e-Placement Scotland - Where are they now? - Guest Blog Article

23rd Jun 2019

e-Placement Scotland - Where are they now?

Guest Blog Article

Matthew Lynch

Here at e-Placement Scotland we have created over 2500 paid placements, with many of our Summer placements now well underway, we thought it would be a good opportunity to celebrate some of our past placement students with a “Where are they now?” guest blog article

We recently caught up with Matthew Lynch, who was one of our  2018 e-Placement Scotland “Placement of the year” award finalists, to find out about his placement journey and how it has helped him to secure graduate employment.

“During the beginning of Summer 2018, around April, I decided to look into doing a summer placement between my 3rd and the 4th year of my studies. The main motivations behind this decision of doing a placement were that my course, Web Design and Development at Edinburgh Napier University allowed students to take a work placement module over the summer period. This would mean when I returned in September for my 4th year I would have one less module that needed completing, allowing me more time to focus on my Honours Project. Furthermore, at the time I was craving some real-world experience working as a web developer and wanted to try and get some industry experience to be more appealing to employers.

My placement was with a small start-up called My Server Guy (now known as Clydewire). My role at My Server Guy was a Junior Web Developer, which meant I would be designing, maintaining and developing all kinds of websites for clients.

It was also a remote based role which was good considering that the company was based in Glasgow with me being based in Edinburgh it would mean no long commuting times. I also got to experience what it was like to work remotely as it was something that I had not done before.

The first project I worked on was an internal peace of web development for their website, this allowed me to understand and become confident with the company’s own setup and processes. Thereafter I was tasked with real client work and I was also put in charge with customer communication, updating the client on the progress of their website.

The work experience allowed me to enhance my technical and soft skills giving me more confidence in my ability to create websites and my professionalism. It also provided me the opportunity to stand out from others in my year as I was starting to build up a portfolio of websites I had worked on and the placement helped with networking with others in my industry which in turn helps to create future opportunities. Furthermore, due to the placement being my first work experience in the technology industry it helped to take a test run, especially as in the industry there are so many jobs which you probably didn’t know existed. I feel that work placements allowed me to have a test run, experience and observe different roles.

After the end of my placement in August, I was offered to stay on part-time at times that fitted around my studies. I continued working on project work for the company and started occasionally travelling to the company’s office in Glasgow to catch up and work on site. I know that by undertaking a placement with e-Placement Scotland, helped to boost my employability and confidence and allowed me to get to where I am today. I am now working for The Law Society of Scotland as a Digital Delivery Specialist, which I am enjoying so much.”

We would like to take this opportunity to thank both My Server Guy (now Clydewire) and Matthew for using the e-Placement Scotland service. #paidplacements

If you are a past e-Placement Scotland placement student and are interested in writing your own #wherearetheynow blog article please contact Nicola Taylor, Project Manager : nicola.taylor@scotlandis.com