If you want to pursue a career in a field you’re excited about, but also want to go down a path that’s going to provide lucrative opportunities for decades to come, then IT is the right choice.
Jobs like data scientist, software developer, information system manager, or information security analysts, have had some of the highest projected growth rates between 2019 and 2021 and are still expected to grow much faster than average. So clearly they will continue to be in demand for the foreseeable future.
But how can you start in IT, if you don’t have the experience nor the knowledge necessary?
This article will show you all you need to know and you’ll find a great opportunity right at the end! Keep reading to see how you can polish your resume and don’t miss a chance to start smart in your IT career.
So, should you even dream of making IT big in one of the industries with the highest demands for hiring and the greatest increase in growth? More so, if you don’t have a solid CV that shows loads of experience and practice already. Here’s a short and straight answer: YES!
It’s never too early to start and as we will illustrate in this new series of articles, we have named #StartSmart in your IT Career, there is a path to follow that has proven ideal for a number of students or graduates. If they could secure their positions, and build their success step by step, you can too!
Fresh graduate in Sibiu, looking for career opportunities in IT. Where should I start?
With a little bit of research, you will find out that there are surprising opportunities in Sibiu which will help you build up your portfolio/CV, and also offering you the chance to get acquainted with the business environment.
But before you start pursuing these opportunities, here are a few tips to set your expectations right:
- Create a short list of roles and positions you may be interested in
- Build up a CV that is based on who you are, rather than what you think sounds good in interviews
- Watch out for ways of improving your formal and informal education/experience
Yes, we know it would be a dream to get the job with zero field experience. Realistically though, you’re probably not going to go from zero to hired without at least a handful of projects. It’s not a myth that hiring managers want proof!
We do agree on this and we may ask for it during some of our interviews. (If you want to be prepared for this kind of interviews and check if you have a solid CV, don’t miss out on the chance given at the end of this article!) But here is where we part from the consensus knowledge of how to #crushIT in the early years and say:
At Ropardo we truly believe you can Learn. Experiment. Achieve…
…and we don’t expect students to pack loads of jobs in a CV. Instead, we’ve created a wide range of programs for students and early graduates, programs that allow us to skip the part where we ask for experience, instead creating the environment for that experience to be built heads-on.
Programs such as paid Internships. What are those?
➡ At Ropardo we have designed our internships for students who want to be guided and trained on the job.
➡ These are dedicated to students in final years that already have some type of software knowledge and skills (because they have already experimented with freelancing or followed a formal education in the field).
➡ During a paid internship at Ropardo, you will be included in a project and work with our seniors. We value the completion of studies, so we offer flexible hours for all our interns, taking into account that an internship completes the formal education.
➡ You’ll be able and encouraged to ask loads of questions. There is even a “no question is a bad question policy” in place as our colleague Dan, a former intern, has told us when reminiscing his internship days.
Dan came to meet us as part of our internship program during his 2nd year at the Faculty of Engineering (ULBS) Sibiu.
“I’ve learned things I still use. An internship is a shortcut to getting that much-needed experience. During those 3 months, you come to learn more than you ever could in 4 years of faculty.”
➡ One of the best parts is you get paid to learn! This means students sign employment contracts in our internships and will be rewarded for their work.
➡ And here is another perk: after the internship, you can be invited to join the team. It is what happened in Dan’s case (Dan came just for the intern program, but 5 years later he is still part of our team and one of our most active volunteers for our educational projects like Infoliceanul).
Summer practice and thesis co-tutoring programs
Let’s say you are not ready for a 3-month commitment. Then there is something else you can try. It’s called summer practice – a 3-week summer project designed for students. This enables you to learn new technologies hands-on, negotiate tasks and resolve them in the designated timeframe, while also getting in touch and experimenting the business environment. Our friendly professionals will guide you through this whole experience and offer information and support as needed.
At this point, we find it important to also mention our thesis co-tutoring programs, which make it possible for us to provide support for graduation thesis/dissertation. During a Co-tutoring program we’ll appoint one of our colleagues to help graduates in choosing the subject and guide them, while they write their thesis closely monitored by their professors. We did exactly this in 2022, co-tutoring 3 theses alongside the professors from ‘Lucian Blaga’ University of Sibiu:
- Application for Distributing Tasks in a Team Using the Stable Marriage Algorithm
- People counting using Machine Learning
- Pollution level analysis using an IoT platform
You can read more about how the thesis co-tutoring session went this year here.
SIGN UP FOR A FREE CONSULTANCY HOUR TO CRUSH IT IN YOUR FIRST INTERVIEW
Is there something else to add up to your portfolio?
If you are interested in expanding your knowledge and building your reputation, you can do that by competing in contests like HSE (“Hardware and Software Engineering”), Innovation Days, or taking part in conferences such as “Imagination, Creativity, Design, Development”. Ropardo is supporting these contests, helping their organizer, ‘Lucian Blaga’ University in the whole process. So, there is a strong chance we might discover your talent during these competitions and ask you to join our team!
Round up
As you can see, there are a lot of actions that you can take to get from zero experience to a strong CV. Bottom line, no matter how you choose to start, either in a summer practice or an internship, there are surprising opportunities in Sibiu, providing you with key competitive advantages and helping you build a future in software engineering.
Don’t miss the rest of the articles in the #StartSmart series where we’ll show you the journey of some of the students that dreamed of an IT career and are now living that dream and crushing IT.