Finding your First IT Position after University

This week on #PlacementChat we have a specific focus on the IT sector. To complement this, here is a guest article with some very helpful advice to help you secure your first IT position after graduation

Finding your First IT Position after University

You’ve completed your degree, had you’re picture taken with your cap and gown and now heading out to work full time. But how do you get your first position when you lack experience and competing in a highly competitive area?

Relax!

Whilst I’m not saying go back to your student days, it may help to relax and know that it may be a little struggle at first while you adjust to full time job searching. You’re not alone and with the latest figures showing nearly 1 in 10 graduates not finding work within 6 months and 12.9% of computer science graduates (data source) specifically, getting overly stressed and feeling down may impact on your daily life and job search. Try to relax and make sure that you set time away from your job search to make sure that your health doesn’t suffer.

Careers Services

Whilst you may no longer be at Uni, career services can help you with your job hunt, with some offering to help you up to two years after you Graduate. With the career services, or if your Uni had a liaison officer or specific departmental career advisor,  try and contact them to see if they can help you, after all if companies are getting great candidates from the services it’ll look great for them!

Careers services will work with companies looking for Graduates, or internships, which may not be advertised yet elsewhere and help give you a head start on building the perfect CV or application form for them. And you can extend your tuition fee’s worth out of the place!

Internships and Volunteering

If you were unable to get a placement while at Uni, or didn’t lead to a job then you may try an Internship or work experience placement. While unpaid internships have rightly got a bad rap, an internship or work experience with a small amount of income may work in your advantage as it can lead to a full time job in the long run and show your willingness to work and put in some hard graft.

Or try volunteering at a local library (if there’s any left nearby!) to help people with their IT Skills. It’ll look good on your CV if you can say you can communicate effectively and potentially have client facing skills if you are teaching users who aren’t technical.

CV’s and Cover Letters

Whilst there’s a whole host of CV help and advice available, it’s still important to make sure that you take care with adapting your CV to each specific position. Companies are looking at what you can bring to them so make sure you do so.

If you developed a project in Java (other languages are available) don’t say in your Cover Letter: I’m proficient in Java, or words to that effect. Change it to say that you’ve undertaken tasks to develop software programs from inception to completion in a number of Languages including Java and C++. 

Also make sure that your CV contain a number of  ‘keywords’ that match the job advert to take advantage of companies that use automated CV services. If a job advert wants someone who’s proficient in SQL then make sure your CV contains that you’re experienced in it, rather than saying you have experience with Databases, so your CV doesn’t get thrown in the ‘bin’.

Brush up on your Skills

If you have an interview coming up, alongside researching the company, make sure that you brush up on your skills. Basic skills in coding for IT positions will be asked, so make sure that you don’t forget them and can answer them fairly quickly. Whilst more advanced questions should be asked they’ll likely be more theoretical and should be OK for pseudo-code to work with. They’ll be looking at how you figure things out as well as your coding skills.

Network

Most of all – network! Anyone you meet, or anyone you know, is someone who potentially knows someone else who is looking to fill a job, especially in small businesses. So let everyone you know on Facebook and everywhere else that you’re looking for a job, update or create a LinkedIn profile and start searching Social Media networks for jobs. It may not only just pay off in the short term, but long term connections and contacts can improve your prospects throughout your career!

For help and advice on gaining a graduate position in IT go to a specialist IT RecruitmentCompany such as www.adriasolutions.co.uk

Related articles

• CV templates and tips
• 10 survival tips for new graduates
• Students - perfect your C.V

Considering a placement? Get crackin’!

Here is a guest article written by the good folk at Gradcracker. If you are looking for a placement in the field of Science, Engineering or Technology, make sure you add them to your favourites.

With hundreds of thousands of students graduating this year, the job market is fiercely competitive. Statistics taken from a recent High Fliers Survey showed that there is an average of 52 applications per graduate job. To give yourself a better chance of securing a job, you should try to gain work experience whilst studying – securing a work placement is therefore becoming more and more worthwhile.

The benefits of doing a work placement are many and increase your employability drastically. Work placements are becoming more and more common, with some courses making them compulsory. On Gradcracker we advertise hundreds of Science, Engineering and Technology work placement opportunities all year round. Most companies tend to divide these between summer and year-long placements but shorter placements are becoming more frequent especially amongst Technology companies.

Get that placement!

Writing a CV and covering letter can be a lengthy and tiresome process but they are crucial to your chances of success. Employers are looking for evidence you fit the role and they look for what they refer to as ‘key competencies’. Common key competencies include: problem-solving, leadership, teamwork, decision-making and communication skills. When writing your CV and covering letter make sure you check what skills the employer is particularly looking for and try and highlight these in your application. Use your covering letter to show that you meet the key requirements and you are familiar with the company and what it does. A lot of students make the mistake of using a scatter-gun approach when applying for placements, try not to do this and, instead, send targeted applications to your chosen employers. Last but not least check, check and check your application again and then get a second opinion – spelling and factual mistakes could put you straight into the ‘no’ pile regardless of your qualifications and experience. If you are struggling to compile a CV and covering letter pay a visit to your careers advisor who will be more than happy to help.

Social media is part of our day-to-day life and is great for catching up with friends and family. The increase in the usage of social media and online activity means it is easy for employers to do a quick search for you online. This is becoming more and more common and is being used as a ‘screening method’. It can provide a ‘living CV’ for the employer: all your social networking accounts, photographs, blogs and comments you have made might be accessed. Make sure you delete or hide anything that could damage your chances of securing a placement. Similarly, ensure you have a professional sounding email address such as firstname.lastname@email.com and a suitable voicemail if employers try to contact you!

Making the most of your placement!

Starting a placement can be a daunting experience with new surroundings and new people. But it is also an opportunity to learn and to make new contacts.

Before starting your placement, you should think about what you want to achieve from your placement and also think about what your employer expects from you. Make sure you check what time you should start and try to arrive a little earlier - starting early/leaving late will only impress. If you are unsure of the dress code, phone beforehand to check as you don’t want to be making a negative first impression on your first day. It may sound obvious but ensure you are polite when talking to colleagues and others.

When you begin your placement try not to be nervous. Whilst a new workplace, job and colleagues may seem a little frightening, after even just a day or two things will start to feel familiar. Making notes during briefings shows an eagerness to learn and get things right and if you need clarification don’t be afraid to ask. During your placement show enthusiasm and initiative, try to do everything to the best of your ability and make a lasting impression – a lot of employers view a placement as an extended interview for their graduate programme.

At the end of your placement thank people who went out of their way to make your stay such a valuable experience, for example, supervisors and colleagues. Try and get a written reference as this will be beneficial when applying for Graduate opportunities. Lastly, think about the skills you have learned and what your placement has taught you.

For further advice take a look at the Gradcracker toolkit here

Gradcracker is the careers website for Science, Engineering and Technology (SET) university students and for employers of SET undergraduates and graduates. Our employers receive over 4,000 visitors a day to their corporate websites direct from gradcracker.com. Gradcracker is now in its sixth year and the UK’s leading employers recognise it as the number one place to recruit SET students - over 300 companies regularly advertise on gradcracker.com. 

By Claire Sugden from Gradcracker

Ignore work experience at your peril

On Monday afternoons, I take my turn in manning the reception area of my service. Yesterday, with winter's arrival and a torrent of sleet and snow falling outside, I was expecting a quiet afternoon with relatively few students walking through the door. True to form, the office was pretty dead, and those brave souls who had ventured outside looking distinctly damp and chilly.

In amongst the typical queries regarding part-time jobs, CV checks and booking appointments was a guy who informed me he no longer wanted to do a placement year and would like to know the process for changing his course registration over to the three year full time course. I duly obliged in providing the information that he requested but made a point of asking him what it was about placements that had put him off. His reply, and I paraphrase here was 'Nothing really. I just want to finish my course and get a graduate job instead.'

This wasn't the first time I've had a response like this and I'm sure it won't be the last. However many times I hear it, I still find myself wanting to ram my head through a structurally sound brick wall.

The view from my desk

I don't know if it is just youthful ignorance or whether some students wilfully choose to disregard the information that is put out there by placement officers, employers, academics and the more helpful sectors of the media. Either way, I felt the need to challenge the student over the importance of work experience and offer some facts that I hoped would sway his decision back in favour of placements.

I quoted a statistic from our Destinations of Leavers from Higher Education (DLHE) survey, which reveals that on average a sandwich placement leaver from his university earns a salary that is almost £5,000 higher than students who complete a full time course without a placement. I pointed towards the fact that students who undertake a placement on average achieve one degree classification higher than their full-time counterparts. The student barely battered an eyelid, thanked me for the information and said he was off to his undergraduate office to switch course mode.

You can lead a horse to water but can't force it to drink. I don't think of my students as horses before anybody sends me a fidgety email, but the proverb holds true in this example. Shortly after this interaction, I noticed that High Fliers had published their annual review of The Graduate Market. Had I'd seen it beforehand, I'd have run off a copy and given it to the student as it makes such a strong case for work experience.

You can download the full PDF report from here but here are some key quotes from the executive summary.

Whilst the total number of graduate vacancies is set to increase in 2013, recruiters expect that over a third of this year’s entry-level positions will be filled by graduates who have already worked for their organisations – either through internships, industrial placements or vacation work – and therefore are not open to other students from the ‘Class of 2013’.

Three quarters of the graduate vacancies advertised this year by City investment banks and half the training contracts offered by the leading law firms are likely to be filled by graduates who have already completed work experience with the employer.

Over half the recruiters who took part in the research warn that graduates who have 
had no previous work experience at all are unlikely to be successful during the selection process and have little or no chance of receiving a job offer for their organisations’ graduate programmes.

These aren't statements put out by placement officers who are touting for business. These are research findings based upon a survey of leading graduate employers. I don't think anything could spell out the importance of work experience in clearer language. A large chunk of graduate opportunities are only open to students who already worked within that organisation, be it a placement, internship or vacation scheme. If you have not already got work experience within an investment bank, you've little chance of getting in as a graduate.

I know that finding a placement is not an easy task. I know it is a painstaking and time consuming activity. I know that people don't like the taste of rejection. I know how disheartening it can be to spend hours in front of an online form only to have an automated thanks but no thanks message bounce back moments later. It is hard, it is tough and there will be times when you may find yourself questioning why you are putting yourself through it all. But I also know how many graduates struggle to secure jobs when they leave university. I know how many come back to talk to careers consultants and regret not paying a little more attention to what their placement officer tried to tell them a couple of years earlier. And I know just how competitive it is to get onto a graduate scheme.With 'no previous work experience' there is 'little or no chance of receiving a job offer' for 'graduate programmes.'

If that doesn't convince you of the importance of work experience, quite simply nothing will.

Related articles

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• More than a third of graduate jobs will be filled by students who have already worked for employer, study suggests
• Graduate jobs set to rise this year, but work experience more crucial than every
• Students, take note: firms give the best jobs to former interns
• Graduates without work experience will be left out in the cold