Education

‘I’m well suited to the business’: how a Belfast fintech firm found its perfect employee


Stuart Harvey on staff recruitment

What does Shauna do?
We have two types of technical professionals in the firm: software programmers and data scientists, and Shauna is one of the latter. Her journey is remarkable, though. She was working in admin for a pharmacy before she joined our team.

How did you find her?
Belfast is a bit of a hotspot for fintech firms, and the challenge we face is finding motivated candidates of a high calibre, in an employment market where we’re lacking brand identity. Bigger firms here have departments of people who hoover up talent as it falls off the conveyor belt at graduate fairs. We’re the poor cousins in that environment, so we realised a couple of years ago that we needed to be far more creative, both in how we approach that market, and in terms of the types of people we hire. One of our outcomes was to engage with The Open University (OU), and that’s how Shauna came to us.

Stuart Harvey.



Quote: 'I was very impressed by Shauna's story. I knew that we were going to hire her 10 minutes into her interview'



Why the OU?
We wanted to find people who had perhaps come into education late and who had already experienced the world of work. Our clients are very serious blue chip firms and they expect the type of people we provide for their projects to be similarly capable and professional – mature individuals with good communication skills.

How did you go about engaging with the OU?
We contacted the OU and said there was the chance of a student placement with us, almost like a “try before you buy” type of approach.

What was the recruitment process like?
We see the recruitment process as being a two-way thing; we are looking for good candidates who match all our criteria, but, equally, the work we do is highly technical and very demanding, and it doesn’t suit everybody. Our contact at the OU is very adept at getting across all the different ways that we can interact with the OU. She is a force of nature and having someone so driven on the OU side has really helped. It was nothing like the typical student recruitment fair process; it was much more of a bespoke service. She really invested time in understanding our business and the skills required to undertake the role to ensure the student’s on a particular course specialism were informed of the opportunity.

How did the interview go?
I was very impressed by Shauna’s story. I knew that we were going to hire her 10 minutes into her interview.

What’s she been like to work with?
Shauna has already taken on significant responsibility within the business. She’s been involved in a project over the past 12 months that has taken her all around the UK. And she’s studying at the same time; I think a person’s ability to balance work with study is a signal about their maturity and therefore their motivation. Generally speaking, OU students share those qualities. We’re seeing people of that calibre.

Where do you see the business a year from now?
We are growing pretty quickly, so we plan to hire another 10 to 20 people in the next year. We’ll continue to be very internationally focused.

And beyond that?
We want to continue building the relationship we have with the OU. There is an established assumption that you must go to a “good” school and get “good” exam results and then attend a “good” university before embarking on a career with the likes of a big four consulting firm, but that just does not fit the way that some of the best and brightest minds find their way into the world of work. The OU has given us an inside track into a population of extremely hardworking, intelligent people who, for whatever reason, are not conforming to that pattern. The challenge remains as to how we, as a relatively small firm without a really strong identity in the recruitment marketplace, can engage with talent that is in short supply. The OU will continue to play a very important role for us in terms of that talent pipeline.

Shauna Corr on becoming a data engineer

What were you doing before working for Datactics?
I did IT at GCSE level and I went to Belfast Met to do my A-levels but I found it very boring, so I took a gap year and started working in retail. I worked my way up to management level but I knew it wasn’t for me, so I decided to go back to education. I tried a traditional redbrick university, but working full-time and travelling across town at rush hour to get to classes was impractical. You’re sitting in a huge lecture hall with 200 people and you don’t have a chance to make a connection with them because you’re working. I knew I wasn’t on the right path.

Quote: 'I am hoping to become a senior data engineer within the next five years'



Shauna Corr.



How did you engage with the OU?
I’d heard about the OU from a friend. The fact that you can study in your own time and that you don’t have to travel anywhere made it really appealing to me. I wanted to study something fun, so I looked at the course descriptions and settled on a short course in programming, initially. It was a lot of fun; writing some code and seeing what came out on screen was really amazing to me. From there, I enrolled on the BSc (Hons) computing and IT course.

How did you connect with Datactics?
I was still working in my old job at the time, but I saw the Datactics work placement advert in an email I’d signed up to receive from the OU careers contact. She helped me work on my CV to apply for the post and even helped me to prepare for the interview.

How did it go?
It worked out very well. It was the most casual interview I’ve ever had! I was hired for a year initially but I was promoted to permanent staff within six months. I’m still studying with the OU at the same time as working full-time, but I only have one more module to go.

How is the job going?
Great. I’ve been enjoying a project that involves a tour of the UK’s cities for the past year.

Where do you see yourself in five years’ time?
I am hoping to become a senior data engineer within the next five years. Beyond that I’m not sure, but I think I’m well suited to the business. I have no plans to leave.

This article was amended on 7 October to clarify the description of the recruitment process



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