How to show your passion for technology in your IT graduate application

Passion is about deliberately bringing technology into your own life or the lives of others, and not just using it because it’s there. – Graduate recruiter at IBM

When you’re applying to work for a technology company, you need to show clear enthusiasm for technology, even if you’re not applying for a technical role. This is because technology companies want all their employees to be strong ambassadors for their products.

And if you are applying for a technical role, it goes without saying that you need to have a passion for technological innovation.

You might be asked about your passion for technology in specific application questions. IBM, for example, has previously asked applicants for all its schemes (including sales and business roles) to show how their skills and achievements point towards a true interest in tech. If there is no specific question, you need to convince recruiters of your passion in your answers to other application questions about why you want the job, or in your covering letter.

Here are some tips on writing about what you find fascinating in the tech sphere, with help from Tim Longdon, IBM hiring team lead for IBM’s Consulting by Degrees programme when we spoke to him.

Showing your passion for technology if you DON’T have a tech background

You might think that if you don’t have a technology-related degree, don’t have the latest smartphone or don’t know any programming languages that you’ll be scraping the barrel for things to write about, but that’s simply not true. Tim says: ‘Everyone has experience with technology. The difficulty can be in recognising where your experiences happen.’

So, how do you find examples that demonstrate just how keen on technology you are?

Tip 1: Think about what technology does for you. Consider how technology has made your life better. ‘Showing how you adopt and use technology in an interesting way is a good start,’ says Tim. ‘For example, do you use wearable tech to improve your life? Does it amaze you that you can keep hundreds of books on your Kindle? Or maybe you’ve been impressed at how something simple like a smartphone app to pay for car parking has made an annoying process effortless (no need to find spare change anymore!) and you have started to think about other ways in which you could apply technology in a similar way. Even using WhatsApp to organise your social life represents a convenient solution to something logistically complex, and the fact that you have thought about a personal problem and applied a technology-related solution will help us see that you “live” technology.’

Tip 2: Think about other people. When you’re ‘passionate’ about something, you want to share it with others, so thinking about how you have shared technology is another way to find examples to demonstrate what technology means to you. ‘Passion is about deliberately bringing technology into your own life or the lives of others, and not just using it because it’s there,’ says Tim. ‘Perhaps you taught an elderly relative to order groceries online. What benefit did you recognise in doing that?’

Once you have decided on your examples, you need to explain why these experiences have made you want to work in technology. Make a really clear link between the benefits/things you have enjoyed about using technology and what you want in your career. For example, you could explain that you got a great sense of satisfaction from helping the elderly person order their groceries online, and so you think you have the motivation to work in an IT consulting role where you would be persuading people to adopt technology that simplifies things for them. ‘Most importantly, can you express why these technological advancements are meaningful to you and why they might have triggered your interest in working for a technology company?’ says Tim.

Showing your passion for technology if you DO have a tech background

Tip 1: Don’t just list your skills and knowledge… show you have applied them. Tim gives an example: ‘As well as knowing programming languages, how might you have developed a solution using them? If you have envisaged or even created a technology solution to an everyday problem, whether at home or in your studies, that will stand out. Don’t just say, “I know programming languages x, y and z” – that doesn’t show passion and doesn’t stand out. If you were self-taught, then yes! Or if you’ve used that skill to solve a problem, yes again!’

Tip 2: Personalised and memorable examples are more likely to get your application into the ‘yes’ pile for the next stage, so strengthen your answers by giving detail about what the problem you aimed to resolve was, how you applied your skills and what motivated you to try solving the issue. ‘If you have chosen to teach yourself certain technical skills, then tell us why you chose them and what it meant to you to personally develop a skill that was not required for your degree course,’ says Tim.

And finally, remember…

Don’t be tempted to stretch the truth or exaggerate your interest. Any experiences you choose to write about in your application are likely to be brought up again by your interviewers as you get further through the selection process.

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