Experience-driven technology events that help a leading software firm find its potential future stars are going from strength to strength.
Scott Logic, a growing UK-based consultancy that provides bespoke software solutions, primarily to the financial services sector, has been hosting undergraduate Hack days since 2013 as part of its recruitment strategy.
The first of these, at Newcastle University, attracted just six competitors, including one of the firm’s software developers Sam Burnstone, 23, who is now Technical Evangelist at the company’s subsidiary business shinobicontrols. But this year alone Scott Logic has held four successful Hack events, with the attendee count for 2016 hitting an incredible 115, more than the total for the previous two years’ events. Scott Logic is now planning on evolving these days further.
John Wright is Scott Logic’s Recruitment Operations Manager. He explained: “This year, we’ve been focusing on building strong relationships with students themselves, in addition to the established relationships with university administrative teams.
“To that end, we’ve partnered with a number of computer science societies at key universities in hosting these interactive and immersive coding days, and this has so far been hugely successful.”
In February, Scott Logic held its first Hack event at the University of Bath, in conjunction with its computer science society. And later the same month, its partnership with Newcastle University
Computer and Technology Society (NUCATS) resulted in its biggest turnout yet. Students taking part in the virtual trading task set a new record – a virtual profit of more than £35,000. However, this wasn’t to last and in April, Bristol’s students doubled that amount. Again it was the first time Scott Logic co-hosted the event with Bristol University’s computer science society.
The society’s Vice President Alexander Hill said: “The students appreciated the opportunity to test their skills and learn from people in industry. We look forward to continuing to build our relationship with the company to provide exciting opportunities for our students.”
Finally, just last month, Scott Logic partnered with Durham University’s Compsoc, and also opened the event up to undergraduates studying all STEM subjects. The attendees were the first to try out the firm’s brand new Hack activity, an artificial intelligence game built by a team of its developers in just a few weeks.
The consultancy’s technologists are now looking to further expand the number of Hack activities it can offer at such events, as well as new partnerships to help bring them to new audiences.
John said: “We’ve learnt a lot through the Hack days we’ve held so far. Acting on feedback has enabled us to continually improve the events for participants, ensuring they enjoy themselves and gain valuable insight into both the company and the software industry and its various roles.
“We’ve been fortunate to have had some quality conversations with students taking part in these days, some of which have resulted in successful applications to join our graduate programme.
“We owe our thanks to the students and universities we have worked with so far, as well as the volunteers among our colleagues, without whom we could not have seen such success. We look forward to the next Hack event and to how we can continue to develop these events further.”
To find out about roles currently available at Scott Logic,, visit scottlogic.com/careers/vacancies/, or for a less formal chat, contact applications@scottlogic.com. For more information on Scott Logic and its services, visit scottlogic.com.