Blog by Maddie Smith, LSE Careers Consultant:
Summer Term may well be the time many of us take holidays, but it’s also the time we at LSE Careers visit companies and find out what their recruitment plans are for the coming year, and how successful they have been recruiting graduates and filling their graduate scheme places. I’ve been a career consultant for a few years now and one message I hear every year from recruiters is how they have struggled to fill IT type roles. With all of us being much more familiar with technology and using it on a daily basis, why should this be the case?
One of the main reasons graduate recruiters give is that many non-IT graduates simply don’t know that these opportunities exist or are open to them. There’s a widespread perception that a graduate scheme in IT or technology requires a graduate who has studied computer science or technology at the very least. This is simply not the case. Companies want a diverse workforce and to employ people from a broad range of backgrounds and skills. Feedback from recruiters is that those with a non-technical background are often better able to look at things from a user and business perspective. Having recently met with CHP Consulting, they take a 2:1 from any discipline and were keen to stress to me that what they look for is a passion for technology and understanding of what the business does. Having said that, experience of understanding software or any programming or coding experience is useful (but not essential).
CHP are not the exception. There are a great many other companies offering technology based schemes open to graduates of any degree discipline including the Bank of England, Costain, IBM, Accenture, P&G, Shell and Sky. Their Technology graduate schemes are looking for people with an interest in the business applications of technology not ‘techies’. If you take a case like Sky, their marketing function is massively over-subscribed and they have plenty of applications for other head-office functions. However, they can find it more of a challenge to recruit into their Technology and Software roles. “But I can’t programme or develop applications” I hear you say! Well that doesn’t matter as Sky have a training academy and will take people from any degree discipline as long as they have a demonstrable interest in IT.
You might think that a company like IBM would be looking to target students studying computer science and that is the case for certain very technical roles but again for many of their graduate schemes they take people from any degree discipline. The same is true of Accenture. They have a number of graduate schemes including Client and Market Consulting, Client Delivery and Software Engineering. For the first two schemes they look for candidates to be curious about business and technology or to have a passion and interest in technology. Even for Software Engineering they ask for an IT degree, or if you have a non-IT degree you must have a flair for technology.
But how can you demonstrate interest, passion, flair? You don’t need to understand computers but do need to be able to make a convincing case to show an interest and understanding of how technology can help solve business problems. If your part-time job involves working in retail, for example, you can see first-hand how IT manages stock-control and pricing among other things. As a user, you use apps for a whole range of things – to schedule meetings, do online shopping, to book things and give feedback. How else do you use technology in your spare time? Have you helped a student society develop its website or is this something you would be interested in doing? Have you offered help in the form of training others to use standard office applications. Is this something you enjoy? Do you have a blog or photo site? If you want to develop your technical skills further and are keen to develop apps or websites have you thought about a coding course? There are Open Source and free online tutorials available to help you learn code such as Python and Java. Through LSE Generate we also invite along inspirational speakers working in a range of different technology areas so if you are keen to find out about working for a technology based startup (or indeed starting your own!) then this is another good way of finding out if IT really is for you!
The LSE Careers Business and Management Fair is taking place on campus on Tuesday 20 October, and it’s a great opportunity to start looking at what’s available to you and to talk to people already working in this sector. Book now on CareerHub!
So what is IT that you are waiting for?
