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STW forum is probably the best place to ask that kind of a question. My brother is currently studying on 3rd year of Computer Networks and Distributed Systems in Edinburgh. He wanted to do some sort of work placement but was not able to get one during second year as he had to go away to help our mum with running her business during summer. Now it’s too late to get into the companies advertising at the campus and new placements will be available sometime during summer.
Now what I would like to ask is whether there is any point in applying to smaller companies (he’s in Edinburgh) and whether smaller companies take on students for placements or are they just not bothered? He’s fine with working for free/volunteering but would putting this on his CV be of any benefit? I would like to help him out but as I study accountancy I am not that familiar with IT and what companies he could apply to or even if the actual companies would take a student at this time of the year to work for them. I was also thinking that smaller companies might not have a big HR department and the whole process would be much quicker/smoother.
So IT bods please help me out with some advice I could pass onto my brother.
Also Edinburgh locals, are there any companies from and around Edinburgh that he could try and contact?
He’s fine with working for free/volunteering but would putting this on his CV be of any benefit?
Depending on what work he does, pretty much anything that can show some real world experience of working in business rather than just being a naive academic has to be a good thing.
Smaller companies will often struggle to take on placements just because it usually takes up people's time to supervise them but if he can convince that he can hit the ground running and provide them with some benefits quickly then that'd be a good way to start and probably the best way to try and get his foot in the door - any previous experience?
That's the thing, he knows his stuff and was in the top 10 students on 2nd year and probably first year as well (but not 100% sure on that one), but only real life experience is installing networks for a week before he had to go away and help our mum. Only practical stuff was everything he did at uni. He has a CV written down but again I'm not sure if it's good enough. Would someone be happy to have a look and give his opinion on it?
I would imagine it would be possible with some luck to find something. I started working as a volunteer in the finance department at Macmillan Cancer Support in Edinburgh, a friend told me about the opportunity, applied for it and had the interview with the person that looks after that department rather than some HR person asking me what animal would I want to be or other strange questions 😉
theres hope, we are a small IT company in surrey who take on undergrads for year long placements without much fuss. Summer placements are a bit harder due to the short time involved but working for free/ very little would probly negate that.
Id search for IT companies locally or even local offices of big companies and either direct email or even walk into the office with a CV and ask.
I'll have a look at the CV if you want - email in profile
Always worth trying and experience is worth a lot on an IT CV, I think he'd be lucky to get a placement though as it's a bit of a commitment in time to baby-sit from the company taking him on. He'd probably end up doing routine desktop stuff anyway and spend most of the time getting up to speed with the current infrastructure rather than doing anything useful.
What sort of work placement is he after - a year-long thing or just some summer work?
The IT company I work for has offices in London and Edinburgh and are quite accommodating for the right graduates, and offer both year-long placements and vac work - drop me an email if you're interested...
In Scotland, the NHS has a national PACS which is a system storing diagnostic images (x-rays and the like). Both the local and national servers are undergoing some upgrades over the next year which will involve some careful project maangement due to the sensitive and critical nature of these systems. he might want to appoach the IT and radiology Depts of some hospitals if this is of interest to him, and TBH it's some pretty impressive stuff involving multi-layer networking with specialist medical protocols
Thanks all for all the advice and replies. Just came back and I'll be emailing some of You guys. Again STW collective did not disappoint 🙂