Spring 2026 - The Value of Working With Students / Interns / Early Career Professionals

At the moment we have Logan (a student from the University of South Wales) on a work placement with us, so I thought it was a good time to write about why I believe these type of placements add value to a small tech company like us.
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We have 3 core values at Accordion Innovation Ltd:

1. Be creative
2. Make high quality stuff
3. Try to be a positive voice

It's important to us to give opportunities to students / interns / early career professionals because doing so meets all three of those core values.

To be creative you need fresh perspectives. However much of an "ideas person" (not necessarily a term I agree with) you may think you are, you will come with your own biases and tendencies based on loads of factors like your age, experience, life stage, personality etc. If you (or your core team, which perhaps doesn't change that often) keep approaching problems with the same people at the table, you will keep coming up with the same kind of solutions. Adding new diverse voices fully empowered to speak their mind is possibly the most powerful tool to improve creativity.

To make high quality stuff takes time and effort. You need your best people freed up to do their best work. Giving opportunities to new people allows you to add the skills they may have (I certainly don't recommend gatekeeping tough tasks away from anyone - if a student or intern has the skills to help... get them working on the most important high-level stuff if they want to), but it also allows you to release more hours of your existing core team (they may be able to delegate a routine task to a new joiner for whom the task is a learning experience that they want to get).

Part of being a positive voice, I believe, is to offer opportunity in your community. That's what we all wanted at the start of our careers. A foot in the door. A chance to gain experience and start building a network. If you ever benefitted from work experience / internships / just being given a chance early on in your own career... then surely you owe it to the next generation to "pay it forward".

So that's why we try to get involved with local universities here in South Wales in offering work placements, and even better if there are schemes helping people who otherwise struggle to access work/opportunities (for all kinds of reasons).

We have had two interns so far. Vithursana joined from Cardiff University in Spring 2024 and Logan from University of South Wales and is currently with us. Both have made significant contributions to all 3 of our core values during their placements, and - they tell me - have enjoyed the experience and learnt and benefitted from it.

Andy - CEO