"Moving to our premises in Golden Square gave us the opportunity to focus on our functionality - our new infrastructure is reliable and allows for continued growth both in Aberdeen and internationally. We are looking forward to having continued support from Converged Communication Solutions in the future."
Neil Robertson
SPD
Young Graduates Can Boost Smaller Businesses
10th January 2012
Hundreds of thousands of new graduates are seeking employment each year in a job market which is likely to face challenges for some time to come. Twice as many graduates are chasing each job vacancy compared to a year ago, whilst graduate unemployment reached a 15 year high of 20% in 2011.
Many face a struggle to gain the practical skills required to give them a head start. Whilst students and graduates must ultimately take responsibility for their own employability, employers of all sizes can play a key role in supporting their development to ensure a skilled industry in the future and help strengthen the economy.
Aberdeen-based Converged Communication Solutions is one local SME (small and medium sized enterprise) which supports the recruitment of graduates, seeing it as a win-win situation for businesses and the individuals themselves.
"It's important that SMEs provide opportunities for graduates to gain experience and develop the appropriate skills required by our industry," says Neil Christie, Technical Director. "The IT industry constantly faces challenges in sourcing a talent pool prepared for a fast-moving, commercially-driven workplace. It is also important to encourage them to stay and work in the North East, rather than have them attracted away to the rest of the UK or abroad, or tempted into large corporate organisations.
"At Converged we offer a variety of services so recruiting experienced professionals with the relevant skills can be challenging. Recruiting graduates through our graduate training scheme enables us to bring individuals with good general IT skills into the business, and then train, develop and encourage them in the more complex areas of our services."
According to figures from the FSB (Federation of Small Businesses), SMEs now account for 99% of all Scottish businesses and for over 50% of the entire private sector. They can be an excellent choice for graduates looking to gain in-depth experience and responsibility, with a real opportunity to make a visible contribution to the company itself.
This is true for the current graduates at Converged, who have just completed their first year graduate training programme.
Colin Cheung and Richard Bain, both graduates from The Robert Gordon University, impressed Converged last year during the recruitment process and have continued to add value to the business, impressing their customers with their level of support and becoming an integral part of the team over the course of the year.
"The benefits and successes that the guys have brought to the business and the team have been unquestionable," says Neil. "Colin and Richard started their programme as first-line support, working mainly on the phones and providing remote support to clients. Progressing to second-line support, they now help operate a fully-functioning helpdesk and alternate between being based in the office and being the designated field technician on a weekly basis. This provides our customers with faster, more efficient support, minimising their downtime."
Carol McKay from SPD Ltd, one of Converged's clients, commented, "Richard and Colin have proved to be great ambassadors for Converged. They are always extremely polite, helpful and professional when visiting our offices and communicating with our personnel. They are very patient and committed to ensuring our problems or issues are resolved efficiently and completely to our satisfaction. They have certainly been a positive addition to our IT support from the Converged team."
"The experience at Converged has been fantastic," says Richard. "We've been exposed to more technologies and to every part of the business, which has been great for our learning and development. As a small team and business, the culture is very positive and every day has been a highlight - we've been faced with different challenges and opportunities which have provided great preparation for our future in the IT industry."
Richard is due to take up a role at The Robert Gordon University soon whilst Colin will be continuing at Converged on a further in-depth graduate programme for the next two years.
"It was a steep learning curve coming in at first but the knowledge, experience and opportunities we've been afforded by working with a company like Converged have been exceptional," says Colin. "University certainly provided a good grounding, but the experience of working directly with customers and a team of colleagues brings real everyday challenges with which to develop our skills.
"Our advice to other graduates would be to have the right attitude and use your initiative; gaining your degree alone does not provide a passport to the boardroom. Working with a small business affords you a great opportunity to gain significant responsibility and input within the business. The IT industry is extremely interesting as it's constantly changing so never expect to stop learning.
"Furthermore, find an agency to help you look for work. I sent loads of CVs to many companies and got nowhere. Using an agency that specialises in your industry can really make a difference, especially when they take the time to understand you and what you want to do."
Colin and Richard both came to Converged through recruitment agency Right People, based in Aberdeen.
Shaun Windram, Recruitment Specialist at Right People adds, "It's been really tough for graduates over the last few years. Being able to build and develop practical skills is certainly vital to help graduates into the workplace and up the career ladder. It would be great to see more small and medium sized businesses supporting graduate training schemes alongside the larger organisations, to offer greater opportunities and a diverse combination of skills in the IT industry and support sector growth. Bringing in graduates can provide a number of benefits: they are a long-term prospect, cost-effective, and can provide fresh enthusiasm and complement established teams well."
Neil Christie, Technical Director at Converged, plans to continue with their graduate recruitment scheme. "After our success with Colin and Richard, we would highly recommend other small businesses bring graduates onto their team; they bring new skills and very quickly learn the ins and outs of your business. We plan to recruit for a new graduate position over the next few months with further plans to take on more graduates later in 2012. These plans support our growth over the last three quarters, as we continue to expand our client base and service provision."
