We had Steve Aitken from Intelligent Plant speaking to a number of students last week covering all of the years from level one to five. He covered what the company does with its ‘app store’ for industrial plants, and how they focus on developing the store and having organisations build apps to monitor their factories with the tools they’ve created.

Most importantly he discussed how and why he as a small businessman supports placements and internships, which are both the same type of thing. For him, he said that he can’t always tell where a ‘gap’ in their organisation might be, so it’s best if students write (cover letter plus cv) to companies they might want to work with for a short period such as a summer, or longer, and explain why they want to work there, and how they might be able to help. Sure, you’re just starting, but that’s ok. This means the company might be able to place you in lots of different places. They key part is probably that the potential company feel that they can work with you.

This approach, find a company, send them an email with cover letter and cv, should work better than applying to the big graduate placement and intern places because you’re making an offer to a company that might not have thought of this before. This means you will possibly making them an offer they hadn’t thought about, and thus realise that you do have something to offer with new ideas, and at a reasonable price too.

Go look at your local companies and see who you should apply to.