News

IDPP Team from London visiting Chester

IDPP's QBR in Chester

  • March 31, 2022

The IDPP Quarterly Business Review (QBR) took place this time not in our London Office, but in our newly renovated Chester Office.

02 Telefonica Logo for News in Telco Post

What's happening in Telco?

  • February 08, 2021

The Pandemic: What’s happening in Telco? - Mandy Sunner

 

As we are now in our 3rd lockdown, its proving quite insightful that the world of telecoms is, firstly, still moving; and secondly supporting all of its customers that are in need.

 

This blog focuses on what is happening in the world of O2 Telefonica.

 

 

O2 is working in partnership with the Department for Education, and each month they are providing to support home schooling families struggling during the pandemic and lockdown. This free data will enable disadvantaged children to gain help with technology and continue learning remotely.  

 

 

Continuing to follow this trend of supporting home learning, O2 have also set up a scheme enabling the public to donate a device to the local community. Anyone with a device at home that is no longer required can donate it, allowing a child to access online lessons or allowing vulnerable people the ability to access online video calls to prevent isolation.

O2 have also launched a national plan to keep the UK’s most vulnerable connected, and have set up a campaign, ‘Community Calling’, with the goal of keeping everyone connected and to support those people that are suffering in isolation.

 

O2 are set to continue their partnership with Transport for London to pilot their 4G network on the underground, great news for all those that use the underground/ tube and need to stay connected, and a welcome boost for business travellers! We are advised that this should be available from the Jubilee line between Westminster. Please click the link for more insight on this http://spkl.io/Network

In other news, O2 have recently launched their first commercial 5G satellite lab that tests innovation tech – it will be interesting to see how this progresses over time. Following the initial one-year launch of the 5G network, O2 has now expanded this offering across the UK and is supporting businesses and communities in Britain, across 100 towns/ cities. This is exciting because it is showing growth in innovation in the telco industry and bodes well for a prosperous future.

 

Keep up to date with our blog by following us on LinkedIn, or following us on Twitter

 

Also, get in touch with us if you’d like to discuss any of these points or have some news or updates of your own to share with us! We'd love to hear from you using the social media profiles linked above!

Minecraft Java menu Screen with Inspirational Tag

I was inspired to code...by Minecraft!

  • January 18, 2021

I was inspired to code... by Minecraft! - by Peter Grint

 

So, this is a bit of a nerdy post, but stick with me...

 

We’re in a lockdown due to the dreaded ‘rona! For all the parents out there that are sick of their kids screaming at Fortnite, or Call of Duty, or Fifa, but know that you can’t send your kids out to play – there might just be a solution in here for you.

 

It’s just one of those games that everybody has heard of… Minecraft!

 

Initially created by Markus “Notch” Persson, from his bedroom, it’s a game that has been the source of entertainment for children and adults alike for over 10 years now.

 

It’s the best-selling video game of all time, with 200 million copies sold and 126 million monthly active users as of 2020.

 

It took me a while to get into it as a kid, I thought it was too childish, with those blocky graphics and suicidal creepers. Even if you’ve never played the game, I’m sure you will know what a creeper is…

 

 

But when I did get into it, I came away with this desire to learn how to write computer code, in some way, shape or form. I didn’t have a solid understanding of what I wanted to learn, or even which language I could learn, but I knew I wanted to learn something.

 

There are two reasons for this:

  1. Minecraft was initially written in Java. There are now two versions, Java and Bedrock (which is written in C++) – but knowing that a single guy calling himself “Notch”, could build such a successful game using Java was a pretty big green flag for me.
  2. For those who aren't familiar, there is a feature in Minecraft called redstone - you basically use “power signals” and “wiring” to build circuits and machines. Some are complex, some are not, but all have an input, and an output. Kind of like…

 

 

Eventually, I decided to learn Objective-C because it was the most relevant to the field I was recruiting in at the time (mostly iOS and Android developers), but my first exposure to programming was through playing Minecraft. And it all started with Logic Gates.

 

 

How do I create a circuit that makes this door open in a certain way for a specific amount of time?

 

How can I create a system that blows up thieves who open this chest to try to steal my loot?

 

These were the simple things I was trying to achieve, but I became aware of some truly amazing creations, such as this working mobile phone:

 

 

Or this Quad Core processor, which boasts:

 

8 bit data, 8 bit instruction length

- 4 stage pipeline - Fetch, decode, execute, optional writeback

- 32 bytes of iCache/dCache - Can be swapped through software

- 8 bytes of constant cache

- I/O ports, addressable 0-7 but extendable with a custom interface

- 8 bytes of registers (including 1 zero register) with pointer support

- ALU performs opcodes: Increment, right shift, addition, subtraction, exclusive OR

- 8 pages of 32 bytes each, total of 256 bytes of attachable storage

 

 

Being able to experience this type of logic in a gaming environment was a huge contributing factor to my desire to learn to build something else, something in the real world. I didn’t even know I was learning, I thought I was just playing!

 

Before I knew it, I found myself researching HTML, and building websites using some of those old school tools like PIczo and even MySpace. Certain lines were stuck in my head, such as "a href" and "img src"

 

Now, when I open up the console window in Chrome (press F12) I can make sense of what I'm looking at, and know roughly what code does what on the page. Don't get me wrong, there's a LOT that still escapes me, but it's not all gibberish.

 

My latest project, in fairness, has just fizzled out. I got distracted by other stuff, like getting married and video editing (I’ve got a YouTube channel for that ????). I hope to come back to it someday, but I was able to grasp the basic principles of programming, and here’s a snippet of what I was able to produce.

 

 

So, if any of these points apply to your kids (or you, for that matter), maybe you can find some inspiration too:

 

- Screaming at the TV during a game of Fortnite, Call of Duty or Fifa

- Limited outdoor options due to lockdown

- Want a basic introduction to computer logic

 

It makes me wonder how other developers and programmers were inspired to create stuff digitally?

 

What was your inspiration? Let us know on LinkedIn or on Twitter, we'd love to hear from you!

 

Thanks for reading! In addition to writing nerdy blog posts, we also do a little bit of IT Recruitment! You can see our live jobs here! 

black lives matter protesters

#blacklivesmatter insights

  • March 17, 2022

#blacklivesmatter insights - by Remi Sellers

Been trying to process my thoughts during a period of deep contemplation over the past week. Thinking about my experiences as a light-skinned mixed race British man. I wonder about how my experience might have been different if I was white or black.

I look back on my childhood with happy memories. Obvious racial abuse was rare for me but I definitely knew I was different. My mum used to tell me to stay out of trouble because even if I had nothing to do with it I would still be blamed.

A particular instance that stands out for me was when I was in year 6 of primary school; I had passed the 11+ exam to go to Grammar School and in the same year had been scouted to play football for Middlesbrough My Headteacher told my mum:

"Remi is a credit to his race".

Bless my headteacher - in her mind she was paying my mum the most glowing compliment. These words resonated with me then and have since become part of a story I tell people when they ask me what it was like growing up in a place where you were basically the only person of colour. Clearly, that was 25 years ago and I reckon any headteacher would now find that remark comical.

That said, right now these words feel particularly poignant, especially in the context of many well-intentioned, yet uninformed, white people coming to terms with their own privilege and what racism really is.

I often hear “I’m white and I grew up on a council estate with nothing – how have I had any sort of white privilege”.

I also hear “well Black Lives Matter is racist because what about white lives or Asian lives or Hispanic lives – all lives matter!”

Another one is, “It’s not as bad in the UK though – racism is much worse in the US”.

Then, “what are these people doing protesting, don’t they know we’re in the midst of a global pandemic?!”

And also, “but I didn’t do this – this was my ancestors and their ancestors, it’s nothing to do with me, I have my own worries to deal with.”

These comments I believe come from well-meaning white people but they miss the point.

 

  1. White privilege does not mean you have not had struggles it just means the colour of your skin is not an extra barrier – this illustrates it nicely https://www.courtneyahndesign.com/illustration/guide-white-privilege
  2. All lives matter – of course they do. When we say Black Lives Matter, we are shining a light on the particular plight of black people whose lives are negatively impacted at each and every layer of institution. All lives matter WHEN black lives matter.
  3. Racism seems much more overt in the US with the very vivid imagery of physical violence, the fact the police carry guns and the pure numbers of unarmed black people at the hands of the police. However, you only have to Google “police brutality black people UK” and there are plenty of examples there. On top of that, what you have here is more insidious and I’d urge you to look into systemic racism in the Met police for example – something I did a presentation on in my English class 20 years ago!
  4. Imagine feeling so desperate for change that you would risk your life to have your voice heard…
  5. It may indeed have been our ancestors that colonised and enslaved but those actions have on average greatly benefitted white people in comparison to their black counterparts – it is the same in western Europe as it is in the US.

 

Finally, I have been thinking a lot about the people who have been shamed for what they have / haven’t posted. I think if you have an elevated platform then getting pressed to say something just comes with the territory.

I know this can cause some distress or anxiety but ultimately this is a small hardship when you compared to what black people go through on a daily basis and have gone through for generations. I also believe that people find it difficult to find their voice on such subjects, especially on social media.

I’m the same. I’m not a massive social media poster and I’ve agonised for ages about how to express myself. I have always been passionate about this subject but still find it difficult to express my thoughts in a post. I also know that just because you haven’t posted something online doesn’t mean you don’t care. I know that spirited discussions on this subject will be going on all over the country which can only be a good thing.

I think the most important thing is for people to educate themselves, open their hearts, minds and LISTEN.

If you have already made your mind up that “I know I’m not racist so my job is done” then this post will be a slap in the face for you. It is an uncomfortable thing to admit to our biases and our privilege.

Think about how you can be proactively anti-racist. Be a leader on the subject at work. Call someone out for their prejudiced views, however uncomfortable that may make you or the other person feel.

EDUCATE YOURSELF – black history isn’t only colonialism and slavery. In the fight against climate change, I think about the companies trying to reach carbon neutrality and the companies trying to reach carbon negativity so they are trying to actually reverse some of the damage. I’d be delighted to hear people’s thoughts on this subject.

Whilst I have felt despair, anger and helplessness over the past few days, I’m sure you know my message comes from a place of love.

First Job written in marker on glass

Managing your first job expectations

  • January 13, 2022

 

Managing your first job expectations - by Peter Grint

I’d like to take a moment to talk job hunting, and to talk about salary expectations, the job hunting process, and thinking long term about your career path – specifically if you’re on the hunt for your first job.

This post is inspired by a scenario that has occurred more than once with colleagues, friends, and family members. These generally tend to be people that have just finished school, or college, or their first “part time job”, but are seeking immediate employment as opposed to further education.

I won’t spend any time judging that decision – after all, I made this same decision after my first year of 6th form, and I’ve worked at least one full time job since then. Maybe going to university is a better life choice, maybe it’s not, maybe it depends on the individual.

 

Setting the scene

My wife and I have big families, lots of brothers and sisters. Two of these brothers have recently come to me with a request to help them with their CVs. They both wanted to have the best possible chances of securing an interview (that’s what job hunting is about, right? Having the best possible chances?), or at least having their CV read in full.

Neither of them has significant work experience. They have some, but to bulk out their CVs, they both still have their Year 10 work experience listed. There’s nothing wrong with that, we’ve all started there at some point, but one of the things they didn’t understand at the time is that job hunting is a process that only works with effort – as if job hunting itself were a full time job. Which brings me nicely onto point number one…

 

Job Hunting is a numbers game… and it’s hard work!

I advised them that job hunting is a numbers game. Yes, you need your CV to stand out and highlight your key skills and experience, but that CV needs to be seen by as many relevant hiring managers as possible.

During my own job searches, I’d make hundreds of applications a day, and attend interviews 4 or 5 times a week. Though all the roles I applied for were relevant in some way, I made a point of applying for roles that weren’t exactly what I was looking for. At this point in my career, I knew that I wanted a cool job and a great salary, but I also knew point number two…

 

Experience is experience

Whether your first job is a paper round, a retail role, a customer service role, a warehouse role, a corner shop assistant, a fast food chain, or voluntary work, you need to keep in mind that you can learn something from every scenario.

I can almost guarantee that when you are interviewing for your dream job, you’ll be asked a question that starts with “tell me about a time when” or “here’s a scenario that you’ll face from time to time, how would you handle it”.

I have, in the past, prepped people to answer these types of questions by digging into their work history and helping them to identify useful examples – but this is almost impossible if there is no work history to speak of. So remember, experience is experience – have your end goal in mind, but take one step at a time on your path to success. It may be hard sometimes, which brings me on to point number three…

 

Preparation is key

Imagine you are a hiring manager – and if that’s not something you’ve ever experienced let me just lay out a few points you’ll need to bear in mind during this thought experiment.

  1. In a smaller business, your job title is not actually “Hiring Manager”, it’s likely something else and hiring people is just one of the tasks you need to complete to make the business work. You may also have HR tasks to complete, audits, accounts, sales, customer support, technical tasks, the list goes on. The point is, time is precious.
  2. In a larger business, the Hiring Manager may be tasked only with recruitment and perhaps some HR functions. However, it’s a larger company, which means more jobs to recruit for, and more applicants per role. Again, time is precious.

The point I’m trying to make is that, rightly or wrongly, it is not the Hiring Manager’s responsibility to read your CV, forgive any spelling mistakes, and try to make sense of any long-winded (or under explained) points.

The responsibility falls on you, the job seeker, to present the information to the Hiring Manager in a way that either makes them see you’re right for the role, or interests them enough to entice them to read on.

Different recruitment professionals will give slightly different estimates for how long a Hiring Manager will spend considering a CV before deciding whether to continue reading or dismiss the CV. If they dismiss the CV, it likely won’t get another look in it’s current form, you’ll have to re-apply later with more experience listed.

But, according to Glassdoor, you have 6 seconds to make the right impression.

The only thing you can do here is to prepare! Here’s some ideas:

  1. Include a custom covering letter. Yes, it takes time, but as I said earlier, job hunting is hard work!
  2. When you’re writing your CV, don’t think about how wonderful you are, think about what you can bring to the table. For example, “I was Captain of the Girls School Football Team” is great, but “as Captain of the Girls School Football Team I coordinated the team during games, considering strengths and weaknesses of all players to facilitate teamwork and, ultimately, success” shows skills you have and can implement in a working environment.
  3. Research the company – if you can show you’ve put in effort at this stage, a Hiring Manager will see that as a skill even though it’s not been stated in so many words.
  4. Format your CV to make it clear, and readable.

There are a tonne of examples covered in this article titled How to: Write a CV – if you’d like more information, check it out!

So, you’ve written your CV, posted it to all the job boards, you’ve made applications which are relevant to your immediate goals and not just focused on that dream job. Now we need to talk about point number four….

 

Interviewing

I won’t spend too much time here, because that’s not the purpose of this article. Plus, I’ve already covered off some points in this article entitled Candidates: Are you covering these questions in your interview?

If you’d like a more rounded article on interview tips and tricks, make some noise in the comments, LinkedIn, Twitter, or message me directly, and I’ll get on it!

I would like to quickly circle back to a comment I made earlier, about the number of interviews I attended per week. 4-5 is about average, sometimes more, sometimes less. I’d group them so I had one in the morning and one in the afternoon, so I wasn’t paying for travel every single day. It’s one of those things that every one assumes is fine, but when you’re job hunting (and therefore unemployed), don’t be ashamed or embarrassed by the lack of funds in the old piggy bank. Ultimately, that’s exactly the situation we’re trying to resolve, right?

But it is important, particularly early on, that you attend interviews for roles that aren’t exactly what you’re looking for, to get the interview experience. You won’t get an offer from every company, but you will learn something about interviewing. It will be hard, but it’s worth it.

As a side note, there is a line here – don’t waste an interviewers time – if you’re not going to get anything from the interview and they’re not going to get anything from the interview, it’s probably not worth the effort.

Also, please, I implore you, to communicate with the interviewer or recruiter if you are unable (or unwilling) to attend an interview. If you "ghost" them, it’s rude, unprofessional, and you’ll build a reputation for yourself that you will struggle to “unbuild”.

So, you’ve played the numbers game, you’ve interviewed a butt load, you’ve got a job offer and you start on Monday. Time for point number five…

 

Don’t fall at the first hurdle

Your first day may be orientation, or training, or shadowing someone else doing your role. It may be a case of “here’s the coffee machine, go and ask everyone what they want”.

It may not be glamourous, you might even not like it, but give it a chance. Remember, this is not your dream job, this is the path to get to your dream job.

If your manager is a bit of a {insert chosen insult here}, remember that you are here to learn how to deal with that situation. When you interview for that dream job, and they ask you about a time when management was difficult to work with, you will have an answer!

Learn how to deal with the situation, seek advice if need be, but stick it out! You’re learning!

And if you’re working with customers, that’s even better. They can be rude and arrogant and have no appreciation for how hard your job actually is. But learning to deal with customers of varying personality traits is an important part of your professional development. Don’t give up straight away, every difficult scenario is an opportunity to learn more about yourself, and build your skill set.

Your CV will look awesome, and your Interviews will be less like interrogations and more like conversations.

Again, as a (very important) side note – There are some difficult situations which facilitate learning, and I would suggest you endure. I am aware that this article is targeted at inexperienced job seekers, and your safety is one million times more important than anything I’ve said so far, so remember this: abuse of any kind, bullying of any kind, discrimination of any kind, and unwanted advances or behaviour, are unacceptable.

In the first instance, you should communicate with your HR department – it is their duty to ensure that each employee is treated fairly, equally, and has a safe working environment.

Please don’t “stick it out” if the workplace is unsafe, or affecting your wellbeing continuously and without hope of resolution.

Sometimes there are “bad days” and sometimes there are “bad jobs”. Seek advice if you’re not sure.

And now for point number six, and the concept that inspired me to write this post in the first place…

 

Payday isn’t worth it… is it?

So you’ve received your first payslip, congratulations!

You’re excited! You tear open the envelope (or PDF, because 2020)

You take a second to try to make sense of terms such as P.A.Y.E, Net, Gross.

And then you see the section labelled “Deductions”. What’s this N.I? Is that how much Tax I really have to pay? What is an HMRC?

There is a sales technique called “Reduce to the ridiculous” – this is when you take the cost of something, such as a sofa, and break down the cost across smaller segments of time so the overall cost is less intimidating.

Unfortunately, we use this same trick to our own detriment when calculating our pay-per-hour from a salary. If you’re interested to know this, either visit listentotaxman.com or take your gross pay (after deductions) and divide by 12 months, then by 22 working days, then by 8 hours.

The point here is, you may look at your pay and wonder if your time working for this particular employer was worth it. I would advise you to remember that, for your first job, the aim is to gain experience for future progression.

Work hard, learn a lot, and use that to leverage a better salary in your next role. One step at a time!

 

A quick note on Covid19

It seems I can’t write a post or article these days without Covid popping in there in some way, shape or form. But this is quite important, if somewhat unfortunate.

In a normal employment market, a first-time job seeker will have competition for any role they apply for. It’s difficult, but you need to have realistic expectations of your starting salary. Often, companies will opt to employ the person who brings the most value to a role, and if the pool of candidates is inexperienced, the salary will reflect that.

Recently, I helped someone get their first job, and she was excited by the advertisement that offered £23,000 starting salary OTE (on target earnings) and disappointed when she didn’t make that much money.

The salary on job descriptions is often presented in a way that gives the employer the best chance of hiring the best person, just as your CV presents you in a way that gives the best chance of finding a great job.

If you have no experience to speak of, are inexperienced at interviewing, can’t provide recommendations due to a lack of referees, or if you’ve not done the preparation I mentioned earlier, I would suggest limiting your salary expectations to no less than what you can “afford to live off”, but not much more than that. I would advise this in a normal employment market, but I advise this even more intensively now.

Redundancies, furlough, lockdown. These three elements mean there are qualified, experienced people going for the same roles as you. I’ve seen individuals qualified to MSc level working in McDonalds, and (non-medical) Doctors stacking shelves for Amazon. No exaggeration.

And I applaud these people – these are tough times and there are doing what they must to put money in the bank and food on the table. These people demonstrate resilience and responsibility every day.

These are the people you are competing with now, so it’s more important than ever that you don’t dismiss a role because you feel you’re worth more money. Maybe you are, maybe you aren’t, but that doesn’t change the market conditions.

 

It’s not all doom and gloom

The industrial revolution changed the employment market globally. The dot net boom changed the way we run business communications globally. The eCommerce boom changed the way people shop, globally.

The effect of change is in the eye of the observer – if you’re in the hospitality sector during Covid19, it’s likely your business will have suffered already, with more to come.

If you’re in the telecoms business, emergency services, or online retail (such as Amazon), there are opportunities to make the most of the situation.

As a job seeker, it’s tougher to find the types of jobs you may have looked for pre-Covid. However, keep in mind that lockdown has forced us all to learn how to work from home, a policy that many, many companies have adopted now.

Remote work is no longer out of arms reach, even for first time job seekers. This means less money spent on travel, so that £18k basic is (other than Tax and NI) actually all yours.

Online shopping has boomed, which means that warehouse roles are abundant. There are some great skills to be learned in a role like this!

And if you can forgo a salary altogether, there are millions of people in need. The elderly, the young, animals. Try volunteering for a charity that helps people, it’ll look great on your CV, assist your mental health, and help you build skills for your next job seeking session.

 

Summary

It’s tough out there, we’re in unprecedented times. Be resilient, persistence, realistic and diligent, and opportunities will present themselves to you.

Don’t give up! And stay safe!

Dr Gladys West

Dr. Gladys "GPS" West

  • March 21, 2022

Dr. Gladys "GPS" West - written by Peter Grint

Dr Gladys West was born in 1930, in Dinwiddie County, Virginia. As she calls it, it's "a real rural kind of a place".

The many families in the area were sharecroppers - tenenats of a farm who had to have over the proportion of their crops to landowners.

Her family had their own small farm and she had to work in the fields with them.

"I guess I found that a little bit contrary to what I had in my mind of where I wanted to go," she says.

She realised that the way to change her path was through education, and people who came top of their class at her school were offered a scholarship to the local university. Knowing this, she worked hard, and graduated top of her class in high school.

"When it was time to go to college, I didn't quite know what to major in," she says.

"They were trying to tell me, since I was good at all my subjects, that I should major in science or math or something that was more difficult and meant people didn't major in it."

She landed on Maths, which was statistically studied by men at the college.

"You felt a little bit different. You didn't quite fit in as you did in home economics.

"You're always competing and trying to survive because you're in a different group of people."

Of the few females classmates she had, many went on to pursue careers such as teaching - as did Ms West for a while, untill she moved on to work at the Dahlgreen Naval Base.

Here, she spent her time collecting data from satalites, processing that data, and using it to determine their locations in a very exact manner.

It was this information that would go on to help develop GPS.

She would work with the programmers of the massive computers on base, assisting with the functions that they needed to perform.

She says, "The operators would call us to tell us our programme was running now and we could come down and watch it."

Like any science, her work has been built upon in the decades since, helping us to develop a full Global Positioning Satalite System available to the public for everyday use.

The next time you use Google Maps, Apple Maps, Waze, a TomTom or any other SatNav, don't forget about the amazing woman, and the amazing mind, behind the technology.