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Ask HN: Why don't more UK graduates want to join start-ups?

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Re: Ask HN: Why don't more UK graduates want to join start-ups?

#11

Post by ian »

dcaunt wrote: post #8

Have you contacted universities directly? I studied at the University of Birmingham and they had a named contact for getting in touch with students. That person often forwarded relevant communication (job opportunities, recruitment events) to us and I took my first job based on one of those emails. I agree with robfitz that people don't talk about startups. The companies that do the milkround are the usual suspects.…

We've reached out to a ton of university career services and CS & engineering departments. Some have been very helpful, for example the team at Queen Mary have been amazing and probably 50% of their CS students are coming down. But many of the others have been a lot less engaged and willing to promote to their student body, vs the tried and tested options of banks & consultancies.

Do you think we should take the siliconmilkroundabout on tour? I'm wondering if part of the issue is that we don't have our own stall alongside the usual suspects you name.

Re: Ask HN: Why don't more UK graduates want to join start-ups?

#12

Post by robinwarren »

When I left university I interviewed at a small company and a startup but in both cases they were just interviews for jobs I got through a recruitment consultant. That was all I knew of how to get a job. I think the problem is that recent graduates are unaware they could be doing anything other than looking at cwjobs and phoning a recruitment agency up.

Possibly timing is an issue, right before or after final exams may catch students when getting a job is more top of mind?

One other idea might be to organise some paid internships. If you have a large number of companies in willing to take interns on (point them to Joels 'smart and gets things done' if they want to see the benefits of getting smart people interested in their company before they leave education) then that may give the CS departments a reason to get undergraduates interested in a startup career.

Good luck with the event this weekend, it looks fantastic.

Re: Ask HN: Why don't more UK graduates want to join start-ups?

#13

Post by piers »

It also might be worth getting in touch with Student Unions as some students might have entrepreneur societies that have final years that would be interested. As well as Math and Computer societies.

Generally I've found that the Unions might be more willing to spread the word to the students than the universities.

Re: Ask HN: Why don't more UK graduates want to join start-ups?

#14

Post by randomhero2k »

ian wrote: post #10
randomhero2k wrote: post #6

I have only just heard about this event and only because a friend sent me this article on twitter. I have had a quick search but can't find any accounts for this event on twitter. If you guys had an account you could send us details on there then with one retweet, all my coursemates would know about it.

We have set up a twitter about the event, and would love if you could help retweet it to your coursemates. It's here: http://twitter.com/#!/milkroundabout Which university are you currently studying at, and outside of twitter, what would have been the best way to help make you and your classmates aware of the event?

I have recently finished at Brighton university and so me and my mates are all looking for jobs. Other companies in the past have got students to promote for them, posting on the university intranet, facebook groups etc. I can't make this event but I hope you do another.

Re: Ask HN: Why don't more UK graduates want to join start-ups?

#15

Post by ian »

robinwarren wrote: post #12

When I left university I interviewed at a small company and a startup but in both cases they were just interviews for jobs I got through a recruitment consultant. That was all I knew of how to get a job. I think the problem is that recent graduates are unaware they could be doing anything other than looking at cwjobs and phoning a recruitment agency up. Possibly timing is an issue, right before or after final exams m…

Paid summer internships is a smart point. Many of the companies exhibiting at the event are keen to having summer tech interns, and perhaps if we packaged that up better we'd get more engagement from university tutors. Maybe we should create a listing of all the summer internships available as well. Thanks for a helpful idea.

Re: Ask HN: Why don't more UK graduates want to join start-ups?

#16

Post by sthulbourn »

I've been really lucky, straight out of university I've managed to only work with startups. I've had the opportunity to work with a few startups to get them to a first release [I graduated and moved to Germany helping startups as a contractor].

But generally, working for startups isn't mentioned as an option to students at any point during their course. This is perhaps an issue with university faculty, they probably assume it's not an option since they don't have any contacts to any startups. Placing a call to Microsoft recruitment is easy.

Another reason might be an issue with the education students receive at university, I feel as if only 10 students out of a class of 120 people will know how to program correctly. Startups normally want people with lots of knowledge in many different areas, they don't want people who only know how to do certain things; Hiring a graduate who can only code HTML isn't normally an option for startups since they need the most out of the little money that have.

Until at least 50% of a graduating class are able to perform in multiple areas, backend, front-end, perhaps mobile in multiple languages (they don't have to know them amazingly well, but enough to program efficiently whilst checking documentation – when needed!), startups aren't really an option for most graduates. You would be amazed at how many students can't debug problems in their code, because they're taught to just copy code they find on the internet or on some sort of Blackboard style intranet app.

TL;DR: Students graduate with piss poor skills and until more students graduate with the needed skills, they'll never find themselves in a startup.

Re: Ask HN: Why don't more UK graduates want to join start-ups?

#17

Post by ian »

piers wrote: post #13

It also might be worth getting in touch with Student Unions as some students might have entrepreneur societies that have final years that would be interested. As well as Math and Computer societies. Generally I've found that the Unions might be more willing to spread the word to the students than the universities.

We've hit quite a few entrepreneur societies but not really student unions. We'll look into that. Thanks.

Re: Ask HN: Why don't more UK graduates want to join start-ups?

#20

Post by dcaunt »

ian wrote: post #11
dcaunt wrote: post #8

Have you contacted universities directly? I studied at the University of Birmingham and they had a named contact for getting in touch with students. That person often forwarded relevant communication (job opportunities, recruitment events) to us and I took my first job based on one of those emails. I agree with robfitz that people don't talk about startups. The companies that do the milkround are the usual suspects.…

We've reached out to a ton of university career services and CS & engineering departments. Some have been very helpful, for example the team at Queen Mary have been amazing and probably 50% of their CS students are coming down. But many of the others have been a lot less engaged and willing to promote to their student body, vs the tried and tested options of banks & consultancies. Do you think we should take the sili…

That's great - shame on the others for not passing it on.

Clearly the big boys visit universities because they have the resources to do so. If siliconmilkroundabout were to visit on behalf of a body of startups this would clearly be more efficient than every startup trying to send one man. I'd love to see this happen and I think it would have a huge impact on students, especially given the contrast with other visitors. How it is funded would be an issue and perhaps donors would see their company specifically promoted but I think that can be worked out.

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