Your university degree allows you to learn a lot about a range of topics, but with the broadness and speed at which it progresses, it’s impossible to learn everything you want by just focusing on your degree. This is where Forage comes to help!
Forage is an online virtual work experience platform that hosts several online programs built and endorsed by a slew of big companies. These courses offer great experience in technology and related roles like software engineering, cyber security, or data science. Here are some of them:
Each of the courses contains tasks engineered to simulate the real-world experience of the industry and each only takes a few hours to complete.
As part of your degree, you get access to all the courses for free and you can do as many as you want. I recommend experimenting and trying different roles as this resource is a perfect addition to career development or career decision-making. And it lets you experiment with fields you might otherwise not get the chance to learn from!
With each course completed, you receive a certificate that you can add to either your CV or LinkedIn account.
I was able to experiment and try a range of different courses that helped test skills and give insights into careers I could go into in the future. One of these was a Software Engineering course run by Electronic Arts.
They covered a range of insightful and helpful topics through 4 different challenges that only took an hour or so each to complete, which made it a great extracurricular activity.
This was particularly beneficial to me as I hope to work in the game industry following university, but that didn’t stop me from looking into other courses for fields I wouldn’t want to commit an entire module to, like data science. Cognizant provides an interesting bite-sized look at data science and its applications through its Artificial Intelligence Virtual Experience Program. Introducing things like Google Collab and machine learning, the course provided a nice overview of a part of computer science I didn’t know much about. Here are the different sections:
I could keep talking about some of my favourite courses, but we would be here for a while. Instead of learning about my experiences with forage, I wholeheartedly recommend you try it out for yourself as soon as possible as not every step to employment is massive, but rather a mere 4 to 6 hours addition.
Returning from a year in industry to complete their final year at Newcastle University, we interviewed Zach Smith about their time with Newcastle Strategic Solutions Limited. This is what they had to say:
Who did you do your industrial placement with?
Newcastle Strategic Solutions Limited
What was your role?
Software QA Tester
Why did you do a placement?
I did a placement in order to gain some concrete work experience in the software development industry, this is so I could hopefully gain an advantage over my competition when applying for jobs upon graduation
When did you start applying and how many places did you apply for?
I started applying around February/March time and applied for at most 20 people
How was the application experience?
Relatively straightforward, mostly just making sure my CV was up to date. I wrote a cover letter for each company I applied for and tweaked my CV in scenarios where different experiences might’ve been more useful
What, if any, help did you get from the university when applying?
The help I received from the university was mostly to do with their careers site, where companies could post placement opportunities. It was a huge help and ultimately lead me to get this placement
What work did you do over the course of your placement year?
I got the opportunity to do a range of things:
Programming automated tests for builds of NSSLs websites which introduced new features.
Testing on live servers of clients to ensure that everything was working as expected before deploying for the public to see and use.
I also had the opportunity to manually test features on the website to ensure that they met the accessibility criteria required.
I was working alongside teammates in a scrum team and would test whatever the developers would work on before giving it the seal of approval.
How was the overall experience of doing a placement?
Fantastic, I was treated really well during my time at NSSL, except for the odd stressful moment, I enjoyed it. One key value that I really appreciated working there was that my input was important and was truly taken into consideration when working on different projects even when it wasn’t about testing. I made a lot of new friends there during the early talent program that they ran too.
My experience here helped dictate what portion of computer science I would like to specialize in for my final year. Thanks to my time testing the accessibility of the website and new software developed, it has made me want to work in accessibility and hopefully work to improve how accessible software is to the general public.
Would you like to go back to that company after your final year?
Based on my experience? Yes.
With my current circumstances? No, I only say this because following graduation I’d prefer to be employed somewhere where I can live with my family whilst working for a while before I go settle in somewhere like Newcastle. To be honest though, if I was offered a high enough wage to cover the expenses of living alone easily then I probably would take something from NSSL.
For those of you who haven’t used the careers service much, you might not know about the abundance of resources it has to help you build up and develop your CV. Even if you’ve never made one before, the careers service offers tons of help. I tried out their resources for this and this is what I found out.
Before writing this blog post, I hadn’t put too much thought into my CV. Sure I had previous versions used to apply for certain roles, but nothing I was overly happy with and certainly something I wasn’t confident about showing employers. But by spending an hour or two using the university’s CV-building resources, I was able to build a professional-looking CV from scratch. And there is nothing stopping you from doing the exact same thing.
I don’t intend to give a word-for-word recounting of what resources are available to use, the careers service already does a fantastic job of that. Instead, let’s look at what I found most helpful.
CV and Covering Letter Pathway
The MyCareer page is not really something I’ve spent much time using other than casually searching for job or internship opportunities, so I found myself pleasantly surprised to find that there is so much more here. There are different pathways to help develop certain skills which will massively improve your employability, and one just happens to be about CVs. Let’s navigate to it first and then talk about what it has to offer.
Step 1
Log into MyCareer using your student email address
Step 2
Select Pathways
Step 3
Select CV and Covering Letter Pathway
If done correctly, you should see a series of steps to complete to get you on the road to a fantastic CV.
I want to draw your attention specifically to step 3, Create your CV and covering letter, as it has an extremely useful resource that I find myself consistently going back to.
I’m of the belief that the CVs and Covering Letters Workbook is the bible of the employability world. This nifty little document is packed full of tips and steps to follow when building your CVs and covering letters, giving insights and templates for key areas like work experience and education. It provides a list of action words to really make your CV pop out to employers and even a checklist to use to critique and improve your own CV. There is something here for everyone so even if you don’t use it to make your CV, I wholeheartedly recommend looking when you want to take your application to the next level.
CareerSet
With your university account, you get access to the fantastic tool called CareerSet. This tool gives you instant AI-generated feedback on your CV, at any time of the day.
When you upload a PDF copy of your CV, CareerSet analyses it against key stills recruiters are looking for, specifically impact, brevity and style. You can make changes based on the feedback given and then resubmit it again straight away.
CareerSet scores your CV based on a percentage. Try to aim for at least 70% as that should give an indication that you are on the right track.
Initially, I was worried about what kind of feedback this AI tool would give me for my CV, and I was half expecting something generic, but I found myself pleasantly surprised. CareerSet breaks down the issues with your CV into clear sections, giving an indication of which areas need improvement, and which you are already doing well with:
It also gives a brief summary of where you went well and what you can improve next:
One of my favourite bits of the tool is the Line-by-Line analysis which breaks down your CV and gives suggestions on how you can improve each line. It is excellent when you are redrafting your CV and ensures the language you are using is engaging:
If you want to go a step further, CareerSet also allows you to tailor your CV to a specific role by searching for keywords in your file to see if they are in the job description. While this isn’t guaranteed to make your application successful, it will definitely help you stand out and get through the initial screening process for CVs, something usually done with AI!
It is important to note that CareerSet only works for chronological CVs, so more creative or skill-based CVs won’t work as well. Luckily enough though, the university provides 1 on 1 sessions with CV advisers so you can get an extra level of feedback.
Feedback from a CV adviser
I booked one of these sessions and was able to get a time slot only a day afterwards. And while the workbook and CareerSet were invaluable tools, this was probably the best help. The 20-minute session almost imitated how an employer would look at your CV, going through it quickly to get an idea of what works, what doesn’t and what doesn’t stand out. They took the time to explain why certain things worked and why certain things didn’t, rather than just what should be changed (like with the AI tool). Key tips like evidencing all your skills in your CV, using as many technical terms as possible and focusing on content rather than visuals were some of the most helpful things I learned. I highly recommend booking one of these appointments as while an AI tool can be helpful, there is nothing more helpful than another pair of human eyes looking through your work.
Hopefully, by the time you finish this article and have tried each of the things recommended, you will have a CV you are happy with and confident to show employers. Be sure to tailor your CV to each of the roles you are applying for. This might sound like a tall order, but the more you do this, the easier it will be to adapt. Best of luck in all your job applications!
Whether you are a stage one student hoping for a summer placement, a stage two student thinking about a year in industry or someone in stage three applying for roles after university, your portfolio is an essential part of your career as a computer scientist. But how do you make a good one?
Your portfolio is the best impression employers can get an idea of not just what you’ve done, but what you can do. Showing your different projects, the coding practices and how you have applied your knowledge will be much more beneficial than your CV when it comes to applying, hence why showing your work in the best way possible is so important.
Here are some recommendations on how to best show off your work in a portfolio as well as some tips to make the projects you show really stand out for employers.
GitHub
Chances are you have heard of GitHub, certainly so if you are in your second year or above. The version control titan is the bread and butter for every programmer, allowing you to make use of git to store multiple versions of your projects and access them wherever you may be. But if used correctly, GitHub can be an excellent place to host your portfolio.
On your GitHub profile you can see all your projects in something like this:
It likely won’t be too exciting and certainly will not stand out against a slew of other GitHub profiles. But it is a suitable place to start from, you can show off some of your best projects and talk a little bit about yourself in a personalised ReadMe. And it turns out that going that extra step is a lot easier than you would think, all thanks to something called GitHub Pages.
Making your own website has its advantages (something we will get into later) but some aspects like hosting can be difficult, expensive and time consuming. GitHub Pages solves those issues by letting you use GitHub to host your own portfolio website. And it only takes a few steps!
GitHub Pages allows you to transform your existing repositories into websites to show off things like your portfolio, projects, or documentation. This is a great next step as it allows you to add your own unique spin to your projects that will make your applications stand out.
You don’t need to worry about databases or servers; however, you will need a bit of HTML knowledge. But even if you aren’t confident with web development, this is a fantastic way to get some experience and really show off to employers. GitHub pages can be used with Jekyll to ease this process and make use of templates (look here for more details).
The official documentation for GitHub Pages has a great video breaking down how it works and there is an abundance of content to help support you as you build up your very own portfolio.
https://youtu.be/2MsN8gpT6jY
It is worth noting that while GitHub Pages does allow you to host your own website, this is limited to one per GitHub account. But you can have unlimited project sites.
Making your projects “Portfolio Ready”
Making your portfolio look nice is great, but you want to make sure it isn’t all style and no substance. Here are some tips on making the content of your portfolio really stand out.
Tidy up your existing projects
Good, readable code is an essential part of programming, and even more important for employers. When looking at your portfolio, employers won’t spend much time trying to understand your code, so making it as clear and efficient as possible is a great way to start things on the right foot. It will show employers your coding style and make it easier for you to understand your own work when you come back to it down the line!
There are lots of different ways you can add subtle improvements to your code either as you do it, or in retrospect when working on your portfolio. Making sure your code is consistent with things like sensible names for variables, methods and files is a great place to start.
One mistake many people make is to comment every single line of code to explain what is happening. This can almost double the size of your files and make them a lot messier than they need to be. If you think you need to explain each line, then you may need to go back and refactor your code with better variable names and simplify it as it is likely too complicated.
But that doesn’t mean removing all comments in your files. Giving brief descriptions of methods and their return types is a fantastic way of reducing the amount of time you read, as it gives a quick understanding of what something does without having to go line by line to understand it. Just make sure to use comments only when you feel they are needed.
Here is a simple example below for calculating a factorial:
Bad factorial functionGood factorial function
Both functions work in the same way, but one is clearly more understandable than the other. The first only uses generic variable and function names whereas the second uses sensible names for both. This makes it a lot clearer even without the excessive commenting that the first method.
Now that your code looks good, there are some things you can do portfolio side to make your projects stand out before employers even start looking at them.
Give a brief description of what your project is, indicating the key features that you want to show off, what your contribution is (especially if it’s a team project) and what languages are used. This tells people looking at your portfolio what you can do straight away and make them more likely to look at your work more closely. Here is a good example:
Work on projects outside of your degree
One of the great things about your degree is that you get the opportunity to work on several different projects that can help you build up the solid foundations of a portfolio. The only issue is that every other student in your year, ~300, will have similar projects, hence why it is important to work on projects outside of your degree.
This allows you to explore your interests and fine-tune your skills for the field you want to go into, and it also looks great for employers as you are showing them how you work independently and what your interests are. Also, having more projects is always beneficial as it allows you to be more flexible with what you want to show to different companies.
When building new projects, it can be quite daunting to figure out exactly what to work on, especially with other commitments, including your degree. But don’t worry, you don’t need to be making some cutting-edge development with every project you have. Practicing new features and developing your programming skills is a great way of showing your personality through your portfolio.
A great type of project to work on to help build up your portfolio is to recreate existing projects. Be it something as simple as the Instagram home page, it is great practice to try to build something from the ground up and try to understand how it works. It helps give insight into how companies develop software and there is always the opportunity to iterate and improve, something especially good when you end up applying for the same company!
Tailor the projects you are showing off to the companies you are applying for
Now that you have tons of professional-looking projects on your portfolio, you need to choose what to spotlight, so be sure to tailor it to the company you are applying for.
You may have projects covering a wide range of things, but chances are you will be more confident in some than others and each will highlight different skills. Aim to show the breadth of skills you feel are most beneficial for your employability, but make sure not to focus on only one or two. Highlighting six projects that are all the same only gives no real indication of everything you can do.
Be sure to show a mix of work that highlights your strengths and weaknesses. Team projects and solo projects, different languages and different topics show not just your range of abilities to employers, but who you are as a person – something which should be a focus of every portfolio.
Remember, Rome wasn’t built in a day, and neither will your portfolio. Take your time and do it in iterations. Be sure to make use of University resources both in and out of the School of Computing to help you as you develop your portfolio and always ask people to check it over.
The upReach Tech500is designed to support widening participation students graduating in 2023 and 2024 who are interested in learning about technology careers.
Delivered in partnership with leading tech employers, including Google, Samsung, GCHQ and Bank of America, the Tech Summer Bootcamp will give participants a headstart in securing internships. As part of the upReach Tech500, participants will also benefit from a free programme of exclusive career events, skills development opportunities, mentoring.
This is a great opportunity for Widening Participation students to receive free, personalised career support for entering the technology sector.
