My Story to Employment with Generation

My Story…. by Jacob aged 25 (completed Data Engineering Course – West Midlands Autumn 2020)

BEFORE GENERATION 

Before Generation I was doing part time work, with no clear idea of what I wanted to do for a career. I was feeling pessimistic about the future as I had been out of work for over 12 months. My work coach told me about the 12-week Data Engineering Bootcamp with Generation. I decided to apply as I had started programming in my spare time and enjoyed it.

I attended the Taster Session, where Generation explained a bit about what they did, and it was clear that they were very supportive of people with different levels of experience. At the interview, I also had a conversation with the programme mentor (provided by the Prince’s Trust), and I remember finding them very personable and easy to talk to.

THE DATA ENGINEERING BOOTCAMP

The Generation bootcamp helped me to helped me gain the communication skills needed to work effectively in a team. I also had lots of opportunities to practice interviews and presentations.

Due to COVID-19, our Bootcamp was 100% remote delivery and we had to work in groups for our final project.  Although working in a team could be challenging without being able to meet in person, everyone was very supportive of each other, and I learnt a lot about giving and receiving effective feedback.

To me Generation means Community, Support, Teamwork. 

HOW MY LIFE HAS CHANGED 

Personally, the Generation programme has helped me to understand that failure is a necessary part of trying new things, through the Growth Mindset I am much better able to learn new skills and be confident in spite of any mistakes or challenges I face.

About 3 months after the Generation Bootcamp, I accepted a full-time role as a consultant for a firm that specialises in helping clients through their digital transformation. As a consultant I will be using multiple platforms and programming languages depending on the customer. I will be working with the latest DevOps tools and cloud platforms as a full stack engineer.

Generation helped me secure this career starting role, as they gave me a lot of CV feedback and supported me with interview techniques. The Generation Bootcamp allowed me to get familiar with the skills that employers are looking for in this sector and ensured that I had plenty of projects and skills to show off to employers.

MY FUTURE 

I am feeling very confident about my future career prospects now! I’ve managed to get a great job that I could never have got without the technical and soft skills I built during the Generation Bootcamp.

MY ADVICE 

For anyone considering applying to a Generation Bootcamp, I’d say, Go for it! Don’t worry if you don’t feel qualified – the whole point of training programmes like this is to help people who aren’t qualified yet. As long as you’re willing to work hard you will learn a lot of new skills, and everyone around you will help you through any difficulties you face.

Throughout my time at Generation I was impressed by the willingness of my colleagues in the course as well as the instructors to help and support each other when we found things difficult. This support continued after the course when we started our job hunts, so I never felt that I had to struggle through difficulties alone.