Q&A with Tom Smith who is a Queen’s University Belfast Graduate who started his career with Allstate as an Intern, moving to a Placement, which then led him to Graduate employment at the company in the Billing and Payments team within Allstate Canada
Why did you want to work at Allstate?
When I was in the first year of my computer science degree I saw a notice in an email from the Queens’ University Belfast Careers team, advertising Allstate’s Insights program, which was a series of workshops over a few days of the Easter holidays. I attended the workshops, and was offered the chance to interview for a summer internship. I got a place on the internship and have now worked here for three years.
What does a typical day look like?
I work on the Billing and Payments team within Allstate Canada. I work on a global team, with colleagues in India and Canada. As a result, I have time to get most of my actual work with the other developers done in the mornings, and then after lunch, my Canadian colleagues come online and that’s when things get busier and most of my meetings happen. I work from home most days, but go into the Belfast office at least once a week to see the others in my department, and usually play a bit of pool at lunchtime.
How was the transition from Intern > Placement > Grad?
Both teams that I’ve worked on have been very accommodating and supportive, pairing me up with one of the other developers on the team who I could work closely alongside to learn about the internal systems and the digital products the team is responsible for. It feels like there has been something of a change in my role at each annual milestone. When I first started as a summer intern, I was on the team that managed collaboration tools such as Microsoft Teams and Zoom. I then switched teams when I started my placement year, when I moved into the Allstate Canada Group. My team was known as Corporate Services, providing internal software services for both the Finance team and the Law and Regulation team. This team then merged with the Billing and Payment team between my placement year and starting as a graduate, introducing a new group of products for me to work on with a larger group of teammates.
What do you like about Allstate and your role?
There’s a big focus on a learning culture in Allstate. We have access to a large selection of in-house and external Learning & Development resources which we are encouraged to make use of. I also enjoy the social aspect of working at Allstate. On top of the events put together by individual teams (we went Axe Throwing recently), there is a constant stream of events being organised that all employees can attend. Personally, I regularly join the free cinema trips, but there are loads of other opportunities including a 5-a-side team, board game nights and the monthly beer and pizza event. The events are good fun and a chance to meet people outside of your team.
Any tips for those applying for an early careers opportunity?
Think about what benefits you personally bring to a team/company. At this stage of your career, you probably don’t have much technical experience that will set you apart from other candidates who have done the same uni assignments, and Allstate’s training resources are great for teaching you what you need to know, but a good team-worker who wants to engage with their colleagues and get involved with events from our various Employee Impact Groups is someone who will do well at Allstate.
To find out more about Careers at Allstate visit their website: https://www.allstateni.com/careers.aspx
Allstate NI are sponsors of the Queen’s Autumn Careers Fair 2024 – to find out more about Queen’s Careers Fairs visit https://go.qub.ac.uk/careersfair
