Ideate Assignment

1. Problem Statement
The graduate programmer hirer
NEEDS A WAY TO a way to attract
the best candidates to come and
work for his company BECAUSE
graduates are not thinking of their
long term career objectives when
they apply for their first job

2. What are the most obvious
solutions?
• Have better offers than the competitors
– More money
– More Holidays
– Shorter working hours
– Bonus schemes
– Share options
• Raise the profile of the company
– Recruitment fairs in the college
– In the media
• Try to influence the quality of graduates
• Engage early with the graduates
– Recruitment fairs in the college
• Create better working environment
– Better/free food
– Free beverages
– Bring your pets to work
– Allow grads to work on the own projects for a portion of
their time
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3. What can you add, remove or
modify from those initial solutions?
• Have better offers than the competitors
– Health plans
– Gym facilities/membership
– Opportunities to travel
– Better equipment (choose your own)
• Raise the profile of the company
– Sponsor college events
– Run programming competitions
– Increase philanthropic activities
• Try to influence the quality of graduates
– Try to have specific items added to the college syllabus
• Engage early with the graduates
– Open up more intern placements
– Engage with students when they are still in high-school
– Talk to influence parents of the graduates
• Create better working environment
– Shorter working hours
– Mentoring plans
– State of the art offices
– Work from home options
• Look to increase the pool of candidates
– Look for non computer graduates
– Look for graduates from other countries
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4. How would a 5-year-old child
solve the problem?
• Allowed to play games
• Free chocolate and
fizzy drinks
• Swimming pools in
the office
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5. How would you solve the
problem if you had an unlimited
budget?
• Double the salary that
competition is offering
• Company cars
• Corner offices for
everybody
• Downtown locations
• Opposite work days
i.e. work 2 days with
5 day weekends
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6. How would you solve the
problem without spending any
money?
• Try to instill as sense
of national pride
• Try to plant seeds
about
entrepreneurship
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7. How would you solve this problem
if you had control over the laws of
nature (think invisibility,
teleportation, etc.)?
• Show students a
vision of what they
will be like in 10 years
time
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8. Idea Selection
• Most Practical
– The most practical idea is related to raising the quality of the
graduates coming from the computer science school by trying
to ensure that the syllabus contain material that will make
them ready from the real world.
• Most Disruptive
– To engage with students whilst they are still in high school, as I
believe the students will be much more open minded at this
point of their lives.
• Favourite Idea
– To engage with the parents, I believe parents have a huge
influence on their children, even when the children are young
adults.
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