I arrived at the studio and was greeted by the receptionist, Gill. There were other graduates waiting to be seen and more kept arriving whilst I was there. All in all there were around 14 graduates. We were directed to one of the meeting rooms where we were asked to talk between ourselves. I was not aware that not all the graduates were interested in the UX position I was interested in, some of the graduates were interested in development jobs and others were interested in PR and SEO. It was a great chance to meet other creatives and people who I will inevitably be working with in the future. It was interesting to speak to PR and SEO graduates as I have never had contact with that area of web design. The first part of the day was a tour around the two offices and meeting some of the employees. Once the tour was over we were split into small groups and had to present 'three things that make me me' to our groups. We were then asked to brainstorm as many products, services and technologies as we could think of. We were given 5 minutes to do this task as we were told this was about quantity not quality. The main reason for this was to get everything out of our heads and onto paper so we could then look at all of our ideas and filter out the good ideas. We did this task and then were asked to try and mash-up some of the ideas and see if we could create a new service, product or technology. Before we could do this we were asked to swap places with another group and use their ideas and suggestions. The main concept of this session was to get us to fully understand the concept of team work and collaboration. We were set strict rules to not interrupt any member of our group so that all members had their chance to speak and put forward their ideas. During the mash up our group came up with some excellent ideas such as wearable transport tickets, interactive mirrors and a dating website matching users up based on their musical interests. A member of the Code team liked the music dating idea the best so we decided to work on this idea to present back to the rest of the graduates and team.
Heartbeat:
Our concept was to design a dating service that links users based off their musical interests. The app would use a method like tinder which offers suggestions and user can swipe left or right to either see more or not. The site will also suggest upcoming gigs and offer a link to Ticketmaster (or similar) for users to buy tickets. This could also act as a great way for users to meet up and go on dates.
We created two personas of typical users and narrowed down our target audience to single music lovers.
During the presentation David did most of the talking as his skills better suited pitches. I really enjoyed this part of the day as it gave me the chance to gain some insight into what it is like to work in the industry.At the end of the presentations we were all given the chance to vote for our favourite pitch. Our group came second with the winner pitching an idea for an app to use in a zombie apocalypse.
Tom (head of UX) told us that we should continue with the project after the day as it was such an interesting idea. Unfortunately we have not kept in touch but I plan to continue with the project as part of my Extended Practice module.
Overall, I found the day very refreshing as it was something I had never been involved with before.
CODE posted a blog post about the day:
Getting creative with graduate recruitment
| by Dina Gregoire
Recruiting can often be an arduous process, and I think it’s fair to say that graduate recruitment is especially challenging.
The CVs that flood in when we advertise a grad opportunity here at Code are largely very similar, so determining the best of the bunch is a tricky task. Plus the current skill shortage in the digital industry means the competition to recruit high calibre talent is especially tough.
But is it possible to find great graduate talent nowadays? From my recent experience, I would say that the answer to that is an undoubted ‘yes’ – you just need to approach the process in a fresh way.
Over the last few months we’ve been on an exciting journey to find the next batch of graduates to join the Code Computerlove team. Rather than relying solely on CVs and interviews, we wanted to establish a clear view of the students’ ability alongside their aptitude to work collaboratively – and also offer them a valuable insight into how we work – to ensure we found grads that were the best possible fit.
We decided that the best way to do this would be to get out there and meet the students interested in UX and Development, then bring a shortlist of candidates together at the Code office so we could see their skills in action while at the same time giving them a valuable, first-hand glimpse into our culture and our expectations.
Manchester Metropolitan University’s ‘Meet the Employers’ event
The journey began back in January, when a team of Computerlovers took the opportunity to meet some of this year’s new digital talent at MMU’s ‘Meet the Employers’ evening.
As we were one of the only digital agencies at the event, it gave us a great view on just how much interest there is in our industry. It was fantastic to hear that some of the second year students who attended already had an understanding of our brand as well as the test-driven development approach we use, and our Lead Developer Naz and MMU graduate-turned-Senior Developer Anthony enjoyed sharing insights on both how Code works and the digital industry as a whole.
I was pleasantly surprised to see how many of the students were truly passionate about their future and itching to secure a good placement, and I was especially impressed when a fair few passed up the ‘end of event’ buffet in favour of chatting further with us about a possible future at Code.
CVs were handed over, contact details exchanged, and just like that we had our first batch of keen graduate applicants.
Manchester Digital Talent Day
In February, we headed to Manchester Digital’s Talent Day hoping to drum up even more interest in our graduate scheme.
We aimed to stand out from the crowd in the best way possible: as well as offering a Raspberry PI competition prize, we were by far the biggest team there, with everyone from Computerlove apprentices to senior staff on hand to represent the agency.
Thanks to the enthusiasm of the team, the day was a roaring success and we received a whole wheelbarrow full of promising applications.
Code Computerlove Graduate Day
As we started looking through the CVs and comparing notes on the students who’d made the biggest impression, we soon discovered that there were a handful of real standout candidates who were already proactively throwing themselves into self-learning and showing off self-initiated projects that really impressed.
Spoilt for choice, we drew up a shortlist of the students who we were most eager to get to know further and invited them to come join us for our first ever Graduate Day. I’m glad to say that each and every one accepted, and that they all turned up for the day full of enthusiasm.
After a quick introduction to the agency and an office tour, we put the collaboration skills of our grads to the test with an idea generation exercise called a Mash Up. In groups, the students had to brainstorm around products, technologies and services and then were instructed to refine their decisions by combining the elements to create innovative, fresh concepts, before presenting their ideas back to us.
Walking between groups as they worked, we were truly blown away by the level of ability, attention to detail and quality of thought process on display. In fact, we were already speculatively placing people in roles within different Code teams – a great indicator that we had some truly fantastic talent on our hands!
To round off the day, we ran some speed dating-style 1-2-1s with our lead developers. This was a great chance for the students to find out more about the career opportunities and the potential progression that can be made through our graduate scheme.
As a result of the day, we’ve successfully recruited five fantastic graduates that we’re really excited to welcome to the Code team and, more importantly, that we feel 100% confident will be able to hit the ground running.
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I got in touch with CODE several times about the position I applied for but had no reply. I found out that I had not got the job when I read the blog post. I was very disappointed that CODE had not got in touch with me to notify me that I didn't get the job as I think it is common courtesy to do so. I still love the work they produce and plan to stay in touch but I do have a negative association with them from this.
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