Well, basically in class today the course leader (?) general boss of us man, Gareth suggested we start our own blogs to document our time in the NetBuilder Academy. I quite liked the idea, thought it would be good for me to keep track of what was going on, and just generally felt it could be a good way to blow off steam. So here we go.
I met NetBuilder the graduate recrutement expo at the NEC Birmingham, I talked to literally every company there but I did remember NetBuilder as being particularly friendly. They're a IT consultancy company, well they're alot of things, but I'd be here forever if I tried to tell you about it all, so I suggest you check there website out for more info.
Oddly, the degree I did was Graphic Design for Interactive media, so I didn't fit in easily into many of the natural niches for graduate programs. But (thankfully!) NetBuilder were willing to give me a chance, as they called me up not to long after the expo, for a telephone interview.
As luck would have it, I had decided to move house around this time, and when I was called for a telephone interview, I had managed to cram about 15 mins prep in before hand. Because of this the telephone interview was probably the hardest part of the recruitment process for me, in fact i'm fairly sure I nearly blew it, but managed to claw my way back with some well timed questions about the company and the graduate gateway scheme. I got a call 10 minutes later, telling me I had an assessment day, in a week, which panicked me a bit but hey, if in doubt, say yes. So thats what I did.
I actually had a interview on the same day as my assessment day for Frankie and Bennies, but I figured the IT sector was more lucrative then the italian chain restaurant one. To this day I still think wistfully about how I could be bringing out birthday pasta (I think they do birthday pasta? they do birthday something) to eager customers.
So I got everything sorted for going down to Worthing for the assessment day, booked myself a hotel room and proceeded to study my ass off (which by the way is going to be recurring theme in this blog). The assessment day itself was a pleasant surprise, it was challenging but nothing as stressful as what I'd been imagining. By the end of the day, I felt things had gone pretty well, and I was optimistic about the future.
I was accepted into the scheme and I'll spare you the drama of what it took to get me down here, but down here I am. Though I'm still paying for a room in Leicester as I write this blog.., which makes my wallet weep a tiny bit.
Worthing is a great little town, and I'm loving being by the sea. I felt a little lost the first few days but yesterday was my first day actually going into the NetBuilder offices and things definitely picked up from there as I got some focus about why I'd come down here.
We've started with business architecture which is something I don't know much about. There's alot to learn.
On the first day we covered testing, scrum, the waterfall model, the V model, a bit about NetBuilder as a company, we started a practical exercise about how to improve a hypothetical company, looking to develop our consultancy skills. We did alot more too..
Today we did how to talk to the cilent. It was really interesting but I have to admit.., I'm getting pretty sick of writing at this point so I'm gonna leave it here. I know it's been a ramble, the rest of my posts should be alot shorter.
Now, I should probably shower....
