We caught up with recent graduate Dillon Thompson (BSc Psychology, 2021) about what he has been up to since graduating…
What’s your current job role? What does this mean on a day-to-day basis?
I’m currently on a consulting graduate scheme with a professional services firm called EY.
I sit within their ‘People Advisory Services – Workforce Advisory’ consulting service line. People often have no clue what this means, and to be honest I’m not sure either – it’s hard to articulate! But essentially, we work with big organisations to improve experiences of their employees – through elevating HR systems, diversity and inclusion, learning curriculums, leadership programmes etc. So it’s a super people-focussed and varied role!
No two days are the same in my job, but as it’s such a people-centric role, it involves meeting many new people, and ensuring we’re delivering the best possible work to our clients. In terms of hard skills it takes to be a great consultant – lots of data analysis, interviewing, creativity, project management, being tech-savvy etc.
In my current project, we’re implementing a new learning curriculum for a large pharmaceutical company, who were experiencing issues with their workforce not being trained effectively in digital skills. This involved interviewing employees at the client organisation to understand their wants and needs for the learning curriculum, and analysing these insights to build a learning curriculum that suits them – while also developing a marketing plan for how we can promote the new learning to employees.
How did the activities you took part in at university support you?
The University of Birmingham provides so many career-related initiatives, and really invests in your future as a student or recent graduate. I honestly had no idea of how much there was until I started engaging more with the Careers Network at the end of second year.
In terms of activities I personally took part in:
- Impact Challenge – this was an amazing work experience week, where I worked with a group of likeminded individuals to solve problems posed to us by our client, who was a small well-being consultancy firm. It was such a fun week, developing my confidence and leadership skills, while also making amazing connections!
- Impact Internship – shortly after the Impact Challenge, I completed an Impact Internship with a local social enterprise called Miss Macaroon. Sadly, I wasn’t just eating macaroons the whole internship – but I worked as a Social Impact Analysis Intern (which I think is just as exciting). Miss Macaroon sells macaroons, and reinvests 100% of their profits into an employability training programme for unemployed and vulnerable young people. My role was to assess the positive impact of this programme by interviewing/collecting data from the trainees, and understanding whether any improvements could be made. This internship was facilitated by UoB.
- Personal Skills Award – in my final year, I managed to receive an Advanced Personal Skills Award, where you can redeem ‘points’ for all of the UoB initiates you completed, as well as developing vital employability skills like interview techniques and application advice.
What piece of advice would you give to fellow graduates?
- Confidence is key – the amount I have grown in confidence in the last 2 years due to the UoB initiatives above and also the graduate scheme is amazing! One guaranteed way to build confidence is to get experience. It may feel uncomfortable at first but know this is where the most growth happens!
- Embrace your uniqueness – be yourself unapologetically and embrace your differences. Don’t be afraid to express how proud you are of your identity, and help others feel included by engaging in diversity and inclusion initiatives.
- You don’t have to know what you want to do – I still don’t know what I want to do long term! I love my job, but who knows what the future holds. Try to adopt this ‘openness’ when you’re looking for work experience – a short internship will allow you to develop experience and confidence, all of which you can speak about in interviews. You can always ‘twist’ your work experience when you are articulating it in an interview to make it suit the role you’re applying to.
What are your fondest memories of the University?
Hands down the amazing friends I have made for life. I now have an amazing network of friends across the world who I know will support me through life’s tough moments. I’m still close with them now, and a group of us just got back from holiday in Tenerife! Be sure to maintain your connections post uni, and don’t take your friends for granted.