IP Telecom grows talent base with FIT

Apprenticeships can be a great way to shore up the talent pipeline

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Image: Edmond Dantès via Pexels

In association with FIT

In most roles in Tech, experience counts. But what happens when the experience column of the CV amounts to course completion and no “real world” experience. Move on to the next candidate then, yes?
That is where significant amounts of employers are going wrong. Talent is being overlooked for the sake of ticking a box to say that the candidate has already participated in industry. But without being exposed to industry, how does the talent gain the experience necessary to fulfil these criteria.

It is an understandable concern when taking on new talent – you are taking a punt on someone with the academic qualifications but may be a bit ‘green’ when dealing with your customers.

This is where apprenticeship and college internships become the key to bringing that gap between the theory and the practice. Recognising the nature of this bridge has been key to the success of IP Telecom in gaining and retaining some exceptional talent in the IT world.

Encouraging and nurturing talent from the engineering and IT world has been something that CEO of IP Telecom, Shena Brien has been passionate about since her days as a student. Recognising how hard it was for some of the best talents from her class to get that start in industry. When it came to her own business, Shena was convinced that by working with the right programme, great talent could be onboarded to the business in an effective and efficient manner.

“Since the inception of IP Telecom, they have been taking on graduates who started with them for work experience during their college years before returning to complete their courses. Indeed, some of them are still with us today. This has played a factor in how we recruit employees today, using employee referrals, college placement programmes to recruiting from within the company and promoting internally,” she says.

“By way of a real-world examples, two candidates who came to us through these types of programmes are now senior engineers on our technical support team. They came to IP Telecom some years ago as people who looked to be a great fit within our firm, having displayed the necessary technical skills in college to accomplish most of the tasks that someone in a support environment could be called upon to carry out, but without that level of ‘real world’ experience as they would join straight from college.

“Having started off as entry level technicians during gap years, the recruits rapidly showcased their ability and adaptability when it came to dealing with some of the most technical questions that came from our customers.

“For every shining star, we felt that the ones that got away, the summer experience engineers that went back to complete their course was an opportunity lost. We identified early on there had to be a better way to get smart people at the start of their careers hooked on the IP Telecom world of working and show them the vast array of opportunities that we had to offer, from support, to field engineering and even through further study to move into software development or engineering support.

“At the same time, IP Telecom had been keeping a close eye on the FIT Tech Apprenticeship programme, knowing that this was an ideal platform to secure this smart talent with a desire to learn new skills, adapt and grow their careers while working. When FIT launched their two-year computer networking apprenticeship, we recognised that this was a natural fit for IP Telecom and could be an exceptional well of talent to draw upon for a fast-growing company while teaching existing staff the important skills of mentoring and management.”

O’Brien continues: “The process itself could not be simpler. An online application form to fill out followed by a call with an advisor as to the work placements we could offer and where they fit within the programmes on offer that year. After that it is a simple matter of reviewing the CVs of the potential candidates and arranging interviews.

Once this process had taken place we looked at doing something a little different with our candidates, the first six months of the FIT Tech Apprenticeship programme are purely college based, however, excited as we were to meet our candidate and as people-led company, in order to help onboard our preferred candidate into our company culture we invited them to meet the team, spend some time with us both in office and in the remote environment to get a real feel for the way companies such as ours work, ensuring that the candidates then feel part of things from day one.”

Industry perspective

The company itself benefits from this approach as well. Students today are exposed to new and emerging technologies and processes ahead of their adoption by general industry. So not only do you have someone who is keen to learn from industry, but someone who wants to educate others on the team about some of the leading-edge technologies that can improve the status quo and improve customer outcomes in a quicker and more satisfactory manner.

You may be wondering at this point if the likes of the FIT Tech Apprenticeship programmes may work with your business, wondering about costs and effectiveness. Well on both counts it works for businesses such as ours, not only is there benefits to business including grants of up to €2,000 to help cover salaries, but these candidates will go on to become valued members of the IP Telecom team.

“Our apprentice will join the same team as engineers mentioned earlier, who started in the same front-line support and are responsible for mentoring our latest recruit from the FIT Tech Apprenticeship programmes,” says O’Brien. “This recruit was chosen down to his great passion for the IT Industry and is currently finishing his final year in college. They have already become a valued member of the team and we look forward to the time in coming years when they are mentoring our next recruit from the FIT Tech Apprenticeship programme.

“All in all, when it comes to an efficient, cost-effective, and successful way of recruiting the sort of talent that we in IP Telecom seek, we cannot recommend the FIT Tech Apprenticeship programme, and the calibre of its recruits highly enough. As FIT themselves point out, there are over 12,000 vacancies in the IT sector in Ireland, of which 75% could be filled through apprenticeship programmes. If your company is currently seeking new tech talent, there is no better place to start.”

Fastrack Into Information technology (FIT) is the national coordinator for tech apprenticeships (QQI Level 6), FIT provide programmes in software development, computer networking and cyber security (with more in the pipeline)”.

For more information visit fit.ie.