News in Brief

ITMB student wins Loughborough University Employability Award

Andrew Richardson, final year ITMB student at Loughborough University, has received the 2010 Loughborough Employability Award. It’s the latest success story to come out of the e-skills UK ITMB degree programme, proving that it really is equipping students with the business and personal skills that employers are so eager to find in technology graduates.

To compete in the awards, students had to demonstrate their commitment to their personal development through work experience, voluntary and other activities, with the award being given to the student who has best developed their employability skills over the year.

With this accolade under his belt, Andrew has just landed a graduate internship in Nottingham with energy broker Torse. He credits ITMB with giving him the skills and confidence to really make an impact at interview and for preparing him for the challenge of his new role. “My interviewer was very interested in what ITMB encapsulates and was impressed by the opportunities it had given me “, says Andrew. “And I’ve found more generally that having ITMB on your CV really makes a difference when you’re being interviewed, particularly because of e-skills UK’s involvement in the programme.”

Andrew also attended an ITMB mock interview day, where he was given direct access to employers in the sector. At these events, ITMB students have the opportunity to hone their interview skills, receiving feedback and advice from the very people they hope to work for when they graduate. “The mock interview days were awesome,” he says, “really challenging and enjoyable, and very motivating to students when you have actual face to face time with employers. It’s opportunities like these that make ITMB unique and give us a real head start when it comes to looking for jobs.”

Despite being new to the job, Andrew is already relishing his new role at Torse. “I’ve been recruited as head of marketing, so I have a lot of responsibility but I am delighted to take on such a challenging opportunity,” he says. “My position incorporates project management of offline and online strategies, search engine optimisation, improving the website and investigating social media marketing channels. So far things are going really well.”

He feels that ITMB has stood him in good stead to take up this new challenge, particularly the final term module where he undertook a real life project for an actual employer. “This module was what really made ITMB stand out. It gave us a great insight into customer relationships, providing us with client feedback and giving us direct access to the company for who we were undertaking the project.”

With everything he has achieved so far, Andrew has ambitious plans for the future, hoping to put  the range of business, technical and management skills he gained with ITMB to good use by setting up and running his own business one day. But not before he heads off to Australia for a few months once he completes his internship next year to enjoy some well deserved travelling, surfing and sunshine.

Posted on 07 Jul 2010