Work experience kid

[visioN]

I'm getting a work experience kid for a full week in June.

All the info I have is he is 15 and doing GCSEs and has an interest in IT

What tasks can I give him to do? I can get him to dismantle / build a PC etc, install Windows, Linux etc. But as I've got him for 37 hours I want to keep him stimulated. Also I'm in the private sector. Cheers for any suggestions!

[mdrabble]

Creating 'How to' guides for software?

[RichCowell]

Stock room / supplies / spares audit... nightmare of a job usually, but worthwhile...

[unixman_again]

When I had one, I pointed him at Build a Six-headed, Six-user Linux System LG #124 and our box of assorted bits and asked him to see if he could get it running. He managed a four head system. I then suggested he might like to push it and explore the limitations, and write it up as a business case. This gave him something lasting that he could wave at employees and universities. He now works as a developer for Redhat.

[Oaktech]

Tidying up server cabinet and making cables...

[Garacesh]

Inventory. Anything to avoid doing it yourself

[SiliconAlley_Sam]

When I had one, I pointed him at Build a Six-headed, Six-user Linux System LG #124 and our box of assorted bits and asked him to see if he could get it running. He managed a four head system. I then suggested he might like to push it and explore the limitations, and write it up as a business case. This gave him something lasting that he could wave at employees and universities. He now works as a developer for Redhat.

 

That's awesome

 

Think it very much depends on the skill set of the individual. We've had work experience kids in who really have had an interest in IT where we've been able to really push and challenge them and others where the interest was probably limited to playing Football Manager.

[visioN]

Stock room / supplies / spares audit... nightmare of a job usually, but worthwhile...

 

Stock room?? SPARES???? lol

[RichCowell]

Stock room?? SPARES???? lol

 

Shouldn't I have mentioned that? Doesn't everyone have two store rooms, one adjoining their office with a mini-kitchen?

Edited May 22, 2014 by RichCowell

[hardtailstar]

I might have one too soon. Ive got laptops and computers to be imaged.

Also going to teach them about IWBs and projectors

[Joanne]

I always got work experience kids to do audits and re-imaging. Basically, anything I hated. Then as a reward, they could have a look at the server.

[AMLinington]

Work experience is about experiencing what it's like to do that job. Sticking them in a stock room all day isn't representative of day to day work. Obviously they can't do the high level stuff or anything involving customer systems without supervision but if you can find them a list of 'busy work' tasks to do in between scheduled tasks it's better than giving them menial jobs all the time.

 

So in a technical support team for example, you can't put work experience kids on actual cases, but they CAN listen to calls and they can perform an administrative role in answering the phone to customers and transferring calls to engineers. They can be given training on what to say, how to transfer calls - they're really important skills they don't learn in school. How to speak to customers in a professional way is a dying art based on the attitude of sales assistants in high street shops these days lol.

 

You can give them a PC with virtualbox on it and set a list of tasks, although the WEK might need training - depends on their level of skill.

 

I did my work experience at the city library and they'd planned a full schedule of various activities that gave me a full picture of what working in that environment was like. I was taught how to shelve returned books using the Dewey Decimal system, I was taught how to issue books and collect overdue fines. I spent half a day in the repair workshop learning how they repaired and rebound damaged books. I spent a day in 'the stacks' and reference collection. I went out on the book bus. I believe I spent a half a day with the buyers. It was a very full couple of weeks. Every day had repetitive tasks like shelving and issuing but these were important to the job and were interspersed with 'specialised activities'. When I went back to school people that had been placed in high street shops had largely spent the time in the stock room 'out the way' and were generally pretty disappointed with their experience. People that had gone to offices said they spent most of their time bored out of their skull doing filing and making tea. I felt bad for them. During my work experience I really felt as though I actually worked there. This should be the experience you should strive to give the WEK because as an industry sector we WANT school kids to think about working in the IT industry. We WANT them to identify an area they might want to tailor their college or uni applications towards. Having them tidy the server room for a week isn't going to do that.

 

Have you got a list of tasks you've been putting off because you could put together a schedule that intersperses the 'daily stuff' with the 'out of the ordinary' stuff.

 

So, for example:

 

Monday: Install OS of choice, get machine up to date and access to the internet. Listen to support calls. Assist in repair of hardware X or involve WEK in common 'manual' tasks like making cables (both straight and crossover). The WEK should go with you to staff meetings.

Tuesday: Support calls in the morning. Phone training. Answering phones to customers and transferring them to engineers. Afternoon off the phones assisting someone with Server room maintenance.

Wednesday: Stock inventory and asset registration update.

Thursday: Sit with second line engineers (if applicable), then spend the afternoon repairing/cleaning hardware (if this is what you do).

Friday: Spend a couple of hours with Support engineers - they might be ready to answer some questions themselves. If not, listen in. Customer site visit perhaps? If you have an accommodating customer and a good relationship with your contact?

 

It's always fun for WEKs to get to keep little things - like that 3" long patch cable they made after starting with 1m of cable and getting it wrong a lot. Or a bootable Linux USB stick they built.

 

Work Experience isn't about having fun all the time but it does have to be representative of the work you do.

Edited May 22, 2014 by AMLinington

[synaesthesia]

As AMLightfoot rightly says, it should be an actual representation. So whilst constant filing or stocktaking isn't representative of the actual job, nor is sitting them down for 37 hours doing cherry picked "exciting" stuff either.

Get them to mirror you, work with you, show them some examples of things (create them if necessary) they might be expected to do; check some network patch leads or runs, make a couple of cables perhaps, even let them sit and watch whilst you spend an hour emailing round getting quotes or information. For quotes, get them to help; list of websites to visits and things to look for to feed back to you with. It's not all fun, they need to be fully aware of the boring parts as well as getting hands dirty. Cleaning/general maintenance will be good too, projectors in schools is a good one, perhaps some routine maintenance of printers, checking ink levels etc.

[Tall_Paul]

I'm getting a work experience lad from our current Year 11 in June too.

 

I'm going to get him to shadow me for a bit, so I'll give him a tour of our server room and show him our network (both physical and virtual). He'll also shadow my techs for a bit then I'll get him to DBAN some of our old servers and get a lot of our old tat ready for disposal.

 

He can also tear down some laptops and desktops and see how they work, and there'll be other things to do too.

 

It's going to be a full week. No photocopying involved.

[visioN]

Thanks all got a decent list coming on...

Chat and tour of our Head Office and both server rooms explaining how the network works and our resiliency between the sites etc

Windows 7 install, update, drivers, office etc

Linux install

Dual boot

AD Intro, create an email address etc

Build a PC which I will dismantle - identifying components etc

How to guides on some things I need!

Virtualisation session - set up a vmware work station and vsphere on an old box

IP, DNS, DHCP very basic what they do etc

Make some patch cables

Take an image of a PC, sysprep

Restore image

Visit some other sites to see network setup

Helpdesk calls

[clareq]

We have in the past set jobs like - here's two broken laptops, make one good one. We had one call come in where a machine wouldn't boot, and we set the WEK on finding out why. We replaced the machine, brought the broken one back to the office, give him some spare RAM and a power supply, and let him go for it. He said afterwards he'd wanted to build his own machine for ages, but never had the nerve - he was worried he's break a component when fitting it. He went out and bought the bits that weekend and came in on the Monday with such a sense of accomplishment - it was great to see.

[MatthewL]

I still remember my work experience which was around ten years ago, was a very valuable two weeks. I did mine with the LA IT department and spent the majority of my time in the schools team where I was doing all sorts, I then spent a few days with the corporate team but the schools team ended up taking me back over as there wasn't much for me to do. I remember sorting out old kit and cables, yeah it was pants but was an experience of what had to be done. The LA has always spent a fair wack on the setup so the majority of work was done remotely but I found out new things, but the biggest thing was gaining the relationship with the team as in my current job and previous I had a heavy involvement with the LA, the majority have gone else where but now setup in new businesses I still have weekly contact. That working relationship for me was key, four years of my last job would not have been the same if I did not have those contacts, half the work would not be done. It was a very close nit and what I call a proper team where we go out on regular occasions, I could not ask for more to be honest.

 

Yeah the WEK always get the rubbish jobs, if it was me I would sit down, show them around, explain how it works, i.e. how the internet comes in and go through the network like that, explain why things have to happen i.e. filtering, AV, show them some processes from start to end i.e. new user, setup, then close one off and explain why, show them service desk related tasks, imaging a machine from start to finish. Show them common things and if you have any bespoke things. Obviously alot of this depends on how switched on the WEK is but show them things they wont forget quick, i.e. lots of flashy lights in server room!!

 

Explain the differences of a home setup and corporate i.e. restrictions and why things are done. In my experience don't give them the rubbish they loose interest, give them a task they can see through and see the difference.

 

You never know they may end up working with you in a few years!

[visioN]

Yeah i want them to take something away from the week. Either open up their eyes to IT, or scare them off completely!

[AMLinington]

Yeah i want them to take something away from the week. Either open up their eyes to IT, or scare them off completely!

 

The more environments and roles you can expose them to the better because there are all sorts of pathways in IT and not being 'technical' doesn't have to be a barrier to progression. Service Management and Service Delivery, Change Management, etc.

[Danp]

I have one, he works in our Catering department normally but comes to us every Wednesday. After 6 months it's getting a little tricky to find stuff for him to do, he is CRB'ed so he can wander off on his own etc, but tbh I don't trust him. We have got him making cat5 cables, some were taking him an hour to get right and that was a basic 2m, plug on each end jobbie!

[rich_tech]

I had a horrible placement in EDS during college over 10 years ago where I was mismatched with what I was interested in pursuing, I slept with my eyes open for a lot of it, I got sent all around the building largely because the woman supervising me was out for 5 days of the 10 on courses, though it was primarily programming based the placement when I was interested in hardware/systems management, I was primarily based in their "Database Management" section for the duration, which consisted of making edits via tickets to a massive Xerox database on a unix mainframe that their engineers used at the time, screenshot a unix screen, print, edit the database entry that was screenshotted, then screenshot the completed changes and print - some people did that for the entirety of their day remarkably. Getting shown the DVLA stuff they were programming was pretty cool at the time though, no matter how laughable it was internally with them that they were over budget and deadline with everything just over half finished when I was there.

 

I spent a single day out of the fortnight, with their helpdesk team which was quite excellent, the people were all very nice and took time to explain their various roles out and show me everything, but as I wasn't interested in programming/software development at the time, everything else was a bit of a loss for me in that placement, though I did make my lecturers laugh when the placement diary had down on it a "Coffee Count" showing how many coffees I managed to drink each day to get me through the days, probably the longest fortnight in a "job" of my life, was like time stood still in places.

 

That being said, I had a pupil on work experience last year and it was a bit daunting at first because of that past experience and I realise that generally I am a pretty solitary person, which goes well with the world of IT I think at times, I resolved to show him everything possible and get him to see what normal day to day operations were like for my job, I probably overwhelmed him a bit for the first day or two, as I resolved to talk through pretty much everything we did and gave the "grand tour" of our IT systems.

I at least want to think he was engaged though and hopefully enjoyed it too, I didnt send him off on the "Bad/Carrying jobs" and I made sure I helped out whenever anything like carrying/cleaning out PCs was involved, he knew his way around a PC having built a couple himself and running a server in his home, so it was good that I was able to let him work with minimal supervision on things like PC repairs in offices or classrooms and it worked out good from our point of view as well I felt, because he did bring up some things which we looked at while on the job and he pointed out a couple of policies that were not working properly which we worked through and remedied, though that probably didn't make him all that popular with his peers when some stuff got tightened up

 

It does depend on the person though, if their interested in the field, I think that makes it infinitely easier on everyone, rather than someone being on a "Generalised" placement who may not have much of an interest in the field.

Edited May 23, 2014 by rich_tech