Graduate scheme for UK CS Student

Question

Hi,

I have recently graduated from University with a 1st class computing science degree and I'm looking to get work as a programmer (Java or C#). I am looking for opinions / recommendations regarding any UK (Preferably Yorkshire area) graduate schemes which offer good experience, pay, etc...

Many many thanks.

Answer 1

While it's hard for me to answer this since you live in the UK and I'm not sure how internationally based these sites are but I'd recommend looking at Dice.com, CareerBuilder.com, Monster.com, or Yahoo! Hotjobs. I believe one or some of those will have UK job postings.

Edit: www.jobserve.co.uk or www.cwjobs.co.uk are better for UK based I.T. jobs.

Answer 2

It may also be useful to check your local university careers centres.

Chances are they will be able to put you in contact with a number of places:

• if you're looking for full on "Graduate Training Schemes", you may end up applying for one of the larger companies.
• most universities should also be able to put you in touch with startup incubator places which will have lots of smallish companies doing interesting stuff. Some unis run their own incubators, as a way of monetizing original research.

Good luck.

Answer 3

I am based in the UK and always use jobserve.co.uk when I have been jobhunting in the past.

You may also want to look at http://www.prospects.ac.uk/ as this maintains lists of graduate jobs.

Answer 4

Having first hand experience on getting a software developer job in the UK as a junior/graduate, I have to tell you that almost all IT jobs here are advertised through recruitment agencies.

You don't need to send your CV to each agency though, just publish it on Monster. Putting it on Monster in a Word Document format and not forgetting to make your telephone number public are really important, since most recruitment agents are not willing to read anything else than Word documents and do not prefer sending e-mails.

Put some effort into your CV. Make it really good. Do not forget that human resources people have a totally different way of thinking than you. In my experience a cover letter is not really important in this field.

If you do these things and are indeed competent, you will have a job in the matter of weeks.

Answer 5

Try itjobswatch its all agencies but it will give you an idea of what skills companies are recruiting for in your area and also handily they provide what the average salary advertised is!

Some smaller companies will not use agencies so it may be worth a visit to the library to get a list of IT companies in the area

Also may be worth looing through yell.com for software compaines or even just through google

Answer 6

Why would you choose a graduate scheme?

If you have some programming-related work experience, why not jump into contract work. Arguably you will end up being better equipped for the market (graduate schemes don't seem to be consistently good) and you'll be paid closer to what you are worth.