Member Article

ERP specialists Vanilla Solutions launches new graduates programme

VANILLA Solutions, one of the UK’s leading enterprise software specialists, has taken on four recruits through a new graduate programme.

The company, which has offices in Brigg and Newcastle, launched the new scheme last year and has initially recruited two developers and two consultants. Vanilla has a fast growing number of clients, nationally and internationally, and specialises in ERP software, particularly IFS, for whom the company is both a channel and services partner.

Vanilla’s Head of Technology, Mike Hollifield, explained: “We are growing rapidly and constantly active in the recruitment market. We know what talent there is in the usual pipeline – but we wanted to do something a bit different and to bring people in who we could train in the Vanilla way from the outset.

“We worked with prospects.ac.uk to find suitable candidates and took them through graduate assessment days at our offices in Brigg before selecting the four recruits. Their training programmes will last 12 months and there are different programmes for our new developers and consultants.

“We’re delighted with the four we’ve recruited – Lewis Moore and George Armstrong are our new graduate consultants, and Boluwarin ‘Bee’ Adedoyin and Ian Hannaford are our new graduate developers.”

Mike is overseeing the development of the graduate developers, while Vanilla’s Head of Consulting Paul Darwin is responsible for the graduate consultants. Each has also been given a named mentor to help with specific training and teach them more about the company and the different industries their customers operate within.

Graduate consultant Lewis Moore, 23, is from Stoke-on-Trent and after an initial six months of training – in the classroom and on the job - will select which area of IFS he wants to specialise in. “At the moment I think I’ll choose the supply chain area of IFS,” said Lewis, who completed a degree in sports and exercise at the University of Derby and then a master’s in performance analysis.

Fellow graduate consultant George Armstrong is also considering the supply chain area of IFS for his specialism. George, 21, from Nottinghamshire, completed a business studies degree at the University of Lincoln before starting his career at Vanilla last September.

“It’s been hard graft, but the Vanilla team has been fully supportive and I’m thoroughly enjoying myself. Although I didn’t study an IT degree, I’ve found there have been skills that I used at university that have been transferrable,” he said.

Vanilla’s new graduate consultants will be based at home, as they will spend a great deal of time with clients across the country. The developers will mostly be based at the company’s head office in Brigg, Humberside.

Bee Adedoyin, 25, has moved from Dundee, where he studied a computing degree at Abertay University, to Brigg to take up his new position.

“I passed my three-month probationary period and am really enjoying my ongoing training,” explained Bee, who is originally from Nigeria.

“My mentor Neil Carter and other members of the Vanilla team have been very helpful. Obviously most of my training is IFS oriented, but we’re also looking at other software too, including the underlying PL/SQL and Microsoft Azure. I’d done a bit of PL/SQL before, but nothing like in this detail.”

Ian Hannaford, 25, from Scunthorpe, is Bee’s fellow graduate developer, and completed a cyber-security degree at De Montford University in Leicester

He’s enjoying working with IFS, although his training has been across a wide IT spectrum. That has included working with Fortinet and PL/SQL.

“I’ve particularly enjoyed the networking side of things and recently went to Newcastle with Mike Hollifield to help improve connectivity at our Tyneside office,” he explained.

“I’ve found everyone at Vanilla friendly, supportive and knowledgeable, especially my mentors Andrew Nicholls and Neil Carter,” he added.

“There’s no doubt our new graduate scheme has been a success. We’ve definitely already found four stars for the future - and we’ll certainly be running our graduate programme again this year. It is an integral part of the aggressive expansion plans that we have at Vanilla,” said Mike.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Vanilla Solutions .