Starting Careers in Tech on the Right Foot

I joined Infosys 10 years ago and it’s been an exciting journey! In my role as the Delivery Manager for Infosys in New Zealand, I help enable our teams to bring digital innovation to our clients, which include some of the largest businesses in the country.

We offer our clients in New Zealand access to a plethora of digital tools and technologies, and importantly, our teams help them accelerate their digital journeys. Our teams have grown significantly over the last decade across a diverse range of digital skills, and integral to this journey are our graduate and internship programs.

I am really passionate about nurturing talent in the technology sector in New Zealand. Many of our programs in the region that I help drive, contribute to advancing digital skills in New Zealand. This includes our graduate program, our InStep internship program, and even some of the community focused initiatives that we drive like GovHack – one of the largest hackathons in the Southern Hemisphere.

As an organisation, we’re committed to advancing digital skills among New Zealanders, and I thoroughly enjoy helping to make a difference. Our graduates and interns have an opportunity to work on challenging digital projects, where they help move businesses along their digital journeys across different sectors in the region – this includes banks, retailers, telcos and other industries. I enjoy working with our grads, mentoring them and just as memorably, learning from them.

As a graduate, it can be tricky as you begin your career, so here’s some advice from me on building a successful career in the technology sector, and a bit about the graduate experience at Infosys.

Growing your skill set in the right way is very important

Research we conducted at Infosys recently found that companies who are successful at attracting the best talent approach their recruitment by hiring people with potential, rather than credentials. In other words, they don’t look for specific technical expertise, but rather candidates who demonstrate an ability and willingness to develop the skills they need.

As technical skills tend to have a lifecycle of around two years, their use will generally be limited. So, understanding a particular programming language isn’t going to make you attractive to an employer – but your curiosity, learnability and ability to be adapt are crucial. 

I always advise teams that I work with that if there is anything they have an aptitude for, pursue it with formal qualifications. They will then understand both the theory and the practical realities, and be able to build on their skills from there. I also learned early on in my career to play to my strengths, which for me means working with people to identify problems and improve processes.

Finally, remember that the world is changing rapidly with digital technology, and within the tech sector particularly, skills have evolved from the days of being all about writing a spec and coding it. Today it’s more about finding problems and creating solutions, which means soft skills like teamwork, communication and leadership are crucial to your progress and should be a focus for development.

Always keep the future you’re aiming for in mind

 A career in technology – and certainly life at Infosys - is not just about bringing your technical prowess. A good combination of EQ and IQ skills will help you to build an exciting career. Softer skills - including your ability to network with your colleagues, clients and partners for instance – go a long way.

I’ve been a graduate fresh out of Uni myself and I know it can be difficult to establish yourself when you begin your career. Within the technology sector for example, as a grad you would not yet have domain knowledge or deep knowledge of the business landscape that a client is operating in and so on.

Learnability hence is a crucial skill throughout your career. In addition, it’s important to have mentors, whether in a formal capacity, or informally through stakeholders you work with. There are opportunities to be inspired all around us.  

Building a career that never stands still

Finishing a degree at university should never signal the end of your learning, especially in a world that’s always moving ahead with technology. Technology changes rapidly and you should always be looking for what more you can learn. Take every opportunity to develop your skills, update your knowledge and stay current with real-time, real-world experiences.  

With this in mind, I always encourage folks to explore learning opportunities as a way to gain practical exposure to a variety of technologies, tools and processes. Leverage digital tools that you have access to and learn new skills. At Infosys we use our Next-Gen digital leaning platform, Lex, to stay ahead of our learning journeys. Identify where you can apply your learnings and make a difference.

The hard work does pay off. In your career, there will always be milestones achieved along the way which are stepping stones towards a successful career. To help prepare grads for a career in the technology space at Infosys for instance, we’ve designed world-class training programs. These are focused on augmenting the technology skills learned at university. Our grads begin their journeys with us with an intensive training period, before joining real-time digital transformation projects with some of the biggest brands in Australia.  

We encourage our grads to experience working on different projects as they begin their careers, as it helps with learning new skills and importantly understanding the broader business landscape.

It’s very satisfying for our graduates at Infosys to be able to point to their part in the launch of a real service offering, or improvement of an existing one.

Being immersed in genuine projects and having a tangible impact on successful outcomes is an inspiring and motivating way to kick-off a career.

 Excited to get your career off to a flying start with Infosys? Head to our website for more info on our graduate program!