By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
@GettyImages.
Recognising that there’s a skills mismatch between the learned classroom skills of university graduates and the requirements for workplace-ready employees, SYSPRO has introduced an internship programme to bridge this gap by aligning the needs of employers with those of recent graduates looking for opportunities within the industry. The company’s goal is to meaningfully contribute to growing the expertise within the industry.
The demand for the programme has grown exponentially since it started with five interns in 2016: in 2023, 20 graduates are placed in the nine-month course. The figures speak for themselves – in 2021, SYSPRO received 4,500 applications from talented young graduates.
Ntongase Mathabela is nothing if not tenacious. After studying for a diploma in sports management, she applied for an internship at SYSPRO. When she didn’t get accepted, she went back to her studies, this time studying business administration. And then, she applied for the SYSPRO Internship programme again. This time, she was successful, but… COVID. Finally, in 2021, she arrived at SYSPRO, ready to soak up every learning opportunity given to her.
Ntongase believes that the internship programme was a great stepping stone into her career. As a group, the interns learned not only technical skills, but the soft skills needed in the workplace – professionalism, presentation skills, business etiquette, all of which built confidence for the professional workplace. In her words, “skills they don’t teach you at university”. From the beginning, Ntongase had a keen interest in marketing and opted for a job shadowing placement in the product marketing team. Now, she is a Product Marketing Specialist at SYSPRO. She believes that presenting in front of audiences as part of the internship experience has given her a great advantage, as this is something she regularly does in her current job.
Being part of an internship programme also boosted her skills in other ways. “We learned so much from each other – some interns were really good at accounting, some had great IT skills and others were good in business. We worked as a team and would help each other in understanding all the coursework and content. It really helps you to deal with people from different backgrounds and cultures.” She also believes that the exposure to different business areas, such as distribution, finance, manufacturing, and experiences such as visiting a factory shop floor, really broadened her understanding of the industry she now works in. “The basics we learned from the internship have really helped me a lot in terms of understanding the product.”
Nelisiwe Mokwane had a different journey into the SYSPRO Internship Programme. She started out in a SYSPRO learnership and progressed to the Internship programme from there. Competition for places was fierce – just like every other applicant, she applied and went through several rounds of interviews and testing before she was accepted into the programme.
The programme gave her insight into the sector she wanted to join. Nelisiwe originally studied software development. Job shadowing during the internship gave her realistic expectations of the workplace, and valuable exposure to the fast-paced work environment. “I learned so much about myself. I learned how the software team works. I saw for myself that there are many different roles in the team, and you don’t need to be a developer to play an important role. This is how I developed my interest in software testing – and now I am a software tester at SYSPRO.”
Palesa Motshidi also has positive memories of her experience in the programme. After she graduated from university with a degree in Industrial Psychology and Economics, Palesa was working as a junior bookkeeper when she heard about the SYSPRO Internship from a friend who was a part of the programme at the time. She applied and was accepted into the programme. Like every intern, Palesa worked in various departments across the company, and expected to use her academic background in finance, but over the course of the year, she realised that her interests lay elsewhere.
“Our Academy Manager at the time, Deirdre Fryer, was a wonderful mentor, and encouraged me to use what I had learned in other areas to think laterally about where I’d like to work,” says Palesa. With her support, Palesa joined the marketing team on a trial basis. At the time the team was relatively new to the company, and Palesa gravitated towards the public relations function. “I found that I loved the public relations role even though I had studied something quite different at the outset. The SYSPRO team was really supportive of my move,” Palesa explains.
The teamwork in the group was another asset she appreciated. “We all had different academic backgrounds, and different strengths. I was really good at sales and customer engagement, others in product information, testing or implementation. We would all help each other – and it teaches you what business is all about. No one can be good at everything, but when we each have our own speciality, we thrive as a team. Regardless of the area of the business we ended up in, we use what we learned in the programme. For example, even though I work in PR, having a technical product background is a huge benefit,” she says.
For Ntongase, the benefits have been apparent. “When I started my job, I could dive straight in on the first day. I started as a product marketing assistant, and a year later I was a product marketing specialist. I honestly believe that it would have taken me two or three years to progress if it wasn’t for the deeper understanding of the business and the products that I developed. I would not be as far as I am in my career if it was not for the SYSPRO internship.”