Rate My Placement

Hello all, I start this blog by saying that I am ready to admit I am on the path to old age!! I have turned 21. I had a fun time on the nights we went out, lost a lot of money in the casino and drunk way too many beers. After the hangovers went and the bottles of champagne were cleared, I realised that ….. I was now old. This put me in a kind of depressing mood for the week after my well deserved holiday. Who will know how things will turn out now, will I become more mature? or will I become depressed? what will this new number of age bring??

Anyway back on to my placement, the quarterly briefing went quite well. We were told that the group had good financial stability and that we were looking at breaking even, which in my eyes and current economic situation I thought was a good achievement for the company. THEN!! one week later we had little informal meeting, I have to say these are the worse kind of meetings. We were told that the company was due to make a big loss at the end of the year and that hours will be cut and that jobs may be lost. I have never been in this situation before and been in the office later that day, it home to some people and they become very emotional and I did not know what to do. I felt quite helpless and speechless (not like me at all!!). After this all settled down things have started to get back to normal as my colleagues try forget about what they have been told.

I end this on that, I have arranged a customer visit before the end of the month were I will visit the customer by myself without the help of manager. Which may be fun, a guy who has known about stainless steel for 4 months going out and telling a customer what’s what. But I am really looking forward to it!!! So I am going to leave it there as this blog is quite depressing and I’m getting depressed writing it. So join me soon when everything will be happy again. HAPPY TIMES!!

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Andrew started up ProspectSoft Ltd during university, and in a similar fashion to Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook founders) he gave up university to work on his business. Over the last few years he has built the business up to dyanamic enterprise employing around 50 staff, including an army of placement students.

1. How many hours do you work per week? 

About 50 – I do a regular days work, put the kids to bed, sometime cook dinner to unwind and then head back to the laptop from about 8 or 9 pm until 11 or 12pm. Although with a young family, my Golden Rule is no work while the kids are awake at weekends.

2. What is your proudest achievement as an entrepreneur?

When I sell for £100M – that will be my proudest moment. Until then, it’s difficult to pick anything in particular out – although I am very proud of our placement programme and how many young would-be entrepreneurs we have attracted to our business and brought back after their placements to make major contributions to our growth. The constant stream of top quality placements returning to our team after their degree is one of the major factors driving our growth.

3. What is the best freebie you have ever been given?

Our graphic designers always send out do-it-yourself cocktail kits near Christmas – I am looking forward to getting this year’s shortly.

4. What are the sacrifices you made starting up your own business?

I gave up my degree part way through – not that I feel the need for a degree now, but having invested two years and two weeks in trying to get one from Durham University I would have liked something to show for it.

5. What are the best and worst decisions you have made?

Best decision was to start my own business and avoid working for someone else. Worst decision was to start a business in something that I am an expert in – sounds weird but I too often get drawn into our software, what it does, how it works etc when I should be focussing on running the business (not the product) – my advice for anyone is to decide if you are a technician or an entrepreneur – and partner with someone who you trust 100% and can fill the other role so that you don’t do both.

6. Is there any particular piece of technology you cannot survive without?

Mobile phone and hands free kit – driving to and from meetings is about the only time I get to actually talk to customers, suppliers and partners.

7. What advice would you give to a student who is interested in starting up their own business?

Do it. Don’t wait out the recession. Do it now while you don’t mind living at home. 

8. When are ProspectSoft going to be bigger than Microsoft?!

In all our targeted sectors we already are ! It is now just a case of picking another sector, then another and kicking them into touch bit by bit.

9. What do you eat for breakfast?

Toast with real butter, no jam, black coffee.

If you are interested in working for ProspectSoft click here.

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We normally do a write up of our ‘tours’ around the UK when we visit a few uni’s at once, however Ali and I had a cracking afternoon we would like to share with you…

I’m sure you can (water) hazard a guess by the pictures… yes we found a crazy golf course to play on! We had a presentation to students looking for a placement at Brunel Uni at lunch time then another presentation at 5 at Portsmouth Uni, however we arrived a good hour early to Portsmouth. After locating where we needed to be at 5 we decided to go see the sea and we found a Pirate styled 9 hole crazy golf! Ruddy brilliant it was. Pretty fast greens for the overcast conditions and time of year but that didn’t stop me elegantly striking the ball to go two up after three holes. Ali then decided to pick his game up and pulled it back to three all (two holes were shared) with one hole left… 

Cue a tense finale that would rival anything The Open has to offer. It was a pretty straight hole but there were cumbers, obstacles and pretty much anything and everything in our line of vision. Ali went first… his backswing was gentle and precise like Van Gogh on a blank canvas and he gradually elevated his putter back and then like an impatient kid in a sweet shop he snatched his shot and dragged it left. Phew. Up steps Sidwell, calm and chilled, ready to knock it down in one… yeah, it went wide right. Whatever. The green moved.

Second shot for Ali, he’s no further than two foot from the hole and he slots in bang in the middle. Shame. No pressure, no pressure Sidwell… come on, you can do it. I carefully place my feet a shoulders width apart, feel the club grip nicely in the mitts and I line up what must be a 3 foot putt, slightly left to right past the wooden barrel towards the flag pole. All confident after his two, Ali pipes up, “Tiger Woods would do this with his eyes closed Sidwell, get on with it”. He didn’t phase me at all. Nothing was going to phase me… I held my breath, brought my club back slowly and gently swing through the line… and missed by a good inch. “Woo hoo!” shouts Ali as he raises his arms in the air - he won. Gutted.

Not wanting to ruin my day I decide to try my luck on the amusements. Now the RateMyPlacement team certainly don’t encourage gambling in any way, but when you lose a round of crazy golf to someone who’s almost half your size, your principles go out of the window.

20p in, Pingu out 1st time! Needless to say, I had the last laugh. Cheers! What a good half an hour.

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Much has been written recently about the differences between Generation X and Generation Y, but a recent panel held at the London Business School entitled ‘Kids Today, Leaders Tomorrow’ identified growing changes in what Generation Y (people born after 1981) want out of their career.

Students currently embarking upon undergraduate and graduate employment are seeking a strong work-life balance, a personalized workplace, and a happy, varied and motivating career. Over 50% of the panel said they would consider taking a low paid job that they love and many expressed an interest to travel, experience different aspects of life, and have a fulfilling career – ahead of financial rewards.

Does the uncertainty in the economy change student’s outlook on their career choices? Are you concerned about financial security and a stable career, or are you seeking variety and work life balance first and foremost? Is it realistic to expect this career ideal or should Generation Y accept that they can’t have it all and sooner or later they are going to have to put the hard graft in?! We would be interested to hear you thoughts – please feel free to add a comment or vote on our poll!

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Our final stop was a 2 mile drive across Sheffield to Sheffield Hallam. We were delighted to see some RateMyPlacement literature already up in the Organisation and Management faculty office and we completed our hectic week with another really positive meeting.

The RateMyPlacement rating on Sheffield Hallam University:

- Weather – 9 / 10 – it got sunnier towards the end of the day!
- Grounds – 7 / 10 – middle of town, but some interesting characters walking along the high street!
- Beer – 7 / 10 – £1.70 / pint, cheaper than the Uni of Sheffield
- Bird Watching – 5 / 10 – bit scarier towards the town centre…
- The pot noodle test – 0 / 10 – don’t sell them… shame.

Sheffield Hallam University Grand Total = 28 / 50

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Full time work commenced on Tuesday, which unfortunately coincided with the hottest day of the year. As you can see from the photo Oliver was working flat out all day, it can be really tough being in charge of your own business…

Up until now, RateMyPlacement has been like having a high maintenance girlfriend for us - it is has eaten up all our free time at evenings and weekends and has had a serious impact on our social lives! However, things are starting to get serious and we now feel the time is right for us to take the plunge. This is obviously quite a big step for us and the business, however we feel that by focusing all our time and energy on RateMyPlacement we can propel the site from a part-time student-run business into the number one online resource for undergraduates throughout the UK. Over the next few months we aim to work alongside all placement and careers services at universities to promote RateMyPlacement so all placement students can benefit.  Look out for us on a campus near you!
 
We anticipate a lot of hard work and long hours, however we are excited about the future and are looking forward to the challenges that lie ahead. If you have any feedback, suggestions or comments feel free to contact us - even if it is just to give Oliver some tanning advice!

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If you live in the Midlands you may have been lucky enough to see our long overdue debut on the small screen. We were featured (twice) in a news bulletin on Central News on the 23rd April, the day of the HSBC Unipreneurs Final. Click on the video below to see a rare appearance from Chris "the techie" Wickson (outside the dark back room, where he usually resides) talk about the Final. Maybe a career in TV beckons.

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HSBC Unipreneurs Awards 2008 - designed to "find the face of young entrepreneurship in Britain" - and that face could be RateMyPlacement!

We have just been informed that we have been selected as one of the final 5 young businesses! The judges have selected us from hundreds of entries as one of the five most promising ‘unipreneurs’ and we are now just one step away from winning £20,000!

This is an amazing achievement for us, and we are obviously delighted to have reached the final. It is things like this that make the many, many hours of work late into the night and at weekends worthwhile.

The final takes place at a gala evening at the BAFTA theatre in London on April 23rd. The five National Finalists will be quizzed on-stage before a live audience, who will then vote for the business that has impressed them most – and name the winner of HSBC Unipreneurs 2008.

So it’s time to dust off the tuxedos (probably get them dry-cleaned too as I’m pretty sure the last time they were worn was our Graduation Ball at Uni!), prepare and practice our presentation skills, and go for it!

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