Jared Sanders has worked in BSG’s interoperability and software testing lab for two and a half years. A senior in OSU’s MIS program, Sanders is now the lab’s student manager — which means he’s experienced everything BSG has the offer, from being a novice hire to one of the guys on the hiring side of the job-interview table. As he prepares to enter the IT job market, interviewing BSG prospects is “a really good experience,” he says. “It teaches you not only how to interview, but also how to view a person interviewing. You get to know what you don’t want to see or hear, so you won’t do that in the future when you actually interview with a company.”
When Sanders joined BSG, software testing wasn’t really part of the group’s equation. Now, it’s an integral part of BSG’s interoperability and testing services. “When you’re developing software, whether you’re Microsoft or whoever, you’re going to have to go through a process,” Sanders says. “You develop something, test it, regress, develop again.” And both sides of his lab work together like a well-oiled machine. “We have a pretty —I don’t know if you’d say strict — but a good set of guidelines and rules that everyone abides by,” Sanders says.
But helping students develop skills is as important as developing and testing products. “That’s the whole object of this thing,” Sanders says, “to train them, teach them how to do it, and hopefully they’ll grow from there.” Sanders says he’s learned leadership and problem-solving skills, not to mention an appreciation for the details. “The skills you get at BSG definitely, definitely help in the real world — well, as much of the real world as I’ve experienced,” he says. “I'll definitely be utilizing them in any IT job that I may get in the future.”
