Allstate Northern Ireland has opened their doors to young IT graduates of the future by holding Open Door Sessions at Allstate NI's Belfast office in a bid to teach them more about the industry and what Allstate NI has to offer to its employees. Visitors are a mixture of AS and A level ICT & Computing students who will soon be making important decisions regarding their choice of study at university. Allstate NI has held a number of sessions already and plan to continue on for the remainder of the year, building on the relationships made with those schools who attended the A level teacher training course held by the training team at the Allstate NI Belfast office.
Pupils learn about the Allstate Corporation, the largest publicly owned insurance company in the US & the technology work that Allstate NI does to support its parent company in its day to day operations. They also learn about the company's culture, its work/life balance, benefits and sports & social clubs. They received a tour of the building to get a real feel for the office including the new top of the range video conferencing Telepresence room used for cross continent face to face conversations. Pupils of each school then have the opportunity to hear from a range of IT specialists in various fields ranging from business analysts, programmers, field support and app development
Allstate NI hopes this initiative will encourage the graduates of tomorrow to get into IT. Allstate NI has already welcomed over 100 students with visits scheduled to carry on throughout the year.
Director of Human Resources at Allstate NI, Jim Norris is very positive about the visits, stating, "It is important that we encourage the young talent in Northern Ireland to invest their skills into the varied world of IT sector. These Open Door Sessions give us direct face to face contact with pupils allowing them to see first-hand how the IT industry is thriving and what opportunities are available".
The feedback from the pupils was very positive as before the visits they could not visualise what a programmer did or how they worked but afterwards the pupils said that they understood much more about the daily life of a programmer. Ruth Foster, Wallace High School.
