September 2020 Update:
We hope to be able to announce soon the 6-month Splento R4W v2.0 scheme.
If our application is successful, it will be a part of the UK government’s new Kickstart placement programme.
Read below about the R4W v1.0 scheme we ran earlier in the year, then view
the video presentations of our first cohort’s experiences.
(Note: The following relates to the R4W v1.0 scheme we ran back in July 2020).
Due to the unique conditions of 2020 and the coronavirus, many graduates are facing circumstances that previous students have not had to contend with.
To help the students and recent graduates – we are launching our free four-week course designed to be a stepping stone for graduates between university and employment.
The challenge
The economic ripples of the coronavirus pandemic will be felt for years to come, and not least by those students who are graduating this summer. They are some of the most affected, with the economic fallout and lifelong financial penalties imposed by these unexpected circumstances.
A large majority of employers have had to furlough staff and freeze hiring; businesses have closed down and unemployment figures are higher than have been seen for many years.
It’s not just us who have noticed this huge problem. Here is a selection of articles from some of the world’s most prestigious publications, including The Economist, addressing and analysing this issue in more detail.
The Guardian: UK youth employment The Economist: Zoomers, zeros… The BBC: One million under-25s
It is this year’s graduates who are most likely to see their lifetime earning potential and employment opportunities plummet. This is naturally creating a lot of anxiety. In addition to facing a bleak employment market, they also find themselves the least provided-for by any of the government’s various financial support schemes.
If you find yourself in this situation – there is hope!
At Splento, we have been asking ourselves what we can do to help, and we have found an answer for you – or rather, created one.
As is usual in times of economic downturn, it will be startups and tech companies that turn the tide and generate new ideas and business models to drag the world out of its quarantine-induced stupor.
Look at the S&P 500, for example. Top 5 companies by value in the index are tech giants!
However, working for tech companies and startups is not the same as working for any other kind of organisation; it is a unique environment that university has not likely prepared you for – and yet it is an environment that is most likely to offer you your path through the difficult times ahead.
The environment
Tech companies and startups think differently, behave differently, have a different way of communicating and even measure results in a different way!
To give you an idea of what we mean:
- It’s always “Day One” – you are always, always, always obsessed with the customer.
- You move fast and break things.
- There is no 9-5 in a startup. It’s an ever-evolving life-work continuum.
- You focus on results over process. You don’t “do your job” – you deliver results.
- You don’t stop learning after you leave university; in a tech company, you continue learning every day.
- You don’t do endless meetings and countless emails. You make high-quality decisions quickly and you make things happen.
- You don’t wait to be told what to do – you find work to do.
- Your team is regularly spread around the world in different time zones – with English not being their first language.
But most importantly – you fail. Every day. And that’s ok. That’s how we learn and get better.
The solution
At Splento we took some time out to consider how we could help create a better working opportunity for graduates – and we quickly realised that the best use of our resources is to help those wanting to join a startup or a tech company get some hands-on experience as soon as possible.
Giving graduates the opportunity to become familiar with the type of working environment which will give them the best opportunities for their future. Giving them the experience that universities cannot offer, and yet will be the most valuable for them.
In an ideal world, we’d love to hire thousands of interns and apprentices across the globe, but every intern needs a company employee to oversee them and we (along with almost every other company at the moment) simply don’t have the resources to do it.
Instead, we designed the best scalable solution that we could – and the result is our Tech/Startup Mini-Placement, Practical Crash Course and Bootcamp Program to give you the experience you need to become a 21st-century tech company employee.
Your universities have given you all the academic knowledge you need and we want to be the first practical rung on your career ladder.
We can’t make a great designer, filmmaker, digital marketer, salesperson, developer or operations executive out of you. But we can give you the tools and enough experience to help you transition into your new job when it does come along.
We can help make the next stage of your journey smoother and easier and you’ll have a lot more in common to talk about with your potential employers during an interview.
In just four amazing weeks of our mini-placement you’ll experience:
Organisational Behaviour:
- Office communications;
- Teamwork;
- Project planning, execution & reviews;
- Project documentation, success measurement & tracking;
- Using tech for productivity (Trello, HubSpot, Webpage Builders, Slack)
Launching New Products:
- Market analysis;
- Competitors analysis;
- Launching new products.
Sales & Marketing:
- Product packaging;
- Lead generation;
- Community management;
- Campaigns planning;
- Content creation;
- Social media listening and management.
The cost
Universities charge annual tuition; startup accelerators take stakes in founders’ companies and online courses have various charging models. But that’s because it’s their business – it’s their source of income.
Splento is in a different business. We make money by providing amazing photography and videography products and services to individuals and businesses all over the world.
For this reason, our 21st CENTURY EMPLOYEE’S PRACTICAL ACCELERATOR CRASH COURSE is not a revenue generator for us, but a way to say thank you to the ecosystem.
It’s completely free. No charge – no catch.
Of course, the number of teams we can handle is limited and just like with our own employees – we’ll be very, very, very selective. Some of the top companies in the 20th century needed bodies, all of the top companies of the 21st century need brains.
You need to get used to very long application forms and stringent qualification criteria, so we’ll give you your first taste of that too!
The Programme and Additional Benefits
Just in case you are wondering what the benefits of the course are (a fair question) or even what happens at Splento, then here’s the brief summary.
Benefits of the 21st Century Employee’s Practical Accelerator Crash Course:
The Programme:
- Week 1: Marketing – learn and apply Amazon’s strategy to own the 1st page of Google.
- Week 2: Marketing – write powerfully, analyse markets, & build partnerships.
- Week 3: Sales – the most important skill in life, learn it, practice it, see results.
- Week 4: Project – present your achievements & leverage PR tactics to promote them.
Community:
- Alumni Network: LinkedIn Group for Splento Alumni.
- Annual Event: We hope to be able to do one in person this year.
Advice:
- Weekly Expert Fireside Chats: consultants, finance, PR, marketing & sales, etc.
- Office Hours with Domain Experts (choose a topic and get the distilled learnings and resources from our executives: Launching Products/Operational Excellence/Marketing Wizardry/Sales Effectiveness)
Brand:
- To maintain the strength of the community as it grows, we developed a set of principles and values that Splento Heroes are asked to live by. You can check them here: https://www.splento.com/our-values
- When one of you does well, the whole community benefits
Your Curriculum Vitae:
Your resume for Summer 2020 could have a blank space in it, or it could have this:
Summer 2020 @ Splento
- Launched and promoted a photography & videography company in Market X
- Conducted market research and identified the best niches to launch
- Launched 100 new products in City X
- Drove XXXX traffic to these products pages
- Increased enquiries by XX
- Created X professional social media videos
Plus: a recommendation from one of the fastest-growing tech startups on your LinkedIn account.
The next step
You may have questions – we hope you do.
If so, then here’s what to do next:
If you are a university and want your students and recent graduates to succeed in the workplace, then please get in touch with Splento now to find out more. If you are a student, apply now.
[Sept. 2020 – applications for R4W v1.0 now closed. to see how it went, see our candidate video diaries here. You can find out more about the UK government’s Kickstart Scheme here].
SPLENTO
The Visual Tech Company
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