Job adverts, placement information, links and general employability information
CRSI are a consultancy business that works with the most innovative start-ups in tech and science.
They are currently offering placements for the next academic year for students interested in science, innovation, business, or technology.
This would be ideal for Computer Science students currently in second year preparing for a year in industry, who want experience in the business sector.
Apply now:
https://crsi.applytojob.com/apply
Find out more about placements at CRSI here:
We have three placement streams this year:
These streams encompass a number of related teams which candidates might be placed into during their time with us.
To help students decide which opportunity is right for them, we have several events coming up focused on our opportunities in Tech and our assessment process – they are all free, virtual, and will be recorded.
Students must register to attend the events via our website – registrations close at 23.55 GMT the night before each event. If they register and do not attend, they will still receive the recording.
We interviewed senior games lecturer, and former Director of Business and Engagement for the School of Computing, Dr Gary Ushaw, about what you can do to improve your employability.
Career opportunities for Computing students (especially games)
As part of my role as Director of Business and Engagement for the School of Computing, I had an overview of all career, employability and placement activities for our students.
As a part of Game Lab, I have a lot of successful links with the game development industry. My term as Director of Business has recently come to an end, so I am reverting to focusing on the games industry. However, I remain more than happy to talk to students about careers and placements across the digital sector.
I worked in the video game industry for many years (lead programmer and engineering manager with Ubisoft, BBC, Sony, Rockstar, Atari) so I have an extensive network of contacts in that industry, which has widened across the entire UK game development sector due to the success of our graduates from the MSc and MComp in Game Engineering.
We work with every major game development studio in the UK (Activision, Rebellion, Ubisoft, Epic, Nvidia, Sony, Rockstar, Warner Bros, Microsoft, Sega, Sumo, etc, etc) as well as the independent game developers around the northeast and further afield, and international developers around the world. They all employ graduates from our MSc/MComp, provide industry talks, and advise on the course content, because they know the high quality of our graduates.
The key word here is “opportunity”. As a school, we provide a lot of opportunities for students to meet potential employers from across the digital sector and beyond. We also provide opportunity for improving your interview skills, CV feedback, etc. We are currently ranked third equal in the country for employability of our undergraduates in Computer Science, which is due to our fantastic students seizing opportunities.
Different companies focus on different areas, many will be interested in technical skills, but all are interested in the ability to communicate and work well with others. If there is one area I would highlight, it is the team project. Employers do not want to hire so-called hero programmers, who do all of the work themselves. They want to hire team players who can forge meaningful and productive relationships with their peers. Our team project in Stage 2 is designed to provide that experience and opportunity.
CV, Cover Letter, Portfolio, Interview, Code Interview
They are all equally important, with some sectors focusing more on some stages (portfolio for example). The key is to remember that each of those elements listed is a mechanism to get you to the next stage of the process. CV and portfolio get you to the interview and technical test stage. The other thing to remember is that interviews are a two-way process – you are finding out about the company, and whether you want to work with them.
Seize the opportunities.
Yes, absolutely. Email me, or just come to my office.
Please fill out one of the following forms, the one relevant to your current stage, to give us some insight as to what areas of employability we should be improving to help you.
Stage 1
https://forms.office.com/r/WjRGbbdw1n
Stage 2
https://forms.office.com/r/ijaQG9LSyx
Stage 3
https://forms.office.com/r/34dayVgatM
By filling out one of these surveys, we can get a better idea of what content and resources we should be creating to help you as students.
Your help is much appreciated!
For most, university is about gaining the necessary skills and knowledge to enter a certain field or industry. It is this reason why a lot of people quite easily fall down the rabbit hole and assume they must have their whole university time planned, with placement along the way before concluding in the perfect graduate role.
Especially for those who are just starting, the untapped potential you have at your fingertips over the next few years can be really overwhelming and you can’t help but try to plan everything as soon as possible (I know I did). This isn’t sustainable and will likely lead to early burnout.
To hopefully help you with the process, the following article lays out a method of breaking down how you can improve your employability over the course of your university career. This is just a rough guide; some stuff will work for others that doesn’t work for you. And that’s okay.
If there is one thing you do learn though, it is that you do not need to do everything straight away and even the smallest step is important.
This is the second article of three, focusing on what stage two students could be doing at this next stage of their employment journey. If you are interested in any other stage, Stage 1 or Stage 3, please click the respective link.
Securing Placements
Stage One done! Congratulations on completing your first year. Regardless of how it went, don’t dwell on the past, because from here things truly begin to ramp up. While in first year I recommended maybe spending about half an hour working on your employability, now you should probably start ramping up a little bit. Especially if you want to get a placement.
For many, you may be thinking that you have plenty of time to secure placements for third year, but they can be extremely competitive to get so the sooner you start the better. This is even more important for larger companies like Microsoft and Google who tend to search and hire earlier in the year.
Be sure to make use of the careers service to help improve your CVs and Cover Letters before you start applying, as they will be able to spot any weaknesses in your applications that could cost you an interview. It might take some time for companies to get back to you about applications but in the meantime, you will be confident in the fact you have applied for roles in a calm and collective manner rather than rushing to send applications off later in the year while juggling assignments.
For some students, a placement year might not be the thing for you (I know it wasn’t for me). That is perfectly fine, but it doesn’t mean you’ll have nothing to do. It just means you have more time to fine-tune your portfolio! Working on extra projects is a fantastic way to get companies to hire you. And you may also want to consider applying for shorter roles you can either do alongside your studies, or over the summer between stages 2 and 3 (The MyCareers page is great for this as it advertises roles done with the University).
Networking and Interviews
After that initial rush of applying for placements, be sure to try and catch up with your studies. It can be a difficult thing to juggle both your degree and employment, so don’t feel bad if you drop slightly behind!
Hopefully, you will start receiving responses to applications at some point during semester 2, or even semester 1, and if they like what they see, you may be in with an interview. In a post covid world, a lot of interviews might be over video, but there are some cases where they may ask you to come to their offices. This might mean that you must miss some lessons but if you let your personal tutor and module leader know, it should be fine. The Careers Service also has resources to help you prepare for interviews and assessment centers so that you can really shine out to employers.
Regardless of if you are going on a placement or not, there is something you must start doing. Networking. Certainly not the happiest word in the English language, networking can fill you with existential dread, but it does work. Whether it’s talking to other people at an interview or attending a short conference, just talking to people will help down the line, especially if you manage to get some LinkedIn connections!
Portfolio Progression
Hopefully by now, if you tried to secure one, you have a placement for next year. Fantastic! What now? You might think you can put your feet up for the rest of the year and to a certain extent you can. But there are other things you can be getting up to. At around this time of year, you might be working on your team project, which is something great to include in your portfolio. But what else should you include?
If you haven’t been working on anything outside of your degree, you might have a solid portfolio of work, but it will look exactly like everyone else’s. Spending time working on your own projects, be it a mobile game, recreation of a piece of software or just something fun you made in your spare time, is a great way to stand out. If you want more tips on how to improve your portfolio, check out this article.