The Academy experience

Anders joined New Minds Academy 2021 to work at Saab as a Network Engineer. After graduating from the program, he has continued his employment in the same role, working with automating networks. He works with both software and hardware and write scripts that automate the networks and configures the hardware. Unfortunately, he couldn’t tell us much more about his job, since he works with security where information is classified as confidential.

What’s the best thing about your job?
– The automation part is challenging in a fun way; I get to make my own decision on how to approach the problems so it’s quite flexible. Saab is a great company, and the work has a lot of variety to offer. There’s always something to work on, and it has been very educational. During my time in the Academy, I was more on a need-to-know basis since since we worked with company confidential information, and now I get to have full disclosure.

What made you choose New Minds?
– During the last few months of my education I was stressed and had a lot to do, so I didn’t have much time to apply for jobs. Then New Minds reached out and told me about the Academy program together with Saab, and it sounded great. They’ve been amazing during the whole process from the first phone call until graduation from the program!

What has been the best thing with the Academy program?
– The people I got to meet. I ended up with an awesome group of consultants from New Minds at Saab! My consultant manager from New Minds has also been great; she’s been very helpful and made me feel taken care of, and I always left our meetings feeling re-energized. Everyone I’ve been in contact with from New Minds have been amazing to talk to, and there was a personal touch that I really appreciated.

– Another thing I really liked were the training sessions; they helped me reflect on my job role and my daily tasks. Especially the training session about continuous integration and continuous deployment, since it made me realize that that is the future. When I studied Network Technology at university, we mostly scratched the surface on most domains, but we never got into CI/CD. After the training session I have delved even more into that area.

– Overall, the sessions felt relevant and were broad in their topics. For instance, I got the opportunity to learn more about leadership, management, and presentation technique which has been very useful so far in my career.

Did the program live up to your expectations?
– Both yes and no. Most things have been better than expected, but when I joined the Academy together with Saab I got to work in a pilot project, so at times it was unclear what was expected of me and what my tasks were. I also would’ve liked more information about the position and job tasks during the early stages of the recruitment process. The information I received was a bit general and vague, but everything worked out great in the end.

What’s the most valuable experience you got from your year with New Minds?
– I think the personal network has been very useful and great to have. We were around 14 or 15 consultants from New Minds at Saab, and we came from different educational backgrounds which led to different perspectives and ideas in our discussions. It was nice to be able to bounce ideas and thoughts off each other. I believe the network I’ve gained will be useful in my future professional career, and I’m still in touch with many of them both professionally and privately.

Would you recommend New Minds Academy, and if so, why?
– I definitely would! I don’t have much to compare with, but I think that if I would’ve gone out on my own, I wouldn’t have such a broad network as I have now, and as many contacts to discuss things with and get inspiration from. The training sessions also gave me an advantage when it comes to professional skills, so I really believe it’s beneficial for the career to jump on an opportunity like this, given the choice.