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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?

#71

Post by arctangent »

ian wrote: post #34
arctangent wrote: post #32

I think your idea is superb, but your website would be better if there was a way to search through all the available jobs to see if there is anything in particular of interest. For instance, it would be useful to be able to see which funded companies were looking for a junior designer and then be able to look at the actual job postings themselves (e.g. via link to that company's website). I hope you have great succes…

Thanks for the feedback. We'll consider adding a list of all available jobs, that's a good idea. Re Leeds - how did your friend who is coming hear about the event? Are there email lists that we should have targeted that we didn't?

My friend moved to London from Leeds and works for a design company somewhere near the roundabout.

I'm not aware of any groups up here in Leeds that meet regularly and cater for hackers interested in working for a startup.

I've been to a couple of talks/beers with the local Linux User Group but I do miss the opportunity to talk about things a bit more web- or startup-specific.

I hear you guys have a bit of an after-work drinking scene going on down there and I'm jealous!

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

#72

Post by adaml_623 »

arctangent wrote: post #32

I think your idea is superb, but your website would be better if there was a way to search through all the available jobs to see if there is anything in particular of interest. For instance, it would be useful to be able to see which funded companies were looking for a junior designer and then be able to look at the actual job postings themselves (e.g. via link to that company's website). I hope you have great succes…

I've been looking through the website since the second rounds was announced and I think that the companies should all be tagged with what field they do stuff in and what technologies they use. For example Eduvee.com, I can see what they do but not whether they use Ruby, Python, or PHP.

And relevant to this thread. You should get the companies that want to take on Graduates to have a big 'Graduate Wanted' flag!

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

#73

Post by blazzar »

helipad wrote: post #31

I was a business graduate (Nottingham) & we were never pitched startups either. I was very willing to join a startup, but I also tend to rail against the Silicon Roundabout. I'm just personally not that interested in London. Are many of these companies based elsewhere? It's funny because something like this would do very well with Nottingham students. The dedicated business campus also has many computer science stude…

Keep an eye on Notts Tuesday as mentioned and pop along to one of the meetups at Antenna in town, a lot of startups attend.

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

#74

Post by jlind »

hailpixel wrote: post #9

I'm a founder of Lyst, one of the companies who will be involved in the event. I have two theories about why the traction for so-to-be graduates hasn't been amazing. 1) Location. While London is definitely business and cultural center of Britain, I believe it's a bit of a slog for students to travel down to the recruitments fair, especially since most of the best universities are located outside of the city. SO going…

The second problem is even further exacerbated as early startups don't want "employees". They want "Employee #1"; someone who is passionate and ready to help push the company forward.

I'm in my senior year of college here in the US and this definitely nails it for me. I've had some solid internships where I've done actual coding / ops / etc, but I don't feel like I'm at the technical level where I could graduate and make huge impacts for a startup.

Are startups who are past the "Employee #1" phase (or even employees 2-5, I'd imagine) in a different position in regards to this? (ie more willing to bring on a recent grad, because they already have strong technical employees/leadership pushing the company forward)

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

#75

Post by hailpixel »

jlind wrote: post #74
hailpixel wrote: post #9

I'm a founder of Lyst, one of the companies who will be involved in the event. I have two theories about why the traction for so-to-be graduates hasn't been amazing. 1) Location. While London is definitely business and cultural center of Britain, I believe it's a bit of a slog for students to travel down to the recruitments fair, especially since most of the best universities are located outside of the city. SO going…

The second problem is even further exacerbated as early startups don't want "employees". They want "Employee #1"; someone who is passionate and ready to help push the company forward. I'm in my senior year of college here in the US and this definitely nails it for me. I've had some solid internships where I've done actual coding / ops / etc, but I don't feel like I'm at the technical level where I could graduate and…

My company is early stage still & we still have a very high bar for developers. That said, I hire based on a persons ability to perform, not the time they've been doing it.

If you have a github & portfolio that shows you can create, have an interest in what my company does, and can pitch it to me, I'd hire you.

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

#76

Post by jlind »

hailpixel wrote: post #75
jlind wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The second problem is even further exacerbated as early startups don't want "employees". They want "Employee #1"; someone who is passionate and ready to help push the company forward. I'm in my senior year of college here in the US and this definitely nails it for me. I've had some solid internships where I've done actual coding / ops / etc, but I don't feel like I'm at the technical level where I could graduate and…

My company is early stage still & we still have a very high bar for developers. That said, I hire based on a persons ability to perform, not the time they've been doing it. If you have a github & portfolio that shows you can create, have an interest in what my company does, and can pitch it to me, I'd hire you.

Maybe this is something that many grads might not realize too, as it's quite different in contrast with hiring processes associated with Enterprise Company XYZ.

It's one of my favorite parts about startup culture in general, though. Whenever I hear people saying stuff like this (re: hiring performance vs experience) my first thought is almost always "where do I sign up?!"

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

#77

Post by mmahemoff »

ian wrote: post #23
dmitri1981 wrote: post #21

A few guesses: a) The likes of Morgan Stanley, PWC and suchlike put a lot of effort into always being at the forefront of student minds, by sponsoring societies, etc. That often means they are the default first choice. They also organise a ton of events to show students how nice they are. b) Money. No getting away from this one. A decent starting salary might be in the region of 25k, the companies mentioned above usu…

These are all great points. On a) perhaps we need to use the milkroundabout brand to start sponsoring stuff during the year, similar to how the larger corporations do. On d) I totally agree with that. My main hack around that has been to try to have dinner with the parents/partners of those joining us to try to get them to buy into the opportunity and people behind the start-ups as well. That's also one area where in…

Definitely makes sense for milkroundabout to sponsor events and build awareness of startups in general. Individual startups don't have the resources and longevity to continuously be building awareness over the long term.

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

#78

Post by paulsb »

ian wrote: post #34
arctangent wrote: post #32

I think your idea is superb, but your website would be better if there was a way to search through all the available jobs to see if there is anything in particular of interest. For instance, it would be useful to be able to see which funded companies were looking for a junior designer and then be able to look at the actual job postings themselves (e.g. via link to that company's website). I hope you have great succes…

Thanks for the feedback. We'll consider adding a list of all available jobs, that's a good idea. Re Leeds - how did your friend who is coming hear about the event? Are there email lists that we should have targeted that we didn't?

When I lived in Leeds I used to attend the Open Coffee meetings (monthly) and the BarCamps (annually), where people would talk about start-ups and start-up events, so you could target these meetings (if they are still going). I doubt you could target students directly without appearing to be spammers.

You (perhaps collectively with other roundabouters) could try holding some sort of competition for students. I am sure academics at universities would help to promote something like that to their students and you would be able to see which students are capable of building things and getting things done, i.e. which are potential hires. It could also expose students to the types of work, and the style of working, that occurs at a start-up.

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

#79

Post by mattlivingston »

Hi Ian, I'm a 2nd year CS student at the University of Bristol. Out of everyone I know on the course, I'm the only one that regularly reads HN/Techcrunch and has an interest in start-ups; it's also how I found out about siliconmilkroundabout.

The start-up path isn't at all prominent here and I think there's a few reasons for this: Lack of presence of start-ups at recruitment/careers fairs (it's all the big names). The compulsory Hi-Tech units on the course aren't done right - hours of lectures filled with slides rather than guest speakers from start-ups, case studies, or any interactive processes whatsoever. Little to no communication between start-ups and students (groups or individuals) using social media or otherwise. Everyone sees messages posted on our CS FB group but nobody really reads the emails sent through the CS HR.

I think your best bet is to communicate directly with Society heads (i.e. students) such as Computer Science society or entrepreneurship society and to organise some guest speaker events. Lastly I think it's really important for students to know how they can help your start-up - specifically what skills they would need and what they would learn as well.

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

#80

Post by deathwarmedover »

nickthedart wrote: post #65
23r2f2r wrote: post #60

Why focus on just CS and engineering degrees? I was a Physics student, knew more about code than some CS undergrads and wasn't alone in that regard. You'll also find a lot of generally smart people who you can teach to code here. I'll second the point many have made about money. It's hard to resist one of the big banks offering you £40k+ straight out of university.

I probably sound like a broken record on HN, but this is surely a big part of the problem - living costs in London. Even £40k doesn't give a great standard of living in London, due to ridiculous accommodation and transport costs. I think that startups should locate somewhere much cheaper but still attractive to grads, somewhere north. Examples - Birmingham, Nottingham, Sheffield, Leeds, Newcastle.

>Even £40k doesn't give a great standard of living in London

That all depends on your definition of "great standard of living". I started out on £20k and have never felt that I was slumming it in London.

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