Jobs leg-up for the ‘geek’ graduates (From Bradford Telegraph and Argus)

Bradford firm aims to help IT boffins find work

9:05am Thursday 24th February 2011 in Business By Chris Holland

Geeky IT graduates struggling to find work in a fiercely-competitive jobs market are being offered a lifeline.

Bradford-based Yorkshire Water, one of the UK’s largest recruiters of IT staff, is pioneering a competition to give struggling IT graduates a head start in the jobs race when more than 16 per cent of newly-qualified boffins are unemployed.

The initiative will help candidates improve their communication skills and boost their team-working ability to help them impress would-be employers.

Yorkshire Water has teamed up with BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT, to teach graduates ‘soft skills’ which employers require. The competition is designed to overcome a belief of some major employers that, while IT graduates are professionally competent, many still lack the necessary personal leadership, communication, presentation and team skills that firms want.

Yorkshire Water and BCS are leading The Graduate initiative through which potential participants have to apply for a place on an assessment day by filling in an application form akin to a real-life job application.