My name is Mike Burns and I am a Service Manager for Learning Information Services at the University of the Highlands and Islands and I graduated from Inverness College UHI in 2001 studying Electrical Engineering and gaining a BSc
My current role at the University of the Highlands & Islands is to look after the UHI service desk and second line IT desktop support teams. I also act as customer service manager and work between learning information services and the ITT partners, and have previously been involved in rolling out IT project for the University as well.
After I graduated from Inverness College UHI I then joined BBC Scotland on a 4 year Graduate programme primarily based in Glasgow at their premises at Queen Margaret Drive. This graduate programme covered all areas of technology at the time, including radio, TV, online transmission and post production. After this I then moved to BBC Inverness to help launch the BBC Alba Service and redevelop the technical offerings in the North of Scotland including the Western Isles, Northern Isles and Argyll and Bute. I then moved over to the University after spending time in Stevens & Atos and am now in my current role which utilises all the previous experience in those support roles.
Working with the BBC I had to learn to understand very quickly the nature of geographically dispersed technologies and to help deliver services to all areas across Scotland, and this also applied to my role within the UHI where we are delivering technical services to a significant number of campuses.
The ability to study in a unique University which relies heavily on technology was definitely a cornerstone of my ability to move into the roles that I have because it proved that I have an understanding of the uniqueness of the area and the unique solutions that we quite often had to create to make things work.
One thing that I find very important is that as well as your education experience that you should go out and get some extra experience as well, and this really shows up positively in CVs whether you are interviewing or being interviewed. A person who can show that they have extra interests that aren’t directly related to their subject shows that they are a sociable person who is willing to get involved and I find that my extra voluntary work that I did for example with Loch Broom FM. Working in a broadcasting environment was actually very significant in helping me gain my graduate recruitment at BBC Scotland, who actually viewed this as a positive experience in addition to my qualification. I think the ability to adapt as well as to understand the new technologies and trending is significantly important in the technical environment nowadays where one solution really only lasts 12-18 months and you have to demonstrate the ability to learn something new very quickly.