*HQ Staff* Strong product, but leadership and structure need serious work - Client Partner Digital Futures Employee Review

great salary, co workers, work-life balance, and benefits.

There wasn't very many cons

The training is solid and gives you a great foundation for what you would need in a role.

Please read this all if you are going into the Digital Futures Academy: Digital Futures is somewhat deceptive. They do offer good training and they do have people placed after the training - however the post academy experience is extremely poor. All throughout the training they emphasised a need to not have a degree and that they and their client look at the talent of an individual, not at their qualifications. This is false. I had multiple interviews and in all the feedback it was noted that I didn't have a master's degree unlike the other candidates, it was a deciding factor in why I was not chosen for one role. Not only that but I had to wait 6 months for an initial interview and they emphasised that this was the first interview that had come up in that location but I found this to be untrue as someone else in my same cohort who was also opted into that location, had an interview there before we were put forward for the same interview. I was put up against only master degree candidates in all my interviews and when the clients had a preference for degree's it made it much more challenging to beat them in an interview. There also felt like there was some malace intent in this decision, as I felt they wanted to get rid of me so they could stop spending resources on me. If you don't have a degree and you are going into Digital Futures, you're only likely chance of recieving a placement with a client is with their Stevenage client, who specifically takes on people without degree's. Although it is important to note, I heard that someone had two interviews with this client but the client froze their hiring, due to internal reasons, and even though they performed well and got a second interview they were still removed from the academy. I think that is disgraceful. Not only that, but I reached out to someone at the start of my training and asked about the Stevenage client, where I was told they only took people in located within 20 miles of Stevenage so I wouldn't be put forwards for them (and of course you mustn't have a degree to be put forwards to them). Fast forwards 7 months and I was told my only option was to be forwards to Stevenage or I would be dropped, where I would've saved months of time had I done this earlier as I wanted to. Something very important for someone going into the academy to know is, even if they tell you they will keep you on until they get you a placement - they won't. There is an unspoken rule that they don't tell trainee's that you only recieve 3 interview chances before they cut you from the academy. This is never stated to you and you are expected to deduce this yourself from seeing other people being dropped, even if you have not communication with them, but as they said to me whilst I was stating my frustrations with the lack of transparency "This is just corporate". The culture seems to be very averse to negativity and if you are critical, they will immediately shut you down and make you feel as though you are wrong. They will make it seem like the best place in the world in training but they will very quickly loosen ties with you 6 weeks after the academy. Overall, if you have a degree you will be okay. If you don't have a degree, then you will struggle unless you are able to get into their Stevenage client. You will only have 3 interview opportunities.