Young woman with graduate cap thinking about what she needs to know. There are sketched lightbulbs behind her and one is yellow to show its lit up.
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Graduate season: Here’s what you need to know

10 Aug 2018

To truly kick off Graduates Month, we’ve got plenty of advice, tips and personal stories for new graduates.

Last week marked the beginning of August and the start of Graduates Month here on Siliconrepublic.com.

With no official jobs announcements in Ireland, employers across the country are starting to look for bright, talented new graduates to join their company.

Many of these will have graduate programmes, but even those who don’t will still be searching for fresh graduates to join their team across a wide variety of industries.

But with so much information out there, graduates might get a little overwhelmed and be left wondering which path is the right one for them.

With this in mind, we’ve started our focus on graduates with some practical tips to help you navigate through the first steps to your career.

As mentioned, countless companies will be vying for your attention right now, and we’ve selected 11 great ones with graduate programmes to help inspire you. We’ll be looking at even more cool sci-tech companies throughout the month, so stay tuned.

Expert tips for graduates

We also got some great advice from top recruitment experts about what graduates need to know when it comes to actually filling out job applications.

We found out how you can stand out from hundreds of others and how to avoid the common pitfalls that many graduates fall into.

One of the key takeaways from both of our leading experts was to do your research when it comes to job applications. While it may sound obvious, it’s one of the major mistakes graduates make and can be seen a mile away in any application.

Speaking of great advice, Hays’ Michael Jones explained the importance of the SMART acronym and how it can be applied to a new job.

Graduates should take note, as the application of the SMART acronym is sure to help you hit the ground running.

Personal graduate stories

Of course, one of the best ways to learn about what it’s like to be a new graduate is to hear from someone who has walked the road before you.

This week featured two graduate perspectives from two leading tech firms, giving a unique insight into what it was like to be on their respective graduate programmes.

Liberty IT’s Ovidijus Parsiunas spoke about the importance of work-life balance and how it factored into his experience as a software engineer graduate.

Meanwhile, tech consultancy graduate Colin Walsh talked about his experience at PwC and how much autonomy he gained over the course of his programme.

Jenny Darmody
By Jenny Darmody

Jenny Darmody became the editor of Silicon Republic in 2023, having worked as the deputy editor since February 2020. When she’s not writing about the science and tech industry, she’s writing short stories and attempting novels. She continuously buys more books than she can read in a lifetime and pretty stationery is her kryptonite. She also believes seagulls to be the root of all evil and her baking is the stuff of legends.

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