In conversation with... Aaron Trevitt, Work-Based Learning Manager in Careers speaks to LSE undergraduate and DSL columnist Kara Jessup about what skills will help students boost their CV and stand out in the crowd ....
Could you tell me a little bit about yourself and what exactly you do at LSE careers?
I studied environmental policy at LSE and graduated in 2012, I then spent about 10 years working in a series of HR focused roles. I finished my masters in HR earlier this year, and that helped cement all my experience into a new qualification. I rejoined LSE in the professional sense back in 2019 as the Employer Engagement Adviser, which involved working with organizations to help them to connect to the LSE student community, from a recruitment focus. In July, I moved into the role of Work-Based Learning Manager. This new role involves overseeing our experiential learning strategy and provision that consists of a portfolio of different activities: internships, consultancy projects, challenges (like the coding challenge that we do in partnership with the Digital Skills Lab) and hackathons. These activities are designed to help students develop their professional skills, develop their career confidence, their career readiness, and then understand how their academic studies can transfer over to the world of work.
Could you tell me a bit about your past work with the DSL?
I've worked with the Digital Skills Lab for a number of years, largely focused on the Python coding challenge, which has taken a couple of different forms. LSE Careers brings the employers to that challenge, and the DSL brought the concept and facilitated all the student group working and collaboration. The first challenge was sponsored by a technology focused company, Infosys, and the last two years have been sponsored by Optiver so students need to have an interest in banking and financial services to be involved with the challenge.
It’s great because the students get to complete courses with the DSL in Python and coding, and then they get to see how that is applied in the world of work through the challenge with an employer. Any student can take part, and once they’ve done the pre-requisite material, they’re assigned into interdisciplinary groups, so we mix postgraduates and undergraduates from all different degree backgrounds. They work over a four to six week period on a number of different coding scenarios that Optiver will publish throughout those six weeks and it ends with a final presentation and award ceremony with the CEO of Optiver.
How do you use digital skills in your role and how do they help you both in the role that you have now and past roles that you've held?
We use digital skills every single day and it's an important part of everyone's role, regardless of what you're doing. I think in almost every type of role you're going to be using a computer. That sounds really basic, but digital skills isn't just about learning to code for example, it's also about all of the other skills, just using Word, Teams, Outlook… They all sound really obvious when you say that, but when we advise students on CVs, we still tell them to include that because it's not necessarily a given that an employer will know that and actually it's an important part of the role.
How do you still keep connected with your colleagues? How do you still collaborate in meaningful ways digitally? Students getting to know things like Slack and Teams is really important because as we transition out of the pandemic and have more hybrid working, they're going to become more and more important.
For someone who isn't sure, which type of sector or job they want to go into, but is already ready to start preparing for working life, which digital skills would you see as being generally the most important and most broadly?
I think it's important that all students, regardless of sector, big or small, have a good understanding of tools like the Microsoft office suite or the Google suite, or whatever the equivalent that organization is using.
I'd say I don't have one specific skill that I would recommend, or I hear lots about as it is so dependent on the role and sector. It's great that students are developing Python or R skills and other more technical digital skills, but I think the most important thing that we hear from employers is that you don't have to be an expert. They will train you in all of this, so what's really important to showcase is an interest in a particular skill, like coding, and a willingness to keep learning and to develop your knowledge
I think the skills we use today might not be the skills we use in 5 to 10 years, and I think employers know that too. What’s more important is our willingness to learn, and that's a soft skill rather than a specific digital skill, and is arguably more important than the specific technical skills in the long term.
If you had one piece of advice to offer students while they're still at LSE, what would it be?
Enjoy your time studying at LSE, it's a really unique place with great, talented minds. Meet new friends, engage in really interesting conversations and learn from each other. Take advantage of all of the other things that are outside of your academic studies and department, like the Digital Skills Lab. The DSL, LSE Life, LSE Careers, they’re different things that are outside of your department, but that allow you to explore your career or to develop skills outside of your academic studies or to learn about ways to study at LSE life, and that's really unique.
I think what’s important is dipping in and out of whatever piques your interest, being open minded to the different things outside of your department, because they can be just as fruitful as your actual studies.