Research

Rapid7

What are they? A high tech security company

Headquarters – Boston

Belfast office

The Belfast headquarters is an innovation hub – named one of the leading places to work at.

Set up in 2014 with 1 employee, now they have over 300 employees.

The teams building owns all of the company flagship products.

They have an awesome reception, makers space and library, main café and a gaming space.

Placement program

  • Interns become valuable members of the team from day 1.
  • About 80% of the interns receive employment offers to return to work with them after graduation.
  • Around 150 interns have come through the process since it started in 2014.
  • Some of the initial interns are now Lead Engineers.

Jordan – previous intern

  • Started 7 years ago.
  • 9 Interns entered the office with a full time staff.
  • In the chaos he learned and became able to apply knowledge from university into his designs.
  • Has travelled all over – from being sent to courses, company kick off in Belfast or Boston.

Questions:

  1. What was your training before you went into Rapid7 Jordan? I’m just wondering if there’s a preference to what type of education background you’re coming from.   –  He went to Jordanstown not knowing real word experience. EAGERNESS is what they are looking for, don’t worry about feeling that you are not really. Prove that you are ready and willing to learn.
  2. Internships make a huge difference in building up your skill.
  3. Experience will not be a factor – they know we have just started to learn.
  4. There is room for transitioning between roles; even between different UX roles.

Opportunities available for me –> UX design & engineering and product management  5 going to UX design and 1 to product management

What to expect as an intern

  • Opportunity to work on real production code from the very start.
  • Formal training program to help you settle.
  • Learn lots of new technology.
  • Be treated as a regular team member.
  • Be assigned a mentor – guidance and assistance. Helps you learn at a pace that suits you best within the company.
  • We will give you an experience as valuable as possible, setting you up for a successful final year.
  • Offer to return as a graduate if you have been successful.

What do they expect from me?

  • Good attitude and aptitude.
  • Passion for learning technology.
  • Experience is not necessary they will provide us with the tools to learn and be successful.

Erin – previous intern (engineering)

  • She did not have the instill training interns get now.
  • Joined in 2016.
  • Only girl in the team – never felt like it though.
  • She was able to write code from the ground up and architecture information, take part in meetings.
  • Studied in Queens.
  • Questions were always welcomed.
  • Types of technologies she is using now – pretty much everything was new to her. Java, and really any new product or software that is relevant – you are constantly learning. Its a great way to mature in your career also.

Advice:

  1. Ask questions.
  2. Learn through your mentors.

Benefits

  • Attractive salary about £20000.
  • 24 days annual leave and bank/public holidays.
  • Private health, life and travel insurance.
  • Company pension plan with generous (7%) employer contribution.
  • Company shares plan at 15% discount.
  • Employee assistance program – mental health support.
  • When in the office, snacks and refreshments available.
  • Pool table, table tennis and board games available.
  • Regular office gatherings with breakfast, lunch or dinner provided. Monthly they do Belfast time hall to hear what everyone is working on and welcome new hires.
  • They have a speak easy pub in the office.

Next steps

  1. Apply!!!!!! closing date 29 October.
  2. Candidates will be contacted to schedule their own 15 minute pre screen interview with one of our engineering managers – COME PREPARED – big about CV, yourself, company and interest surrounding industry.
  3. If successful, you will be contracted regarding a technical interview. 90 mins – Check spam folder pls  These will happen in November. Puzzle you must solve with the team to see how you would work together.
  4. All interviews will take place via Zoom.
  5. the talent acquisition team will be in touch with applications outcomes and offers.

They have a take home challenge – get a design problem and solve it with wireframes and prototypes then get 15mins in the interview to explain it.

TIPS for the design challenge

  • Be prepared.
  • Do research, explore their products.
  • Avoid a vanilla CV.
  • What will make you stand out (in a good way).
  • Take your time with the design challenge. Don’t just show a polished design, show your thought process.

Final reflections

  • They will look to see when you join them what roles makes the most sense to your skills and designers and natural abilities – They will ensure you are doing the role that is best suited for you. Transition is an option.
  • Big JAVA house. C++ and Python.
  • For UX development they use HTML, SASS, react, vanilla ds.
  • UX design – figma, miro.
  • They are not super strict when it comes to time. As the norm expectation work from 10 – 4 or 9 -5. Really whatever works best, just use some sense and work in a productive way and in a time that works with your team.
  • Still working from home but they don’t know what will be happening next year.
  • Design challenges – hard design challenge of scale.

Rapid7 placement talk

Speaker: Mike

Date: 28/10/21

Who is Rapid7?

  • Service protection/security company.
  • Protection.
  • Prevention.
  • Security.
  • We are the force behind the people who protect you everyday – securing your connection online, making sure your connection, passwords and data is secure. They build this software.
  • We protect the tools that protect society: Cloud security, threat protection (Use AI to anticipate threats), Security automated, vulnerability management, application security, Incident detection and support —> could consider this a novel cause.
  • We are powering the cyber protectors.

Why does UX matter in Cyber security?

  • We are designing the critical experience for our users. It must be powerful, reliable and extensive. But they are nothing if they are not usable – they must be user friendly.

3000 staff across the UK, Japan, US, Amsterdam, etc.

Design system:

  1. Discovery:   Brief –> 5 whys (Is it inline with user wishes, is it technically feasible, do we have the people to do it?) –> Heuristic review –> feasibility review (talk to some engineers, product managers before suggesting it) –> Competitor review (Help or support pages are great to show how they explain their process) –>  Tooling (What tools will I use to achieve this? It’s about choosing the right tool to create prototypes easily to then present it to the team – what is the tool quit of my team?) –> User research (what are your users really saying? User centered) –> Analytics () –> Market landscape
  2. Design: Insights –> Design principles –> Design system integrations –> Brand experience –> Artefacts –> Exploration  –> Progress review –> Prototyping
  3. Build: Learn at least the basics of HTML and CSS and Java so you can have an educated talk with the developers.
  4. Test: Prototype –> Peer test –> User test –> Device test (Put your designs in as many devices as possible as they will look different depending on their settings) –> Quality assurance (Don’t mark your own homework – you are not impartial) –> Accessibility test (Make sure whatever you create is accessible) –> Performance test –> Benchmarking (against other experiences – eg how many clicks does it take? How quickly can a user get through it?) –> Done criteria (Are you ticking off the criteria boxes? Can we automate this? Is it successful? … Ask for the definition of what being ‘done’ will be for this project)

They work in an agile way (2 week cycle for UX design).

At the end of the design system something gets pushed live.

What they are looking for:

  • Think in a problem solving way.
  • Accessible designing.
  • Being a great UX practitioner also means being a great storyteller – Tell them a good story of how you reached your design.

Design in an art. UX is a science

  • UX process can be learned.
  • Design is products solving, creating something that is aesthetic and usable.
  • Learn by doing it, living it and practicing it. Get your hands dirty. Learn through doing.
  • Understanding the why and testing ideas.

What to say in interview:

  • Want to work for this company as I believe the work they do is a novel cause that protects those that protect us.
  • Talk about design systems – how UX and UI should be implemented across.
  • Waterfall vs Agile design system – Agile is better but research it and make a blog post.
  • Be ready to tell the story of your work.
  • Be ready to tell your story.
  • Help design the critical experience and empower the protectors.
  • They like slack as a social platform.

Application process dates and info

  • How long until we hear back: Couple of weeks – November 8th.
  • They review websites as soon as you submit it #screed.
  • Remote and onsite work.
  • It will be a 10 month long placement.

At the careers fair event I had a few 1 to 1s with some of the members of the Rapid7 team – what I was able to learn is that they are a great company, that would offer any placement student a nurturing place to learn and grow.

Here are the notes I took:

Global payments

Deadline: 05/11/21

Apply on Workday with CV and portfolio

Interview process:

  1. Interview (30-40 mins)
  2. Second stage interview (present short design challenge)
  • Stephen Picton – director of communications – him and Jordan will be reviewing application
  • UX is the heart of the development process in Global Payments.

Intro to Global payments integrated

  • Focus on integrated payment solutions
  • Sites across the world
  • Allows users to manage account, invoices, credit card, etc…
  • 24,000+ employees
  • Dominic was a placement student last year
  • Belfast and Foyle sites accounts for 80% of the revenue for the company

Intro to technical communications

  • UX:  UX design system –> Ux practices and processes –> Customer feedback –> Accessibility
  • Tech Docs: API documentation (A way of interacting with the software) –> Compliance documentation (Finance, security and compliance) –> Practices and processes –> Style guide

Merges to create —> UX WRITTING

  • Hardware interface
  • Software interface
  • User guides
  • Help center

Accessibility is a huge thing for Global Payments especially since in the states by law the UI must be accessible. 

Intro to Genius

Team goal

  • Promote Ux
  • Conduct research
  • Collaborate across disciplines
  • Deliver design decisions
  • Create solutions
  • Seek feedback and validate design

Strategy

  • Lean product strategy
  • Agile product development

What to expect

  • You will be part of the team

Gemma’s placement experience

  • Built out interface devices
  • Prototyping used tool called protopie
  • Communicating with others, at home and overseas
  • Journey maps
  • empathy maps
  • Creating device illustrations
  • How you can apply
  • Hypothesis mapping
  • The mad hackathon (Allows employes to present ideas they think global payments should develop)
  • Start date: July 2022 for 12 months
  • Working hours: 37.5 hours per week Mon -Fri 9:00 – 5:30

Key skills they want

  • design for accessibility
  • UX writing
  • Illustrative skills
  • Design thinking – they are not that worried about the portfolio
  • Brush up on understanding of UX process for interviews. How to put yourself in the mind of the user
  • Design UX and UI for design thing with one of their screens and show them?
  • Empathy maps

The HTMLs and the CSSs

Building a website with Webflow

By now I have completed the following areas of my design process:

  • Research
  • Discovery
  • Planning (sketches)
  • Content audit
  • Mock-ups

Now I have to focus on building a good and responsive website using Webflow.

Responsive Web design

This ensures your website will work in every device.

Book: Ethan Marcotte – Responsive web design.

Every website is made using HTML using an Editor like brackets or atom. When writing HTML it should all be in lowercase. HTML just basically wraps up your content in tabs to tell your browser how to display the information. There is always an opening and a closing tag.

Example <title> My website </title>

The only things that are seen in a website are the things within a body tag <body>

What to include under <head>

  • page title
  • CSS links
  • Other abstract things

What to include under <body>

  • Headings
  • Paragraphs
  • other things you can view

Having a good heading is vey important and useful as they help you structure your content and give the website a nice flow. Users skim the websites by headings so guide them to what you want the to see.

HTML links are very important <a href=” URL here  ” >This is a link</a>

HTML images    <img src= “name of image”   alt=””   This is a screen reader that will read the content for hearing impaired people.

HTML buttons: by only using HTML it would look very ugly but once you add CSS and add the proper code it will look more aesthetically pleasing.

Always add comments to your code to help other designers and coders. Be a team player.

Images are pulled into the website whereas links take you to a different place.

Link targets: this decides if once you click the link if you are taken to a new browser window or if the link opens in the current window being used. use target=’_blank’   to open in a different window.

Naming conventions; HTML spaces are bad. Do not use spaces for page names; its ok to do so for titles though.

Image format

Do not use a JPG file for your logo as if they are meant to have a clear background they will replace it for a white background. Use a PNG for images that need a transparent background.  PNGs keep the image quality better than JPG – these are all pixel based so once screeched they will lose their quality. SVG images however are vector based so they will not loose quality

Image dimensions: Consider image sizing very carefully as a very large image can make the website heavy and slow. Be considerate. If you need to resize an image, do so in Photoshop – it will make your life easier. They should not be over 600MG.

Always provide a text alternative to your images – Think accessibility.

Never style your content with HTML, always use CSS for this. HTML does not have the terminology to make the kind of design decisions CSS makes. For the HTML and CSS files to ‘talk’ to one another you must link them; that is why the CSS file is normally called “stylesheet” for easy access and linking.

CSS allows you to set up multiple properties within an element. It also allows you to select the sizes of your headings. Units of measurements used are PX (pixel), EM (this tells the text to scale and in what ratio to do so) This makes things easier to manage.  The EM tells the text to be that much bigger than the base size which will be shown in PX.

When writing your font family, make it so it applies to all your text at once so if you ever need to change it later on it will be easier.

In CSS   a {   means links.

Sectioning elements. These are defined in HTML (<nav>   <section>   <body>   <article>   <aside>) Aside is a sidebar. These are the primary links. When using the <nav> tag never use the actual word in the label as it will show up as “navigation navigation”.

The <main> element is were the content goes.

CSS Box model: this applies things like padding, boxes, boarders and margin. Padding is an essential element and if not well defined it will add padding to all the elements of the website. If you want to change it you would then have to specify with ‘top’ or ‘bottom’. Border, these can be added to a section. Margins are defined in the same way as padding. Margins are transparent and are not included in the click are of an element; paddings behave in the opposite manner. Explicit dimensions must be given at times to avoid an element taking up all the available space.

CSS selectors allow you to define an aspect of the content while keeping the rest normal. One does this by using class selectors. Using class styles allows you to  create different styles and apply it to many different sections.

Summary/Reflection

A nice and simple HTML file is invaluable as it will not break. As a designer the temptation to be super visual can be overpowering; a solution for this is CSS. When saving the files for the website it must always be well organized.

Step up Facebook career challenge

Speakers:

  • Ailbhe Menton (director of marketing science in Facebook)
  • Rachel Keane
  • Patrick Kennedy (Marketing science partner manager)
  • Safia Dawood (Marketing science partner)

Facebook mission: To give people the power to build community and bring the world closer together.

  • Acquired Oculos – virtual reallity head sets acquired by gfacebook
  • Workplace – basically facebook for work

Facebook quiz – how much do you know about us?

  1. Monthly active users – 2.8 billion
  2. Messages shared everyday – over 100 billion messages shared everyday
  3. Stories shared everyday – 1 Billion

Influencers

Someone who can influence others using their knowledge and relationship on a platform.

Most followed Instagram account is Instagram.

Marketing science mission

Our mission is to help all businesses grow by transforming marketing practices, grounded in data and science.

 

The challenge

What kind of events would clients from the shop attend?

  • Gala
  • wedding
  • fashion week
  • prom
  • award ceremony
  • premier

The problem

Jasper’s Designer Boutique has been advertising on Facebook and Instagram over the past 12 months. They have recently started collaborating with influencers to promote their products and would like to understand if this new collaboration is better for their brand awareness and sales.

The mission

We need your help answering these questions:

  • Which advertising strategy is working better overall?
  • Which is working better for brand awareness?
  • What can be done to improve their advertising on Facebook in the future?

Is there anything else you would like to analyze to improve your conclusions?

The Toolkit:

We will provide you:

  • Background of Jaspers Designer Boutique
  • Data for their latest social media adverts
  • Key questions
  • Hints and Tips to get you thinking!

Jasper’s Designer Boutique offers a range of occasion and formal wear and accessories for teens and adults of all ages.

  • Customers/audience – Unisex clothing brand (all genders) with a variety of styles and sizes to suit everyone aged 13 and over.
  • Sales – Jasper’s Designer Boutique is an online only store with no retail stores. Their website reflects the brand’s fun and colorful fashion style! Think more ESOS than Primark.
  • Location – While the company is based in the UK, they sell at home and abroad, with customers in the UK, EU and the US.
  • Goals – Their goal at the moment is to increase the awareness of their brand and to increase their sales. Growing these areas will help their brand grow and help them build a loyal customer base. This is good as it ensures repeat purchases, continuing sales, referrals, brand trust, steady income, greater market share, sustainability, reputation, word of mouth,
    Long term business stability and new business generation by reference. It’s also cheaper to keep old customers than to get new ones.
  • Marketing – They advertise mainly on Facebook and Instagram. They create their own social media adverts and work with local influencers to grow their brand and sales.
  • Data – They measure their marketing activities by surveying people who have (or have not) seen their ads, to see if the ads are successful.

Facebook utilizes a Randomized Control Trial approach to minimize bias and to help advertisers determine the causal impact of their ads

Deliver polls – would you like to buy from Jaspers boutique?

Each person in the controlled group will only answer 1 question at a time.

Add info after this look at slides

 

 

The storytelling

Once your data analysis over, think about how you want to communicate your results to your audience

Things to consider when presenting data:

1.How technical is your audience?

2.What is the conclusion you want them to make?

3.Is your insights immediately clear from the chart, or is there other information that will distract from your key point?

How can Jasper’s Designer Boutique increase their brand awareness and increase their sales?

Influencer vs Ads Only

1.Do campaigns involving influencers drive better results than ads only campaign?

2.Are the proportions different for those who saw the social media advert to those who didn’t?

3.Which strategy drove better Brand Awareness?

Creative Considerations

1.Does sound on/off work better for influencer ads?

2.Is it important to showcase your brand in the first 3 seconds?

3.What combination of platform and format works best to drive purchase intent?

What are your thoughts?

1.Is there a link between brand awareness and purchase intent?

2.Based on the information provided about the social media advert and the analysis you’ve produced:

  • Were both strategies successful? Did one perform better overall than the other? What could be the reason(s) behind this?
  • What should Jaspers Designer Boutique do for their next social media post? Should they stick with both adverts or combine them into one? What are the pros & cons of doing either?

3.If you had more time and more data, what other types of analysis would you run to help Jasper’s boutique raise their brand awareness and increase sales?

6pm on Friday 29th of October DEADLINE

 

Can be an infographic!

Making my website

I decided to use Webflow instead of coding it myself due to time constraints so I also kept notes of links so I would be able to organize my site correctly.

I had tried to make a mock-up of my website in Figma but truthfully I was inpatient and instead jumped right into Webflow – looking back I regret this as I would have been able to avoid some silly design decisions and saved myself time and effort if I had put in the work and made the mockups.

I realized early on that Webflow was a lot easier than having to do it yourself. It look a bit of learning and for that Webflow University and some YouTube videos were a great help in informing my process and teaching me how to more efficiently use the software.

During my 1st year I had purchased my domain name; this is something I am very glad I did as it fit in so much better into my CV than some random Webflow URL – it did however take me a very long time to figure out how to connect my website to my URL; cue in customer support for Webflow and Ionos (my domain provider).

I kept the home page simple and clean. I was however struggling with the layout options and alignments. It took a lot of tweaking but eventually I got it there. I made the navigation bar sticky as I thought it would make it easier to navigate the page. I also decided to add a ‘Hire me’ button to the menu bar that when clicked opens up my CV – I figured this would make me stand out?

I also added the illustration of myself as part of my introduction section of my home page as I thought it would bring across my playful and artistic personality as well as showcasing my skills.

I am having trouble fixing the blending of the button outline and the footer background colour. I do think that while the footer works it might be too simple and not informative enough.

I quickly realized that trial and error was my friend here as that is when I learnt the most.

I think it is really down to refining my ideas at this point and continuing to process.

Synergy

Synergy UX Internship

Session: Group session 1 – 1:30 pm

Speaker: Eimear Corrigan

Topic: Eimear will recount her experience as a UX intern. Eimear is now working full time as a UX developer.

  • She was able to be a UX designer and developer – a hybrid role.
  • In 2019 she stayed part time with synergy learning – something they do if they see your potential within the company. They were very flexible
  • In final year they were flexible and gave her time off so she could focus on her studies
  • There was a lot of progressing and opportunity within the company.

It is a very fast paced environment.

They are experts in creating learning with impact. They create engaging, intuitive and accessible learning platforms that deliver meaningful, measurable results.

What they do

  • learning management platform
  • Bespoke development
  • UX design – understanding users, their needs and creating a result that will be useful and meaningful to them

Applying for the role

  1. Prepare your knowledge in your area
  2. Be ready to talk about you. Sell your self
  3. Learn a bit about SASS, Mustache templates with PHP
  4. have an interesting and personal cover letter in your application – have interesting answers to questions: these things will give you a better chance
  5. research our company. Understand what we do.
  6. Show that you are keen to learn and develop – they will want to help you with that

Apply online

1st interview

  • Technical section – could be a technical scenario or general questions
  • Typical interview questions
  • Knowledge of company values
  • Prepare questions to ask – show interest

Beginning the role of an intern:

  • assigned a buddy – continuous learning, mentoring to enhance you skills and help with your learning
  • get used to the systems they use: Atlassian, Slack, Asana, Moodle. Learn their platform: totara.academy

Day to day as UX developer:

  • team meetings
  • daily stand up – quick catch up of projects (around9;30)
  • Git – learn this and SAS and JavaScript
  • Client communications
  • Support

Perks

  • perkbox (get this after being there 6months)

Current opportunities:

  • Intern UX developer
  • Intern QA Analyst
  • Intern Support

Where will I work? Remote/flexible

There is potential for a future career with Synergy Learning

You will be provided by the hardware and software needed to do your work.

Synergy is looking for…

Personal, engaging, tailored for the role and application. Show you have researched the company, that you know the role and that you are interested in it. Show A LOT of interest into the company . Look up their website and blog.

They do a lot of projects for charity – maybe include the fact that you like this?

They might ask you which ones of their values you can relate to most – Eimer said passionate and

Who to contact:

  • Mandy for anything to do with the company    –  Can get a 1:1 with her to ask more about the application process.
  • Dylan for how its like working while studying

How to submit your portfolio when applying:

  • web portfolio would be preferred – add as a link. If its not online yet try Google drive

Peer feedback, evaluation and improvements

After having a peer feedback session on my website mockups it became clear to me that I had created an incredibly busy and overcrowded website. Here are some notes on the feedback I received:

The biggest issue people had was my spacing and in retrospective I agreed, it was way too busy and the background clashed with the information, it made it hard to see and distinguish. Also the background drew focus away from the main purpose of the website which was to promote my work.

I then broke down the comments given to me and seriously considered them and came up with a few solutions. I first decided to go back to my mockups to see what I could do to maybe salvage the design or if I could create something out of my previous idea before completely scrapping it.

I made some notes on possible adjustments and then created a quick paper mockup of what each slide would look like on a phone and concluded that it indeed was just too much information and general business to give to a user.

I then came up with another idea but ultimately decided to not pursue it and instead I tried to create a design that would be simple, uncomplicated and easy to follow.

I ultimately decided to go back to basics and improve the design of my year 1 website – here is how it went:

 

This idea quickly developed and proved to be a better option than my previous one. I wanted to further explore it before going with it so I made more wireframes and kept trying to figure out how to make my website an enjoyable experience.

Local and Global internship & placement hacks

Speaker: Patrick McGranaghan

Company: Liberty

  • Ask about the specific roles that are available, show queen interest.
  • Dress to impress on the 1:1 booking.
  • LinkedIn profile must be completed —- employers search this.
  • Be honest with recruiters, they can tell if you are lying.
  • Give module names and marks.

Local and Global internship & placement hacks

check out the EDGE Award for extra curricular activities eg Cultural Awareness

Industrial work placement:

  • This should be relevant to your degree. The university will now have new levels of flexibility. you will be awarded a Diploma in Professional Practice (DPP) at graduation.
  • These help you explore potential career paths, gain invaluable work experience to boost your CV, develop vital transferable skills, build industry networks and get a taste for the real world of work.

Internships are also a great option.

Placement options

These are the levels of flexibility offered by the university to ensure we gain the best experience for achieving the Diploma in Professional Practice.

  1. Professional Work Placement: 12 month placement (25 weeks) or an enhanced flexibility for full-time and part-time work/combination of shorter placements.
  2. Civic and economic.

When and how to apply?

Sooner rather than later. Have your CV and application into the employers sooner rather than later. Doing this will also take the pressure off you.

UUConnects can help with getting an Ulster mentor – worldwidehttps://www.ulster.ac.uk/alumniandsupporters/volunteer/mentoring

Ways to find placement

  • Handshake offers live vacancies.
  • The Employability & Careers Department.
  •  Go Global Go.
  • Global Expression of Interest.
  • Placement Queries can be sent to Placements@ulster.ac.uk.

Try to arrange a follow up with any employers after the 1:1 if possible if they are willing of course! It will leave a very good impression.

Puppet

I also attended an event for Puppet – a super cool company that I am quite interested in applying for.

Here are some of the notes I took – excuse the chicken writing 🙂

I made some quick notes before-hand in preparation for the career fair to ensure I ask the right questions to get the most out of the experience.

It was a very informative event that helped me inform how to apply for future placement opportunities that may arise.

 

Here is a link to another blog post on Puppet.

Careers Café

Student Placement Experiences

 – 

Speakers:

  • Almac – Codie
  • Lea Folliard Study USA Programme
  • Curtis Donnan Ornua
  • Caragh Fitzpatrick Ulster University

Codie Lea

Her year working as a technical quality officer with ALMAC Pharma services.

She found her placement through LinkedIn, she had to complete a metric testing and an interview. She was based in Craigavon. They are a prestigious company that offers travelling opportunity – this is what inspired her. Their values/mantra/vison lined up with hers.

They were impressed with her interview as she smiled and was confident when communicating and when she had not known how to use machinery she would give examples of how she would overcome that at uni lab. Ask about confidentiality for data integrity  in your interview. How is my career going to progress ask during interview and placement

Induction process:

  • It spanned over the course of 2 weeks.
  • New starts were grouped together to facilitate a joint learning experience.
  • Introduced to different members of their team who shared their experinces and job roles.
  • Multiple site tours across Craigavon site.
  • End of the induction process involved the integration into the main office space.
  • Buddy system allowed for an easier transition.
  • Training
  • Equal treatment between placement students and TQ officers.
  • Had an output to challenge my difficulties and challenges, such as navigation of quality softwares.
  • 1:1 monthly meetings

As part of the team you are eligible to get awards – strive for this

Contract offer:

  • She was offered a permanent role starting July 2022
  • Only required to achieve a minimum 2:1 classification
  • Due to her placement experience, she will commence as a first level officer and not just a graduate

Further study opportunity with ALMAC:

  • Eligible for the further education scheme within ALMAC Pharma Services
  • Allows her to maintain her position while undertaking a masters degree
  • Fees will be paid for by the company
  • She would be eligible for MSc Pharmaceutical Validation Technology at Technological University in Dublin.

Career progressions:

  • Her placement experience is a career boost, a stepping stone in her career – make sure this is so for you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Curtis

He is currently working in University: Vice president in the student union.

  • He enrolled into the Study USA and got in. 1 of 50 students who get to go over.
  • He went through a serious of interviews, filled personal statements and had to appear before a panel. He went to West Virginia. It was quite remote so it was a challenge being so remote.
  • Curtis. You come across as confident and this really makes a difference at an interview. Confidence can be learned … The Interview 360 tool on the employability portal is a fantastic way to practice your interview skills and get immediate feedback.
  • Left with a 4.0 GPA (First class honors).
  • Enhance your confidence option – EDGE activity ulster.ac.uk/employability/edge/career-and-skills-development/improve-your-your-presentation-skills
  • Study USA program is extremely competitive – stay connected with Curtis; he can help.
  • vp.coleraine@uusu.org

Caragh Fitzpatrick

Is a technical Support Administrator in Ornua

  • Ornua is the owner of Kerrygold.
  • They are collaborators who export the goods throughout the world.
  • She was with them for 13monts July to August.
  • ornua.com/working-at-ornua
  • Its a very high paced company.
  • She was treated like an employee during her placement.
  • She completed 7 courses whilst there: Internal Auditing (first placement student to do this ever)
  • She had to be very organized from day one as it was such a fast paced environment
  • She was only in the offices twice; the rest she did online.
  • Language barriers and culture awareness is so important – check out the EDGE activity – Culture Awareness

Olivia McKee

Placement year at Ulster University

Geography student working as a Research placement assistant at Ulster

TIPS:

  • Check Handshake and LinkedIn everyday!!!!
  • Practice interview
  • Writing CV help
  • Employability and careers team
  • Keep your options open
  • Don’t limit yourself it would also be useful to gain experience in different sectors