Ryburn Alumni Interview: IT Consultant
This month we spoke to David Nelson. An IT consultant who is well-travelled and gives some excellent advice on developing your people skills, grabbing opportunities and how to make your CV stand out from the crowd. Read on for the full interview.
Tell us a bit about yourself, what’s your name and job role?
My name is David Nelson. I went to Ryburn from 2003 through to 2010 and then I attended Lancaster University. Following on from Lancaster I wasn’t quite sure what I wanted to do. I was able to do some travelling. I got a job, but the role wasn’t for me. I was then successful in obtaining a position in IT consultancy. I started off working for one of the world’s biggest tech firms as a consultant for almost eight years. At the end of last year I moved to work at KPMG, also in their tech consultancy department - so a similar role, but for a different company.
Where did you go travelling?
So I went to Tanzania. I had always wanted to go because my grandparents worked out there in the 50s as chemists. I was applying for all of these graduate jobs and bigger roles, but I wasn’t getting very far so I decided to go travelling for three months. I found an orphanage on a blog and emailed them asking if I could go out there, and they said yes. I did a load of work at the orphanage, helped them day to day, a bit of teaching and I was able to do some travelling as well.
Do you think travelling helped set you up for where you are now? Did it give you any good life experiences?
Yes definitely. I also did some travelling between my first and second year at University. We had a lot of companies coming in to give presentations and in my first year, I went to one by KPMG. They told us all of the things we would need to get the job and I just thought, “I’m not sure that I can do that.” The next business speaking were a placement company that ran international internships, and through them, I got a position in Singapore. I spent three and a half months out there working and then did some travelling around south-east Asia and Indonesia. I think that travelling can really help with independence.
For you to be successful you need to work hard, and there are people in school that helped instil that in me. However, you also need a bit of luck, and you have to create your own. I would not be in the job I am now if I had not done that internship. I only got that internship by going to that presentation - which I was able to attend by working hard. The luck was that the following company that came in after the presentation I had originally been to see was the one that offered me the international internship. That helped me achieve my first job because it was something different and interesting on my CV.
What do you think you would be doing now if you hadn’t done the internship?
A great question and honestly I have no idea. I didn’t know what I actually wanted to do. All I did know was that I wanted to work in business and so I did Business Studies in school and then that’s the degree I did as well. I was confident in my ability and knew that if someone gave me a chance and if I worked hard I could do it. But still, no idea though. I mean the job that I didn’t enjoy was at a car rental company. I got that job because I entered a competition for graduate of the year. Back to my luck comment - I happened to walk past a poster in the management school at University, and then `applied for it and was successful in getting an internship with them between my second and third year. When I came back from travelling I went back there and got onto their graduate scheme.
The reason I didn’t like that job was because we had to be very competitive with each other and they encouraged us to be underhand and disadvantage one another in order to do well. When I was there I hated it and knew it wasn’t the atmosphere that I wanted to work in, but I wouldn’t have found that out if I hadn’t gotten that job. So in a way, it was still a good experience - even in doing things you don’t like, you can still learn a lot.
What encouraged you to pursue a career in consultancy?
Part of it does come from not knowing what I wanted to do and choosing to study a more, what I would call, generalist degree. After University I did look at some more specific accounting and IT roles, but because my degree was more generalist, I don’t think I would have gotten those roles. Looking back now I wouldn’t have hired me for those roles either. I didn’t have enough background in those areas and there were so many graduates who did. Once I started doing consultancy, I found that I really enjoyed it. I enjoy interacting with people. I get to travel a lot around the UK and a little bit internationally.
Getting into consultancy was difficult at first. I struggled to get in. I couldn’t even apply for some roles, because I needed three A’s at A-Level. What is interesting now though is that I got headhunted for this role, and I know that I could go and work for a lot of those firms now because they need the skill-set that I’ve got. So what I would say to people is that even though you might not get there the first time, ask yourself what can you do to give yourself the best shot at reaching your goal? I would recommend consultancy to anyone, but it is hard work. It’s not 9-5. It can be really long hours at times and it is really demanding, but you do get a lot out of it.
What is a typical working day like?
I work at home, which I enjoy a lot. I’m up and have walked the dog by early morning. I have a team working out in India so I’m doing some emailing from 7:30/8:30, catching up with them. I’ll have some calls with them. The team out there are doing a lot of the technical programming work, so at 9:30 I’m catching up with them, answering any question and checking on progress. A lot of what I do now isn’t so much doing the doing, I’m more having teams calls or interacting with people. Some of the consultancy you’d actually be there doing the computer programming or putting together presentations. More of what I do now is speaking to customers to find out what their issues are and pass them on to another team to help. There’s also quite a bit of status reporting because people at higher levels want progress updates.
Are people skills an important part of your job?
I would say so. I think that’s essential for lots of jobs. People skills are so important. While you’re at school maybe think about what you can do to put yourself in different situations where you’re dealing with different people. I had a part-time job as a pot washer dealing with an angry chef and then as a waiter, I was in a customer service role interacting with members of the public. Learning how to communicate with different people can really help so that you can properly convey what you want to say and listen to what is being said to you. You learn to stay calm in tense situations where people might be frustrated. I always think that there’s a big red button that you don’t want to press because if you respond to frustration with more frustration you’re not going to get anywhere. Stay calm and think about what could be driving a person’s frustration.
People skills are great to have in job interviews. If you can show you’re right for the job and connect with the interview panel, you have likability and a greater chance of getting your desired outcome.
That’s spot on with what our students are learning currently as well. Possibly different skills such as Drama or public speaking and similar things can help with confidence and interacting with people in different situations later down the line.
I did drama at school and I would say public speaking and presentation skills are important. I look at some of the graduates who maybe don’t progress as quickly and some of that is down to their public speaking skills and their confidence in speaking to other people. I myself speak too quickly, especially with international teams. I remember when I first worked in London I was working for UBS, I had a lot of international colleagues and they couldn’t understand my thick Yorkshire accent and I had to tone it down. So yeah it’s important to take opportunities to do public speaking and presentations.
What was your favourite subject at Ryburn, and why?
Probably PE, I loved it. When you get to A-Level it’s really demanding, but it’s great. I really liked Drama. Business Studies. I really enjoyed Maths as well for two reasons. The first being that there is a finite outcome, whereas with subjects such as History things are not so clear cut. With how I work and my personality I like definitive answers. The second reason is that I had Miss Parker from Year 7 for a lot of years through to A-Level and she was really helpful.
If you could give some advice to your younger self and our students, what would that be?
I would say don’t worry so much about getting it right. I didn’t know what I wanted to do at school and even now in a couple of years, I could want to do something completely different. To go back to the example of working for the car rental company, I learnt a lot by doing something that I didn’t enjoy. Make an informed decision but don’t worry about getting it perfect the first time. I have a lot of friends who did one year of University and then changed their degrees doing totally different subject to what they originally applied for. You can change your mind and it’s never too late to do that.
Advice that I would give to myself is to work a bit harder. I would ask myself “are you really working hard?” Even in my career, there have been times when I thought I was working hard, but I probably wasn’t working as hard as I could be. It is really worth it. As I mentioned, the job I have now I wasn’t able to achieve earlier, because I didn’t have the A-Level requirements and I know that I could have worked harder.
Other advice I would give is to try and make sure you have a rich CV. By this, I mean that I see CVs where people have worked hard and gotten good grades, but that’s all they’ve done. Look at getting a part-time job. Get involved in the school play. Take that sports leadership role. What else can you do? Then when you apply for those competitive roles and people look at your CV you’ll stand out as an interesting candidate.
What’s next for you?
So in my type of organisation you different levels for promotion. I came in on a manager role, and my near-term goal is to achieve the senior manager role by the end of this year. My long-term goal is to get to the partner role and help look after the business. It’s still quite a long way away but I’m thinking about my objectives and what I might want to aim for. At the same time, I’m not too worried if I don’t get there and I might decide I want to do something else. I really enjoy consulting, but it can be quite full-on. For now, I’m enjoying what I do and I have a near-term goal I’m working towards. I always set myself 1-year, 5-year and 10-year goals and I update those every year because you never know what’s going to happen.
If you studied at Ryburn we would love to hear from you and find out what you’re doing now! Get in touch at publish@rvhschool.co.uk.