For the past year we’ve been working with Baillie Gifford to grow their team, so far they’ve hired seven of our graduates, and are looking to keep hiring from CodeClan in the future to strengthen their expanding team.
We caught up with Yvonne Robertson, Chief of Staff, about what they do and how the CodeClan graduates are doing.
Tell us a bit about Baillie Gifford.
Baillie Gifford is a UK investment management firm, we are based in Edinburgh but we have clients from all over the world. One of the most important things about Baillie Gifford is that we are a partnership, this provides stability for clients and motivation for our employees. We manage the business thinking on genuine long-term rather than short-term, investing in long-term plans we think about the future and the possibilities. Tech and innovation.
Fantastic! What’s the training and onboarding process like for CodeClan graduates?
I would say it’s the same one as it is for anybody, of course, if they need any support we give it to them. But the backgrounds from CodeClan graduates tend to be amazing. At Baillie Gifford we believe in continuous learning, which is a mindset that CodeClan graduates already have.
What kind of projects are CodeClan graduates working on right now?
I believe we have 7 CodeClan graduates working with us at the moment, and another codeclanner on our graduates program. They are all working on very different projects! Task manager apps, Investment projects, accounting operations, client engaging progress, on the backend and frontend…etc. As you can see, all in different departments, we have development projects happening across the whole firm.
Is there a special quality about graduates from CodeClan?
Bravery and confidence is something that we highly value at Baillie Gifford- we want out of the box thinkers and people who want to continue to learn, and these are qualities that graduates from CodeClan tend to have.
People from CodeClan come from very different backgrounds, there are many career changers and that denotes a desire for improvement. A passion for tech is very important for us, in any sort of form! And again, this is something we see in every CodeClan graduate we have. Diversity is also very important for us, people with different perspectives and experiences, and CodeClan is a great pool of talent for that.
Lastly, just like with our clients- we invest in people for the long term, we want our employees to continue to learn and grow with us, there are multiple training opportunities for everyone as well as a diversity program.
What advice would you give to someone who wants to join Baillie Gifford?
All you need is a passion for tech and a collaborative mindset, ‘what can you do for the team?’
Also, bring your best self! It’s something you hear all the time, but it’s true, we want you to feel comfortable so you can express yourself and bring all your ideas to the table. It’s impossible for people to ‘be their best selves’ if they are not in a good environment.
After the success of CodeClan’s September 2021 open week, Baillie Gifford are once again our sponsors for this January 2022 open week. Find out more about the company and their values during our open week events: ‘Diversity In Tech with CodeClan’, ‘Launching careers with Baillie Gifford’, ‘Meet the hiring teams’ and ‘CodeClan connected networking’.
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