The long summer holiday now looms for recent school and university leavers complete with parents whining about their kid’s job prospects. What an ideal time to consider joining Connected for a few months on our Summer of 2011 Intern Project.
We’re looking for a couple of bright, keen and hardworking peeps who have a basic knowledge of the web world and want to work in an exciting a cutting edge company. We code using HTML 5, CSS 3 and Perl and use deployment tools such as GitHub and Capistrano all managed under 37Signals rather excellent Basecamp.
We build bespoke and production applications for UK-based companies that dramatically improve on-site conversion rate. We also market and sell our rather excellent myBookingWizard product and we’re keen to take on 2 interns for an initial period of 3 months with the view to extending the internship to 6 months and then potentially offering a job at the end of it.
Our Internship Programme and is designed to ensure the provision of fair, open, high-quality internships as a means of improving social mobility and engaging wider pools of talent. We know times are tough for graduates and 6th form school leavers and believe that internships are a great way to meet in the middle. Internships help young people gain employability skills, such as teamworking and project management, that will be invaluable in their future careers and also a great way for employers such as ourselves to thoroughly assess the skills of potential teamies.
Adherening to the CIPD Guidelines on Internships, the prime purpose of internships is to provide interns with a meaningful experience that enhances their employability and skills. There are clear business benefits for Connected to running a good internship scheme, such as gaining a new and motivated member of staff, bringing new skills and perspectives to your organisation and potentially improving productivity. We feel that the quality of the experience is the most important factor for the intern, as the short-term economic costs of an internship can often be offset by the long-term advantages to the intern’s career.
The selection process mirrors how we recruit full-time team members and, although the positions are unpaid, we expect the same level of work and commitment that we would expect from a full-time member. The 3 or 6 months spent in the intern role we see the successful candidates carrying a wide range of functions to support the business including support, customer services, programming, sales and marketing. This is a fast-track method to evaluating whether the intern will thrive in these environments and, although not guaranteed, a better than good chance of securing long-term employment.
We have a good track record in working with interns, our current head of operations started life out here as an unpaid intern 5 years ago and two other interns have gone onto full-time jobs. Every intern is provided with a dedicated mentor who will work side-by-side with the intern and also have a weekly one-to-one session. Additionally, at the end of the 3 months initial term a full appraisal and reference will be provided.
If you are interested in joining the team then I suggest you drop a 1 page email to Andy Holland outlining why you think you’d fit it well here. Be creative and try to stand out. Don’t send us a conventional CV, no-one reads them these days.
Note: Currently interns are classified as volunteers and are not paid a salary but reasonable travel expenses will be reimbursed monthly. Hours are 10am to 4pm, based in our Halifax office.
