Member Article

Home grown talent kept in the region

A Durham-based business and IT consultancy are hoping to stem the region’s brain drain by employing six high flying graduates all of whom studied in the North of England. In addition to the graduates, Waterstons have also employed a Year in Industry student, Kate Walker who is working for the firm during her gap year before going on to study at York University.

Daniel Halliday, Rob Colclough and Alex Bookless received first class honours degrees and studied at Newcastle, Northumbria and Durham universities respectively. All three previously worked for Waterstons as part of the Year in Industry scheme through which the company has employed gap year students since 1998. Of the other three graduates employed, Ryan Crimmins studied at Durham University; Andrew Quinn at Newcastle University and James Alderson studied at Sheffield Hallam.

Clare Henderson, HR Manager, said: “We are thrilled to have such a high calibre graduate team joining us this year and are continuing to work closely with the top North East universities so that we can play our part in retaining talent in the region.”

The students are joining Waterstons’ Business Applications and Managed Services teams and many of them will have client facing roles from day one. They will also have the opportunity to study for professional qualifications from bodies such as PRINCE2, Microsoft and Cisco.

Alex Bookless said: “My Year in Industry gave me the self confidence, determination and skills needed to be highly successful at university, enabling me to gain awards for high performance in all 3 years of my degree. The year was also an enjoyable insight into the real world and gave me a good idea of the career I wanted to pursue following graduation.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Ruth Mitchell .