projected large increase in IT spending in 2011 brings glad tidings to graduates seeking jobs in the sector. The forecast from data analysts IDC predicts that businesses will spend 5.7% more on IT in 2011 than this year, potentially creating many more roles.

Services surge

Software and services are the biggest winner with 12.8% projected growth and the fastest growth will be in public cloud services, according to IDC. Organisations will move a wider range of business applications into the cloud and SME business cloud use is predicted to surge in 2011.

The positive outlook for jobs is corroborated by e-skills UK, which predicts strong demand for IT graduates. “Our research shows that IT professional employment will grow four times faster than the UK average, with over half a million technology professionals needed over the next five years to meet demand”, said Karen Price, CEO of the skills agency. “Almost 20% - 100,000 - of these will come directly from education, predominantly at graduate level or higher.”

Hot skills

IT professional employment growth is strongest in high skill areas such as software professionals, growing at 2% per annum, and strategy and management roles. There is also a growing demand for skills in project management, enterprise change, security and risk management. A strong foundation of technical capability, business understanding and practical experience will equip graduates with the skills they need to progress into these roles.

According to the latest IDC figures, mobile technology and service delivery are also set to experience major demand from users in 2011. Frank Gens, senior vice-president and chief analyst at IDC, said, "We'll see the IT industry revolve more and more around the build-out and adoption of mobility, cloud-based application and service delivery, and value-generating overlays of social business and pervasive analytics."

Business intelligence focus

Brighton-based Graduate Recruitment Bureau (GRB) reports that this year saw a 50% increase in the number of placements with retail and financial services the hottest sectors. Both sectors had a theme in common: the need for graduates with an aptitude for business intelligence and data mining.

“Even the biggest supermarkets are having difficulty sourcing back office staff, particularly in relation to data forecasting and manipulating business intelligence software”, said Dan Hawes, marketing director for GRB. Hawes advised graduates to ‘take a step back’ and consider employers other than Times 100 firms, which also offer exciting IT opportunities.

All sectors need grads

The professional and financial services sector employs 14% of the IT workforce, and the manufacturing, science and engineering sector employs 13%, according to e-skills UK. However the agency encourages jobseekers to look more broadly. “All sectors now rely on highly skilled IT professionals to ensure their success in this increasingly technology-driven world, with over half the IT professional workforce working outside the IT & Telecoms industry”.

Search CWJobs for graduate jobs

How to get the most from CWJobs

Mon, 15 Aug 2011 15:34:07 +0100

The summer holiday is a great time to use CWJobs to get ahead of the candidate crowd: use it to gain intelligence on employers and top advice on job hunting, not to mention applying for jobs.

Here’s how to get the most out of CWJobs.

1. Set up alerts

Our Jobs by Email (JBE) feature allows you to match alerts to your selected criteria and to get personalised alerts.

Tip: Be realistic about the time you have available to spend navigating through and responding to alerts. Focus on setting up alerts that produce the kinds of jobs that you’re interested in such as those that are graduate or sector-specific.

2. Use social media

Visit our Twitter pages and YouTube pages for the latest career advice, expert comment on the state of the IT recruitment market and curated links to graduate and IT events.

Tip: There’s no doubt that social media can help you to find a job and that it offers unprecedented opportunities for building relationships with recruiters, but it should always be used in conjunction with other methods.

3. Upload your CV

Be sure to upload your CV, as this is a crucial way for employers to find you. Because this CV will be generic and for all recruiters’ eyes, make sure you list all your technical and soft skills in bullet points beneath your personal details.

Update your CV when you have something to add to it. Visit our CV advice for tips on how to make your CV hit the recruiter’s sweet spot.

Tip: Don’t forget that when you land an interview through an application, a CV tailored to the job will always put you strides ahead of the competition.

4. Get career advice

Identifying a good job prospect is just the first step many needed to bag that first job. Other critical aspects include writing a punchy cover letter, preparing for first and second interviews and performing at assessment centres. Happily we have advice for graduates on all of these topics - and more. Just visit our career advice section.

Tip: Remember that the best way is to get good advice and to prepare well in advance of meeting any potential employer. The time you put in will yield corresponding dividends.

5. Know your worth

It’s good to know your market worth and what salary you can expect before you step into an interview. Our IT salary calculator allows you to view the salary for any job or industry within any location in the UK. It’s simple: enter your keywords such as PHP; developer, and a location, such as Manchester, and we'll calculate the average yearly wage, the average range of salaries, and whether the typical salary has changed over the previous month.

Tip: Don’t bring up salary at a first interview, recruiters will think you’re pushy or not interested enough in the actual job. At the second interview, it’s fair enough to broach the topic

6. Search for jobs on a map

Our maps make it easy to search for a job close to your ideal location. It’s easy; just click on the map and you’ll be served a list of the jobs, meeting your criteria, within a given radius of your chosen city.

Tip: Location can be really important to graduates, especially if you’re on a budget and need to live at home or watch your commuting costs.

7. Get sector specific

If you’re searching in a particular industry sector, we’ve set up pages for the financial services, public sector and telecoms where you can see the latest jobs and related content. Likewise you can search other sector, plus jobs by roles and skills, on our browse jobs pages.

Tip: It’s good to narrow your search to a sector that you have a genuine interest in. Genning up on the industry will give you brownie points at interview, plus give you more job satisfaction, long term.

Sharpen your job search with social media

Thu, 14 Jul 2011 13:06:05 +0100

Social media is a powerful way of supporting your job search and use of job boards. Employers are using Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook to size up graduate candidates ahead of formal interview, so it’s a good idea to gen up on etiquette.

‘Like' companies in moderation
Make sure there is an element of commonality in the companies that you 'like' otherwise it may appear as though you have a random approach to finding a job. Look at their latest products, get a feel for which areas of the business a company is focusing on and see what others are saying about them.

Complete your profile
A 100% LinkedIn profile projects a professional image and makes it easier for potential employers find you. They will be searching on keywords, and the more expertise you listed, the more numbers of key words you use and the higher probability of them finding you. It’s important to use your account so when you find yourself job searching, it means you’ll have a mature network of contacts.

Join industry groups
Belonging to the appropriate groups on LinkedIn or Facebook will put you in the right company and show that are able to hold a sensible discussion, or ask a sensible question. Your tone of voice is important – behave as if you were at an informal business meeting. Groups are also a good way of researching a company when job searching.

Recommendations - show restraint
Recommendations are powerful when they are credible. If your LinkedIn profile is littered with too many, they become devalued. Too many endorsements by peers and colleagues where you endorse them in return will also come across as weak. A recommendation should be from someone for whom you have provided a service; so ideally, a tutor, boss or a former customer.

Cultivate a business voice
Tweets about your social life excesses will definitely not impress a future employer so create a separate Twitter account for your business persona. It’s tempting to broadcast an opinion into cyber space, but ultimately, everything can be traced back to you. Don’t tweet anything you wouldn’t mind a current or future employer seeing.

Conversation clues
The beauty of Twitter is that you can be speaking to the head of HR for a company you admire without a formal introduction. A business conversation consists of listening, contributing your own thoughts and responding to others. Make sure your tweeting reflects this etiquette with a mix of tweets, retweets and mentions.

Hashtag help
Hashtags are a good tool let you search on key words or topics that may interest you such as jobs or internships in your sector. Use them to preface your comments on any hot debate that may catch a recruiter’s eye, whether it’s about a new piece of regulation, a fashion or a trend. If you get into Twitter as a job-seeking accessory, you’ll probably want to use one of the free tools available such as TweetDeck or TrueTwit. These will manage updates to other accounts.

Private lives are off-limits
Adding industry contacts is important, but bear in mind that many people see Facebook as a way to keep in contact with friends and family so only add industry contacts if their Facebook profiles are work-focused. If you consider Facebook to be there for your social life, not your career, make sure they can't access it.

Poise for the picture
It’s almost inevitable that a potential employer will check your online profile. Employers aren't expecting to see you in a suit or a corporate pose, especially on Facebook. But try and avoid the early hours 'worse for wear' pictures.

Search CWJobs for Graduate IT jobs

Gaming and VFX a treasure trove for junior tech jobs

Thu, 16 Jun 2011 16:51:32 +0100

Fancy a funky job with creative as well as technical challenge? Look no further than the UK’s interactive entertainment industry. It’s bigger than its film or music counterparts, while the visual effects sector is growing the fastest of all. Get the lowdown.

Skills shortage alert

The interactive games industry is a big industry and growing fast with a turnover of £50 billion per annum, which is projected to nearly double by 2014. The UK is a major player but its ranking recently dropped from 3rd to 6th – a fall lamented as ‘ridiculous’ by one of the industry’s founders, Ian Livingstone. You’ve guessed it – games companies are turning away work because they’re short on staff with the right technical skills, according to the Livingstone-Hope Review.

Most wanted skills

Essential skills revolve around coding and design. If you want to write games software A Digital Dreamer has the lowdown. You’ll you need to become a master of C++ because it’s the de facto language for games programming. Its sibling, C#, also figures large on the games landscape. Both of these variants of the C family handle objects and are a steep learning curve for the uninitiated. Visual Basic is simpler and used in some board games and war games while Java is becoming more popular for interactive games. Flash is a must for designers who also use ActionScript for animation.

Dare to be Digital

Showcase your talent and get noticed by potential employers at this video games development competition hosted by the University of Abertay Dundee. Teams of art, programmer and audio students from all over the world develop a prototype video game and receive support and mentoring from industry specialists. Prototypes are displayed at Edinburgh’s Fringe Festival in August and the public and industry experts get to play and vote for the games.

Visual effects explosion

VFX grew at a phenomenal 16.8% between 2006 and 2008: of the 20 biggest films of all time, 17 are visual effects-heavy blockbusters and the other three are computer graphics -animated films. The UK is the best country on the planet for VFX with Inception made in England, and other Oscar nominations including, The Golden Compass, The Dark Knight, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. VFX is playing a larger and larger part of the programmes we watch on TV, too, from Dr Who to Walking with Dinosaurs.

First jobs in VFX

With so much demand for VFX, there are big opportunities for arty programmers in the capitals’ studios. A typical first job, says Garreth Gaydon, recruitment manager for Escape Studios, is a junior match mover. This involves a vast amount of camera tracking in order to fix any CG element onto a static background, so that it doesn’t appear to be floating. There are also roles for junior technical directors who blend of have the right blend of 3D design skills and computer languages. Some of the bigger studios use pure programmers, too.

Technical and artistic fusion

The big pull of the interactive entertainment world is also its greatest barrier – it is both highly creative and visual and technically perfectionist. The association for UK interactive entertainment (UKIE) has called for schools to encourage pupils to study maths and physics and art – an ideal combination for this job. Given that such coveted individuals are very thin on the ground, it may make sense to do a short course first, or get some work experience with the larger studios. That way you can plug any missing skills gaps and pick up valuable work prospects.

How to start out

Escape Studios is a specialist training outfit in VFX that offers intensive courses to artists, computer science graduates or programmers with a yen for film-making. Students can choose from mentored courses or online, self-taught courses. The advantage of investing in training is it can provide a valuable entry point into the workplace: many training houses have with studios, which graduates on a freelance basis and this is a great way to build up skills and experience. It's also worth taking a role as a runner with one of the bigger studios – this gives you a fly-on-the wall view of everything that goes on and provides a route to a junior technical director role.

Check CWJobs for all graduate jobs

ITMB graduates destined for big business roles

Tue, 14 Jun 2011 11:44:01 +0100

A survey by CWJobs and CA Technologies reveals the positive outcomes of the blended business-and-IT degree and the negative impact of higher tuition fees.

Early graduates of ITMB, the blended business and IT degree designed by e-skills and industry, are highly business-focussed and ready to hit the ground running. This was the conclusion of both ITMB undergraduates and future employers who took part in a survey conducted jointly by CWJobs and CA Technologies.

A confident 85% of students believed they were well or very well prepared for the workplace with just 15% expressing doubts about their readiness. Half the employers surveyed echoed this confidence with a further 33% stating that ITMB graduates in particular are well prepared.

Business focus evident

The survey revealed that ITMB student aspirations are strongly oriented towards business, which may leave employers sourcing tech skills elsewhere. The largest group (31%) of students in the sample is aiming for careers in project management with a further 30% aspiring to become consultants.

By contrast, a more modest 11% of recruiters surveyed expected to hire project management talent over the next two years with 23% seeking consultants. Bob Clift, head of the ITMB programme at e-skills, said: “I am very pleased with the students’ ambitions. My personal view is that if students want a very technical career, a traditional computer science course might equip them better”.

Not for techies

Clift’s views are endorsed by the findings about the technical aspirations of ITMB undergraduates: just 1% and 4% respectively of ITMB students are aiming for jobs as infrastructure architects and software developers compared to the 11% and 17% of recruiters who anticipate a need for these skills over the next two years.

Clift was supported in his estimation of the potential of ITMB graduates by software and service supplier, CA Technologies. Colin Bannister, chief technology officer at CA is pleased with the crop of business-savvy and polished ITMB graduates it has hired to date. “The ITMB is clearly attracting the right kind of candidates”, he said.

“As IT becomes more relevant to the business, we are constantly driving our IT team to become more professional in the way that it delivers services”, said Bannister. “The ITMB is unique because the course content is created and monitored by IT employers”, added Bannister.

People skills to the fore

Amy Jawanda, 21, joined CA as a consultant on it associate services programme four months ago. “Amy’s communication skills are exceptional and she understands the importance of networking,” said Bannister. The outcome of this for CA, he believes, is that Amy is better equipped to understand her impact on the business.

One of the modules of the ITMB that has proved useful in her work placement and current job is the people skills module, said Jawanda. “It gives an insight of how to interact with different types of clients and how to present technical information back to a business audience”.

Popular destinations

Aside from being employed as a consultant, Amy is representative of the other ITMB students surveyed in that she has opted for a job with an IT supplier. This was the most popular choice (34%) by far, followed by the 21% and 19% respectively that intend to head for the retail and banking sectors after graduation.

Nearly half (49%) of students wish to work for a corporate business, while 22% would prefer to work for a small-to-medium sized outfit. A healthy 12% was interested in joining or founding the higher risk option of a start-up. Unsurprisingly, the public sector scored low (8%) and the not for profit sector even lower (4%).

Higher tuition fees blow

The mini poll of 81 graduates at a recent ITMB event also revealed that the higher tuition fees may have negative impact on the ITMB. The CWJobs survey asked students whether they would have taken the ITMB if they had been subject to the higher tuition fees being introduced in 2012.

Nearly a third (32%) said they wouldn’t, a shock result given that the ITMB degree equips graduates for highly paid roles and even the prospect of a generous ‘golden hello’. “Some students get their loans paid off by their new employers in return for staying for a contracted number of years” explained Jane Burns-Nurse, senior teaching fellow at University College London (UCL).

Good employment prospects

UCL, the biggest ITMB course provider also reports that out of the 43-strong 2010 graduate cohort, just one has yet to find employment. Richard Pettinger, lecturer in UCL’s department of management science and innovation said that staying on track and constantly adapting the course to industry recruiter requirements explains UCL’s high success rate.

“A large part of computer science courses are purely theoretical and we do our best to cut this out for the ITMB students.” Pettinger said that one adaption that UCL had made was to ensure that the project management component was relevant to the IT industry. “This means using real examples from the IT industry and not construction [where PM techniques are derived].”

Search CWJobs for Graduate vacancies

Ethical hacking

Thu, 09 Jun 2011 15:20:29 +0100

The penetration tester, previously regarded as a furtive and nerdy character who tested computer networks for security flaws, is enjoying a makeover.

First is the name change to ‘ethical hacker’, and this may explain the rising popularity of the job role among graduates. The other reasons are that the job is fascinating and, perhaps most important, practitioners are increasingly in demand.

As cyber space becomes the preferred domain for criminals and governments to wage industrial espionage, businesses big and small are hiring experts to protect their interests online. Graduates are becoming a popular choice of raw material because of the sheer amount of learning needed to perform in this role. The recent emergence of university courses dedicated to the discipline reflects this new reality.

This highly specialised and skilled role has always required an apprenticeship of sorts because of the very steep – and long - learning curve required to become a practitioner. Peter Wood, founder of First Base Technologies, reckons it takes five years from hiring a candidate to have them trained to a point where they can be let loose on a customer problem. Here are his tips for making progress as an ethical hacker.

What type of person should you be?

There’s no getting around this - you need to be highly intelligent and have a big IQ. But it’s not necessarily the intelligence that comes with a first class degree, or any degree, come to that. If you like taking things to bits to see how they work and then putting them back together again, that’s a strong clue you may have the aptitude. Whether it’s a video, a clock or a radio you’re dismantling, it’s called reverse engineering and is the method used for solving today’s software security threats.

An enquiring mind and persistence are the other distinguishing attributes that will mark you out for this career. Integrity is the other must-have. If you’ve been on the darker side of hacking, it’s unlikely that a corporate will want you in their team.

How do you get your first job?

Graduates of specialist ethical hacking degree courses, run by a handful of universities in the UK, are being hired directly by employers.

Curiously, these universities are mostly located in the north: Northumbria, University of Abertay, Dundee, Glasgow Caledonian University run degrees, as does Coventry University.

The other way to get noticed is to enter a cyber security challenge: these are becoming virtual recruitment fairs with serious industry sponsors. Last year’s event was won by a postie from Wakefield.

Are there professional qualifications?

Surprisingly, for such a cloak-and–dagger trade, there are a few. For a week’s course you can acquire the certified ethical hacker (CEH) badge. The computer hacking forensic investigator (CHFI), secure analyst (ECSA), and licensed penetration tester (LPT) programs from the same family of accreditation.

Membership of the Institute of Information Security Professionals (IISP) is a more heavy-weight kite mark of respectability, as it takes years and is accomplished only after passing an intensive peer review.

However the gold plate of ethical hacking is fast becoming the Council of Registered Ethical Security Testers (CREST), which is allied to the government-approved CHECK scheme.

What’s the job market?

There’s a shortage of cyber skills in the UK, according to the national sector council, e-skills. The salary is good too. According to ITJobswatch, the average UK salary is £48,250, a 27% increase on last year.

Search CWJobs for graduate jobs.

Tune up your skills at IT boot camp

Fri, 03 Jun 2011 14:17:21 +0100

A boot camp may conjure up images of rising at dawn, cold showers, brutal physical workouts, and lots of shouting. If so, think again, because boot camp just became the latest method for training aspiring young developers looking for C jobs and .NET jobs.

Both graduates and school leavers interested in an IT career are discovering that getting their hands dirty through work experience – and now boot camps – is what impresses employers.

Put through their paces

A UK Developer Boot Camp, launched last week by Microsoft, QA Training and e-skills, is designed for young people who want to kick-start their programming careers. Apprentices come from all over the country and are the first cohort to be put through their paces in the Software and Web Developer Apprenticeship.

Boot camp consists of 9am to 5.30pm training, which is a blend of instructor-led and practical exercises. Participants have small team projects to work on in the evening plus, there's a drop-in surgery each evening to go through any specific content with the tutor.

"This first week of boot camp has been great: learning new things, understanding what working in business is like, and on top of that, getting paid", says Kris Smith, apprentice with IT support firm Xperta.

Emma Roberts, from IT services company Atos Origin, confirms that boot camp offers a blend of theory and practice. "It gives you the opportunity to try out in real life what you’re learning, while getting used to a real working environment."

Developers in demand

Research shows that skills in software development, particularly those for C# jobs and .NET jobs, will continue to be among the most highly sought after in the sector. The UK alone forecasts it needs an additional 67,800 software professionals by 2019.

Stephen Uden, head of skills and economic affairs, Microsoft, says of the developer boot camp concept, “We believe that a strong supply of developers is vital to the future of the industry, and will enable innovative small companies to grow."

Get your hands dirty

Chris Jones, junior analyst with ICT Customer Services Direct, reports that work experience has helped him redefine his IT ambitions. “My aims shifted slightly during my time here. Originally I wanted to get into developing IT areas, research and development and the like.

“But since spending time in various positions that I had previously thought as ‘repetitive work’, I changed my mind. I really enjoy working with virtual environment systems, something I knew little about before the apprenticeship.”

Search CWJobs for Graduate IT jobs

Training and qualifications for IT graduates

Fri, 03 Jun 2011 13:48:02 +0100

Training and qualifications are just part of the picture. It’s how you continue to enhance your proposition that matters to employers.

A career in ICT looks like a good bet right now as the number of jobs in the sector is growing at four times the median for other industry sectors. The even better news is that you don’t need a computer science degree to get a job: consider Bill Gates, founder of Microsoft and Steve Jobs, founder of Apple, both college drop-outs who built their computing empires from the family garage.

Which degree?
If you're planning to take a degree, then science or any computer-related degree (plus the relevant experience and aptitude) will place you at the head of the queue when it comes to the 110,000 jobs expected to be handed out this year. However, government agency e-skills points out that 45% of the graduates who enter the profession do so without a computing-related degree. IBM, for one, is famous for allegedly awarding an extra recruitment point to applicants with a music degree.

Which computing degree?
A computing degree that combines business experience will find favour with employers. E-skills launched its Information Technology Management for Business Degree (ITMB) after consultation with 50 employers; the first cohort graduates this year. Two universities offering ITMB said in a March survey that 84% of 2010 final year students had already secured employment with companies including Accenture, IBM, McKinsey, Deloitte, PWC, Microsoft and BSkyB.

What kind of placement?
If you’re not on a sandwich course, doing a business secondment will also boost your chances of converting a humanities degree into a job in IT. Karen Price, CEO of e-skills recommends work experience in any field that is annexed by the word management. “It’s a kind of shorthand for the skills that employers are seeking: People management change management or programme management experience will all make graduates attractive to ICT employers.”

How can you raise your profile?
If you don’t manage to secure a job immediately after graduation, there are things you can do to enhance your professional profile, says Adam Thilthorpe, director of professionalism at the British Computer Society (BCS). "Join a professional body. It’s a reflection of your professionalism but more important, it will put you in touch with a network of experienced people who may be able to help you. It’s an incredibly useful thing and the networking piece will serve you well throughout your career."

What value is supplier certification?
Studying for and gaining added certification will also benefit your chances on the jobs market. Microsoft’s MCSE and Cisco’s CCNA family of qualifications are among the best-known supplier certificates. Additionally, vendor-neutral schemes such as ISEP are highly rated:“ISEP provides a good grounding in an area where there will be a big requirement in the future” confirms BCS’ Thilthorpe.

What about school leavers?
School leavers can join an apprenticeship and earn while they earn and more small businesses are hiring apprentice developers. Apprenticeships are about to get a lot higher profile under the new Government, predict some industry watchers: a future higher-level apprenticeship will deliver a degree-level qualification for those who want to learn on the job rather than in an academic setting, and enable employers to grow their own graduates.

Interview techniques for IT graduates

Fri, 03 Jun 2011 13:41:43 +0100

The interview is your opportunity to showcase not only your technical abilities but, first and foremost, your social skills and business knowledge.

Graduates applying for IT jobs should bear in mind that employers are as keen to test for business and interpersonal skills as for technical prowess.

"What will really set you apart is your ability to place your technical skills in the context of the organisation," says Adam Thilthorpe, director of professionalism at the British Computer Society (BCS). "A criminal number of graduates turn up for interview without even knowing what the company does".

So, if you’re applying to a credit card company, for example, it helps to understand that that technology is the engine of the business and to appreciate the relevance and responsibility of your role. Likewise, the public sector is all about transformational government and you will need to comment and ask questions about your role in that process and vision.

Even in these economically straitened times, "IT graduates who display good social skills are like gold dust,” says Sean Young, director at Spring Technology.

Common interview questions – and the best answers

Most interviews consist of predictable questions that you should prepare for. Our panel of recruitment agencies provides the best answers.

Why do you want to work for us? Explain any positives about the company that you have researched and identified, such as culture or training opportunities
Why did you apply for this job? Talk about the content of the job and the challenges. Avoid talking about any associated salary.
What are your strengths and weaknesses? Identify specific attributes and give real examples of where you have demonstrated these. Be honest about any weakness and try to show how you are working on this or have learnt from them.
What is your biggest achievement to date? This question is designed to give the interviewer an insight into what makes a candidate tick: it’s less about the achievement itself than how you present it and why it was significant.

With thanks to Office Team and Strategic Dimensions.

Mug up on technical questions
Use search engines to find valuable sources of technical Q&As such as these below:

Face-to-face interview tips
Prepare well and your interview is more likely to go well. Our IT experts offer their tips:

Prepare well: Get your nerves and mistakes out in the open. Practice in front of family and friends and get feedback on your performance
Show that you’re a social animal with good interpersonal skills, and don’t focus solely on selling your technical abilities.
Research the studio or company you are applying to – what is their differentiator and their main appeal to you? Where will you add value?
Be ready to show your enthusiasm to go for it!

With thanks to Sean Young of Spring Technology, Adam Thilthorpe of BCS and Tony Bickley of Train2Game.

DOs and DON'Ts of online interviews
More recruiters are using social and business networking sites and there’s an etiquette to be observed in any communication that may form part of an informal interview.

Do:

Use your security settings - you may not want to share the same information with potential employers as you would with your friends
Be honest with your profile and work history, particularly on LinkedIn.
Use your Contact Settings to show whether you are open to job offers, consultancy opportunities etc.
Think about keywords that describe your skill sets and disciplines and use them within your profile. Remember most searches are needs and location-based e.g. computer programmer, Ealing.

Don’t:

Overstate your work history, previous work colleagues will be able to see it as well as potential employers.
Integrate your personal social media feeds (Facebook or Twitter) into your professional social media profiles unless you are happy to share the content of your posts.
Use your professional social networks for personal or derogatory comments (the internet remembers forever).

With thanks to Justine Perry, Cariad Marketing.

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Internship for IT graduates

Fri, 03 Jun 2011 13:38:12 +0100

Doing a summer internship or a work placement is the optimum way of checking whether a company, role or sector is for you.

It’s no secret that many employers use their internship programme as a recruitment pipeline. A summer given over to work experience – paid or unpaid - could reap significant rewards in establishing your career. Some internships are very prestigious and competition for places at banks and big accounting practices is steep but companies of all sizes are now offering summer placements.

Blue chip internship
Investment bank JP Morgan recruits between 50 and 100 technology interns each year to work in one of three offices: London, Glasgow or Bournemouth.

HR manager Rachel Thompson makes no makes no bones about the advantages to the bank of the programme: "The internship gives us the chance to get to know them well and gives them a unique insight into the investment banking world. They then become advocates for the organisation and spread the word when they go back to university."

Technology graduates are usually assigned a project, along with objectives, a line manager and feedback on their performance. Projects may consist of reengineering a process, rewriting a piece of code or perhaps trying to make a piece of workflow more efficient. But whatever the task, JP Morgan stresses that it’s a ‘proper job’ and not just work experience.

To hammer home the professional nature of the placement, JP Morgan interns receive a formal offer, an internship contract for the 11-week placement plus a very competitive salary. Nor is the return is just financial. Top level training, networking opportunities and the chance to sit in on senior meetings and really see how technology can make the business tick are among the benefits cited by Thompson.

SMB internship
While competition for the blue chip internships may be fierce, placements are becoming available at companies of all shapes and sizes up and down the country. Trustmarque, a Yorkshire-based software licensing specialist is not atypical of the kind of the smaller company offering paid work experience placements. The company has offered placements to developers and IT operations staff in previous summers, who worked on stand-alone applications and solving front-line user issues.

What the interns say

Joanna Aleksandrowicz took a technology internship at JP Morgan in the summer of 2008, before returning to Warsaw to do a masters degree in artificial intelligence. She is now employed as an engineer by the investment bank.

What was your assignment? I had to develop a planning tool for the trading technology
Best moment? Presenting my tool to senior management around the world at the end of the assignment
Worst moment? There wasn’t a single moment but maybe the realisation that this is real work and the responsibility that goes with it – but it only lasted a week and the ‘reality check’ turned out to be one of the best things about the internship.

Tips:

The networking opportunities are fantastic and help you discover what you’re good at and where you need to work harder. Go for it!
Do some ‘work shadowing’ where you see how a person in a different role or business work
Apply early – competition is strong

Peter Birkinshaw is currently an intern at Trustmarque as a social media project assistant

What is your assignment? I researched and implemented a social media project
Best moment? Winning an internship award for Yorkshire
Worst moment: Fighting with html code on the mailing list

Peter's tips:

Get stuck in
Talk to as many people as possible - it helps you understand the wider business
Put your hand up for any job that comes your way

DO’s and DON'Ts for interns

• Do: Be professional — Think of your internship as one long interview and act accordingly.
• Don’t: Complain about the small stuff — Every job has a few unenviable tasks. If your role includes photocopying, tea-making and filing, do it properly and with a smile.
• Do: Ask questions — When tasked with a project, find out how it fits into the big picture.
• Do: Be proactive — Taking initiative is one of the most important things you can do to promote yourself as an intern. Don’t sit back and wait for projects to be dropped on your desk.
• Don’t: Mix business and personal — Taking personal calls on your mobile or listening to your iPod communicate that you don’t take your job seriously, that you don’t have enough to do or that you’re bored—not messages you want to convey!
• Do: Get involved in the extracurricular - show you fit in with the company culture by taking part in the after work pub quiz, going for birthday lunches and attending office celebrations.

Thanks to Sachin Shah of simplyhired.com

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Performing at the assessment centre

Fri, 03 Jun 2011 13:14:21 +0100

The assessment centre is now a fixture in the recruitment process for any graduate who wishes to gain entry to a blue chip company.

Assessment centres are extended selection procedures that last one or two days and take place at the employer’s premises or in a hotel. If you wish to join the IT department of any multinational or one of the big software or services suppliers, chances are you’ll be put through your paces at an assessment centre.

View from IBM

Andy Moverley, UK recruitment manager at IBM, say the computer services giant uses assessment centres to get the right match with the graduates it hires and also the students it places on its work experience programmes. The day consists of team exercises, interviews and presentations, which up to 25 graduates - who are applying for a variety of roles from sales to business consultant - attend.

"For our technical hires, we don’t look for any specific degree – we’re more interested in identifying potential. After all, graduates join a two-year training programme so we don’t expect the finished goods,” he says.

Andy’s tips

Be yourself
Take advantage of your university’s career services, which may offer specific advice on how to handle assessment centres
Attend one of IBM’s mock assessment centres, hosted on campuses up and down the country.

Read IBM’s career advice for graduates

GlaxoSmithKline: the inside track

Pharmaceutical giant GSK provides this briefing to graduates attending their assessment centre.

Ability test
The test is designed to help us assess how you would make decisions in the workplace.
Tip: Read the instructions carefully and make sure you understand the exercises before you begin.

Group exercise
The exercises demonstrate how you interact in a group and whether you work effectively in a team.
Tip: Don’t try to dominate the group; conversely, make sure you participate.

Role play
The role-play exercise will be based on a one-to-one meeting where you are asked to manage a situation that may arise as part of the job for which you are applying.
Tip: You’ll be assessed on how your approach the situation, the solutions you deliver and your communication style.

In-tray
The in-tray exercise is designed to simulate a real work situation where you have lots of memos to respond to. We are interested in how you will respond to these memos, how you prioritise your workload and the decisions you make within a set time frame.
Tip: Manage your time carefully to complete the exercise

Presentation
You may be a given a topic to prepare in advance of the assessment day or on the assessment day itself. The quality of the presentation content will be important but your communication skills and your own presenting style will also be assessed.
Tip: If you are asked to prepare, run through it as many times as possible, getting feedback from friends and family.

Technical exercise
If you are applying for a technical role, you may be asked to prepare a case-study presentation on a particular topic.
Tip: Thoroughly read the brief, provide a technical answer within a business context, and think about your proposal as broadly as possible in the context of a pharmaceutical organisation.

Click here for further GSK career advice to graduates.

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5 free ways to increase your employability

Fri, 03 Jun 2011 13:07:51 +0100

Try these five free ways of upgrading your skills and contacts. They cost nothing and will improve your job prospects.

1: Get business aware

All recruiters agree that graduates with technical skills and an awareness of how to use them to make a profit are like gold dust. Unless you did a sandwich course and spent a year in industry, however, it’s unlikely you’ll have had any serious exposure to business. An opportunity to get some quick hit insights into business’ requirement of IT is to attend a Business Link event. These free events are hosted up and down the country and are designed to help small and medium businesses understand what IT can do for them. Ideal, also, for the IT novice.

2: Meet practitioners

User groups are an ideal place to meet fellow IT professionals and to learn from more experienced members of the profession. Traditionally, user groups were places to meet and discuss technology problems and solutions related to specific product sets, and were funded or subsidised by the product manufacturer. Nowadays, user-research groups tend to be less vendor-focussed and may cohere instead around technologies such as messaging or cloud computing. Many, such as the Microsoft Messaging and Mobility User Group are free and welcome graduates. Others such as the Computer Measurement Group hold free open days with taster sessions such as ‘managing virtualized performance’ and ‘saving the planet and money with Green IT.’

3: Check out free training

Inner city regeneration areas such as the London Borough of Newham offer support and training to get young people into work. Courses on offer typically include training in dispute resolution, managing conflict and assertiveness training. All of these soft skills will prove invaluable in handling the politics and pressures of the IT department that bear down from within and without. They’ll give your CV an added dimension, too. Women in technology also offer free training events. Men are welcome though the content is naturally geared towards women.

4: Gain product knowledge

Attend freebie seminars and gain access to the latest products and technologies that coming to market. Microsoft is the most prolific purveyor of free events, all in the interest of getting its products into as many workplaces as possible, rather than any altruistic motive. However, these taster sessions are an excellent way of gaining some instruction and hands-on experience in products as varied as Azure, Sharepoint and Visual Studio. They’ll also provide an introduction to new computing models such as cloud computing, all useful stuff when it comes to discussing IT scenarios in the interview room.

5: Enter competitions

Cyber challenges and coding ‘jams’ or competitions are springing up and taking part will test your knowledge, throw you together with enthusiasts and open your eyes to career possibilities. A recent example is the security cyber challenge that has been set up to cultivate the next generation of security specialists. Forensic wannabes are invited to do a virtual treasure hunt and to defend a network against a group of veteran hackers who launch a series of attacks. The Google code jam is also underway with the grand slam scheduled for Dublin.

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Which company - big or small?

Fri, 03 Jun 2011 13:03:11 +0100

Your first job may well be career-defining so it’s important to consider all kinds of employer and to make the right match.

Large?
The advantages of working for a large corporation, whether in the IT department of a multinational or for one of software or services giants, are obvious. Admission to one of these multinationals via their graduate programme is accompanied by a generous remuneration package and comprehensive training. Needless to say competition for these places is fierce.

The Times Top 100 graduate employers list has starting salaries often well in excess of £35,000 per annum. Meanwhile the IBM graduate induction consisting of a two-year programme of technical and soft skills is not untypical at this level.

Additionally, a number of blue chips, including BA, Oracle and Sainsbury’s invest further in their ICT graduates by releasing them to study at master degree level a variety of ICT-related topics with the Open University. BA piloted the masters last year with 100 graduates.

Or small?
The advantage of joining a smaller company can be summed up as more responsibility early on. If you’re the type who can hit the ground running and likes to feel like you’re an integral part of the team and not just the office junior, then an SME – small to medium sized enterprise – might be for you

If you identify a problem - and even better, the solution – there’s the possibility of rapid action without the delay of consulting with numerous committees, points out one smaller company.

At Yorkshire-based IT software licensing specialist Trustmarque Solutions, the infrastructure manager recently put the business case for moving to thin clients and virtualisation. The executive team agreed with the forecast cost savings and rapidly gave the proposal the green light.

Another career plus of working for a small-and-growing business is that they tend to grow their own managers, says Liz Reynolds, HR manager at Trustmarque. The company promoted five staff to managerial positions last year. The downside of a small company with more modest growth is that people may stay longer, especially if it’s a family business, and you may find career progression is blocked.

An out-of-town location is also more likely for the non-corporation and one of the virtues extolled by Microsoft certified partner, Active Web Solutions. Of AWS’s 21 employees, 13 are technical and work on a variety of cloud computing projects: "We work in a converted barn in a semi-rural location that provides us with space to think, innovate and be creative. Our customers look forward to visiting us and our employees enjoy the quality of life", says director Rob Blackwell.

Pick the right one

The knack of joining a smaller company is to pick the right one, of course. Not every technology start-up is assured rapid growth and dazzling career prospects. Nor will joining a vast corporation guarantee exciting projects as the focus may be on the more mundane work of maintaining legacy systems.

Alan Bellinger, executive consultant with the Institute of IT Training, recommends the Gartner quadrant as a useful tool for profiling early, mid and late adopters of technology, which is one indicator of career path. The typical distribution of these companies, where A is an early adopter and the C the late adopter is:

• As     15%
• B1s   35%
• B2s   35%
• Cs     15%

"The Gartner A-B-C model is a way of profiling leading edge organisations versus the laggards; in fact, the model relates to the adoption of new technology, but if you use it to profile forward-thinking organisations generally, it is helpful."

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The IT landscape for graduates

Fri, 03 Jun 2011 12:56:16 +0100

The IT industry is recovering but certain sectors hold more promise for graduates during an era of austerity.

The recent headlines on job prospects for graduates may be stark but if you’re looking for a career in IT, the future’s bright. Despite the dire warnings of a new era of austerity, graduates heading for IT are better placed than their peers when it comes to the jobs market.

IT a good prospect
According to e-skills, the government agency responsible for growing IT skills in the UK, the sector’s workforce is growing at a rate of 1.2 per cent: "That’s four times the rate of other sectors", points out Karen Price, CEO of e-skills.

That may seem a modest percentage but employers are currently recruiting 75% more graduates than in the summer of 2009. Meanwhile, the number of applicants per job has halved.

At the coalface of recruitment, the agencies tend to agree with this upbeat view: "In the last six months, clients have been asking us to source graduates, whereas previously, they’ve had the pick of the crop for the number of jobs available. We’re back at the position we were in two years ago", confirms Sean Young, head of permanent recruitment at Spring Technology.

Finance strongest sector
However, no one is denying that times are tough and it makes sense to be realistic and smart about where you choose to apply.

Technology underpins the economy to an ever-increasing degree, in some sectors more than others. "Finance and banking has bounced back", says Young; a strong mix of soft and technical skills is your passport to a job in the City.

Public sector still hiring
Controversially, Spring Technology predicts that there will be plenty of hiring activity in the public sector, including for entry-level graduate roles. The development and maintenance of the government's financial, marketing and payroll systems has to continue after all, even in the so-called austerity era, which will impact the public sector the most severely.

However, warns Young, these graduate roles may be presented in the form of short-term contracts of between three and six months. The length of the contract is not a reflection of the temporary nature of the work involved, but is more to do with budgeting models.

Such contracts present graduates with a golden ‘try before you buy’ opportunity.

Digital economy
David Bloxham, director of recruitment services at GCS, says that many public sector IT jobs will shift from government departments to the big third party suppliers that specialise in the sector, meaning more opportunities with the likes of of Northgate, Capita and CFS.

His other tip to graduates is to respond to soaring demand for web economy skills. As more business is transacted on the move from devices such as the iPhone, rather than from the desktop located in a traditional office, app development has soared. "In the past 12 months, iPhone developers have been the most requested role and skills", affirms Bloxham.

Make it fast-moving
Alan Bellinger, executive consultant to the Institute of IT Training (IITT), advises recent graduates to pick a sector that is on the move. As well as finance, "retail is regenerating well while food and booze retailers are always resilient. Telecoms is also a fast moving business", he recommends.

Niche opportunities
Additionally, graduates would be wise to consider some niche areas e.g. in the gaming industry and online betting, with technology playing the pivotal role in both.

The gaming industry employs between 25,000 and 30,000 in the UK of whom 30% are programmers. In this tech-heavy niche, C++ is the language of choice, but other variants of C and Java are also used, according to Tony Bickley, chief operating officer of the Train2Game training outfit.

Whichever sector takes your fancy and whichever role, be it programmer, network manager, database analyst, security or business consultant, every IT expert agrees on one thing: your soft skills should be your calling card. IT skills are a given, and you need to burnish them to stand to from the crowd.

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The value of IT graduates with work experience

Fri, 03 Jun 2011 12:49:16 +0100

Analysis by the University of West of England (UWE) has found that computing degrees with strong links to industry have the strongest record of subsequent graduate employment. Over 80% of graduates from courses such as BSc computer systems engineering achieved graduate level employment over the last three years.

A recent study of UWE's business school graduates also found that graduates with work experience were 16% more likely to get a job and earned an 8% salary premium. They were nearly three times less likely to be unemployed.

HP promises 20 new internships

On the back of the study, UWE this week announced a five-year collaboration Hewlett-Packard, which includes the creation of a new ‘hybrid IT’ degree, the provision of 20 internships a year, and collaboration on curriculum development. The degree course follows in the footsteps of the ITMB (information technology management for business), created by government agency e-skills together with industry, which is taught at eleven UK universities.

“Time and time again we find this relationship between work experience and employment success,” said a spokesperson for UWE. “The irony is that graduates of computer science have the worst record of post-degree employment – it’d a lot to do with the fact that some courses are out of date as soon as they are designed. This competitive marketplace makes real experience all the more important,” he added.

Blended degrees in vogue

E-skills, the IT sector government agency, also encourages students to consider applying for a degree course that teach a blend of technical, business, management and interpersonal skills. “Higher education degrees that provide internships and closely match the needs of employers in the sector, such as e-skills UK’s ITMB degree are more likely to provide graduates with the right skills for a successful career in technology,“ said CEO of e-skills , Karen Price.

The overall aim of the new collaboration between HP and UWE is to produce 'industry-ready' graduates who have the skills to make the leap from academia to business. “HP is a major employer in the UK and our success is dependent on attracting top talent”, confirmed Nick Wilson, managing director HP UK and Ireland. HP is a very visible employer and investor in the Bristol region where its R&D laboratories are located.

As a result of the collaboration with the local university, graduates on the UWE degree programme will undertake internships with HP and its partners as part of the course. The agreement with UWE allows HP to participate in the development of degree courses. HP is also helping to support an initiative to build a new, state of the art Education Innovation Centre at UWE as part of their ongoing shared campus facilities agreement to bring added benefits to students.

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10 ways to make IT experience work for you

Fri, 03 Jun 2011 12:39:02 +0100

IT services firm FDM is recruiting 1,000 graduates to its Academy Programme this year and will fully fund 100 of the best for an MSc. in Applied Computer Science. The course will focus on software development and will features several high-profile commercial placements.

Remuneration for the selected FDM interns is generous, but the advice for graduates on any placement would be the same, regardless of whether it’s paid or unpaid. CWJobs asked its panel of employers and interns for their tips on making the most of a placement.

1. Research your company
Do this before you start your placement. You don’t want to be caught standing in the lifts with the CEO without knowing it’s the CEO! Know who you are reporting to on your first day, so you can confidently get set up without waiting around aimlessly or needing people to run around after you.

Mark Evans, graduate with the FDM Academy

2. Test your career choices
Work experience gives you the chance to test if a preferred career choice is for you. If you find that it’s not, you’ll have made an important step on the path to a great career. Placements give you the chance to test a number of career options without the hassle of getting into and out of a contract.

3. Gain commercial skills
Strong commercial awareness is a key competency for all candidates applying for graduate schemes. During your placement or work experience, you will gain exposure to contemporary issues affecting your industry and company through numerous channels. Try reading relevant industry newspapers and magazines, and make sure you attend meetings to which you’re invited.

4. Improve soft skills
Sound technical skills are vital, but your placement can help you develop soft skills too. If training is on offer, maybe report writing or time management, do it. Ask to join projects, especially those including non IT professionals.

Laura Hooke, careers consultant, City University London.

5. Work with a variety of people
As well as improving your ability to work effectively in a wider team, work experience provides you with the chance to learn from others who have years of experience within an organisation. If you take part in a structured placement, you may get the chance to work in a number of departments broadening your knowledge of the different roles that people take on and the organisation as a whole.

6. Network and get a foot in the door
During a work experience placement you’ll learn how to network, which may open up future opportunities. Don’t forget, the employer could be using this time to consider you as a potential hire after you finish your studies. Your work experience will also give you something to talk about at subsequent interviews and perhaps confirm why you want to pursue a particular career.

7. Ask for feedback...
...From your employer and the people you work with - there may be room for improvement. An internship is above all a place to learn so tale constructive criticism in the right spirit. Plus, successes and achievements are what you need to put on your CV.

8. National Council for Work Experience (NCWE)
Keep a diary - this will help you to add your achievements to your IT CV and will show you how far you've come. Keep a note of challenges you overcome - this demonstrates initiative as well as problem solving skills and is something you can take to your next employer.

National Council for Work Experience (NCWE)

9. Be a team worker
Team working is prized in all IT jobs, sometimes above the contribution of the maverick guru. Use your work experience to contribute to the organisation as well as complete individual tasks. Some team working activities include: reconciling two or more points of view; accepting the point of view of the majority, even if you did not share it; enthusing or motivating others.

10. Dress professionally
In order to always be ready to meet important clients who come in for meetings and need to speak with trainee consultants. There’s a well worn maxim in recruitment that you should dress for the job you want, not the job you’re in – and that applies to interns.

Louise Raycraft, Senior Academy Consultant, FDM.

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Choosing your first graduate job

Fri, 03 Jun 2011 11:54:38 +0100

The good news for the 2011 cohort of IT graduates is that there’s an official IT shortage and more jobs to choose from. But it’s worth doing your homework to make sure your first job is a launch pad for a happy and successful career in IT.

Horror stories abound about bad first jobs in tech, including working in silent sweatshops and being disciplined over the weekend on MSN. Having invested time and effort in study and work experience, it would be a shame to jeopardise your future career with a poor first choice.

Once confidence is dashed, it can be hard to move on. So it’s important to excercise due diligence. Our graduate recruitment experts offer their tips.

Build on your knowledge

Too many graduates forget how much they already know and grab at the first job offered. A good approach is to use any expertise you have built up during your studies and sell that in to an employer.

If you’ve spent six months writing a dissertation on Google Analytics, think twice before ditching this advantage and accepting a role as a generic software developer. Your expertise might be more highly valued - and relevant - elsewhere.

Interview your employer

Remember that the interview process is a two-way process: it’s an opportunity for you to assess your potential employer and not just their chance to put you through your paces.

You should be entirely comfortable putting any question to the interviewer about your career prospects and the particular role on offer. Prospective employers should invite these questions, too, and be able to offer clear answers to questions asked before, during and after the interview.

Spot the clues

‘Taking the temperature’ of a company’s culture while on site can be difficult and it’s best to do some research upfront. Talk to employees, recruitment agents and check websites to try and find out what a company’s culture and ethos is like. Some IT firms are technology and innovation-driven, for example, while others are hard-nosed and sales-led.

However it is possible to pick up on clues on your interview day. Does the receptionist smile and is he welcoming? Do interviewers and HR department demonstrate understanding and are you introduced to would-be colleagues? Graduates are new to the workplace and good employers will be nurturing.

Check the three-year plan

The first job is important, but it doesn’t have to be perfect. Graduates are in state of flux in the two years after graduates and across all industries: two thirds leave their first job within 24 months. Accept you are in a state of flux and don’t put pressure on yourself.

The best way to manage this transient state is to work out a three year plan. Create some basic objectives for yourself and check that your prospective employer has a plan in place for you too. Is there training, support, and possible career progression? It’s justifiable to ask, and if the answer is no, it’s best to steer clear.

Research, research, research

You’ll never have a bigger network to draw on than the day before you graduate. The majority of students fail to utilise a network that can be as big as 100,000 and consist of alumni, tutors and peers.

Research for your first job can’t start too early, however, and the best time is while you are still studying. Large IT software and services companies all attend the milk rounds and these are a great opportunity to find out about opportunities and seek advice about the variety of roles available.

Pick your sector

The one driver in IT recruitment that has changed in the last few years is that employers insist their IT personnel are business savvy and know their sector. ’I am considering all industries’ is not the sort of reply that interviewers want to hear.

However, it does mean you have to know your own mind up front, rather than selling yourself into a sector and regretting it at leisure. Research the culture of different sectors, talk to people who work there and preferably do some work experience to ensure your choice will be a happy one.

Going up...

Manufacturing is huge because of the weakness of the pound sterling. Choose a company wisely and there could be rapid career progression in this sector. For the first time in a decade, there is proper, solid investment in manufacturing systems, and there are fresh job opportunities.

Working for a manufacturer of agricultural products, for example, with IT offices overlooking the factory floor may not be glamorous. But the plus side is that there’s a tangible product at the end of your IT input, which can be very satisfying.

Keep your options open

If you want to be able to work across a variety of sectors, one strategy is to join a large services company or systems integrator. Multinationals usually look for an open mind in the graduates who join their programmes.

Corporations such as IBM recruit instead for foundation competencies in communication skills, team working passion and drive. In the duration of the two-year programme, graduates get to try out two or three sectors before finding one that floats their boat.

The power of referral

Once you’ve found a sector, type of company or preferred graduate scheme that suits, you need to work your network. It’s amazing who you can reach once you start tapping into personal networks of family, friends and tutors.

Scratch the surface and you’ll be connected to many people, maybe one step removed, with influence over desirable employers and in workplaces.

With thanks to:

Fran Jones, IT recruitment director at tech specialist, ARM
Jenny Taylor, head of UK student and graduate programme, IBM
Neil Hedges, senior manager with recruiter Robert Half Technology

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