By Shamima Begum
- Early Talent Manager, GDS and Blaithin Gillen -
Summer Intern, GDS and Indigo Sullivan -
Summer Intern, GDS
Introduction
Every summer we welcome a number of students from diverse
backgrounds into our Summer Diversity
Internship Programme (SDIP) and this year, unlike for the
last two years, we were able to meet them in person in our
offices.
This year we also extended the invitation to include applicants
from the Autism Exchange Internship
Programme (AEIP) increasing the diversity of our interns and
offering us a greater chance to interact with a broader range of
service users.
This the last of a series of six blog posts written by some of
the DSIP/AEIP interns. In this blog, we hear from two of the
interns who took part in the Autism Exchange Internship Programme
(AEIP) - Indigo Sullivan and Blaithin Gillen (pictured) who were
interviewed about their experiences.
Ambitious about Autism - Autism Exchange Internship
Partnership
Why did you apply for the Autism Exchange Internship
Programme?
Indigo: I am interested in working within the
civil service and wanted to give it a try and see if it was right
for me. I also wanted to get some more work experience to put on
my CV to help me in getting a job after graduating
university.
Blaithin: A family member told me about the
opportunity and I decided that I should apply because I thought
it would be a great opportunity. I did want to know more about
what the Civil Service does. I wanted an opportunity to learn
more about how my creativity could be used in a business. Also I
wanted experience working in an office environment as I have only
done retail and physical jobs so far.
What kind of support have you received and how has it
helped you?
Indigo: The main support I need is the ability
to take breaks when my anxiety gets too much or I get
overwhelmed. With the flexible nature of the job this hasn’t been
an issue at all, and I have found myself free to take a quick
break whenever I need it.
Blaithin: My line manager Cam helps me by giving
me a to-do list and making sure that she has checked in with me
or someone else checked in with me everyday to make sure I knew
what I was doing. I wrote an about me page so the team could get
to know me and how to help me. My team also gave me a well laid
out calendar so I knew what I was doing and why I was doing it.
What advice would you give someone in the industry who is
considering an internship?
Indigo: If you are thinking about a career in
the civil service or just want to get some work experience this
is the perfect opportunity to do that. It’s normal to be anxious
about your first day but everyone is super friendly and
understanding and you’ll find you settle in really quickly.
Blaithin: Definitely go for it if you can
because I think it's a great opportunity for young people to get
more experience. We need so much experience for jobs these days
that I think we should grab opportunities like this with both
hands. I think the skills I have learned about recruitment will
help me get insight into how I will be perceived as a candidate
in the future.
Have you made any new connections whilst doing your
internship?
Indigo: I have had the opportunity to talk
one-on-one with a lot of members of the team to get an insight
into what they do. This has been really valuable in helping me
understand exactly what GDS do and where I could fit into the
department.
Blaithin: Yes I met another intern and good
friends with all of my team members, that way I can contact any
of them if I ever need any help in the future. I have also had
the opportunity thanks to my team to meet a Content Designer from
GDS and an ex-BBC worker to get more insight into the creative
world.
How has your experience of working in Government Digital
Service been so far?
Indigo: So far the experience has been great. In
my first week I have been given the opportunity to talk
personally with a lot of people. I’ve also done some note taking
on consumer research, and have started setting up a
confluence space for my team. All of this has helped me develop
lots of really valuable skills.
Blaithin: I love it. It's been so fun and I
really enjoy the work that I'm doing and the people I'm working
with. I had training to learn how to write a good advert. This
will help me in the future if I ever do advertisement work. I got
to draft some adverts to attract candidates and write tweets for
different government organisations to go on the official websites
and Twitter. I trained with the recruitment team and have learnt
all the different types of recruitment which will help me in my
future job hunt.
To find out more about the AEIP and visit the Autism Exchange Internship
Programme website; to find out more about the SDIP and the
application process for next year's in-take visit the Civil Service Summer
Diversity Internship Programme website.
