Edward H.
About me
| Edward H. | |
| Computer Science | |
| Computer Systems and Software Engineering | |
| Undergraduate | |
| 2010 | |
| United Kingdom |
My employment
| Consultant | |
| PA Consulting | |
| United Kingdom | |
| 2010 | |
| £29000 | |
| £45000 |
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A day in the life of a Consultant in the United Kingdom
My career history
I've been based in London at our Victoria office since starting in October 2010. During my work there, I've worked for some wonderful clients such as the UK's Met Office, DHL, Royal Mail and most recently for Google.
As a firm, we're engaged in all sorts of projects in a wide variety of sectors, but my experience has been focussed on designing and building software for organisations. We won two awards for our work with the Met Office and we presented our work with Google to over a million people at their Google I/O conference in San Francisco in May 2013. It went down brilliantly, and has been a highlight of my career.
Where I hope to be in 5 years
PA is great for progression - I've risen up the ranks quite quickly and there are a lot of opportunities to shape the career the way you want. If you wish to focus on something new, take on a different challenge or build on an existing skill then you can definitely do that.
My advice to students considering work
Get involved with societies (I ran the squash club for a year) as it'll teach you a vast array of skills while simultaneously letting you have a lot of fun!
What I do
There is no standard day - it simply doesn't work like that in consultancy. Every day you'll be faced with a new challenge and that's what keeps it interesting.
Having said that, the types of things you'll do to face those challenges don't change hugely. You spend a lot of time with clients, finding out about their problems and what they want to achieve and you'll spend a lot of time working with them and your PA colleagues to help solve them. For me, that involved writing a lot of software, learning a lot about new platforms for technology and trying to think of new ways to do things better.
Learning is always a common component of every project - everything is a learning experience in some form or other. Sometimes that's learning about a new technology or attending a training course, while others are softer skills like presentation skills or managing projects. A lot of it is on the job, but there are plenty of training courses too.
Skills I use and how I developed them
My degree has been an excellent foundation for my career - it taught me a lot about computer science, about good practices and the vast variety of possibilities that come from using great technology. I think some of the other, non-technical, skills such as good writing, how to structure arguments and reports as well as presenting were invaluable although a computer science degree doesn't exactly focus on these!
Extracurricular skills:
For me, I was quite a shy character before university, so coming to York and getting involved in the squash club, meeting new people and teaching/coaching people to play squash taught me a lot. Just being thrown into Fairfax House with a bunch of strangers (many of whom I count as lifelong friends) was also an experience that I probably wouldn't have had at home and I definitely count valuably towards my career.
York was also a lot of fun, and I think understanding the importance of a work/life balance is also invaluable!
What I like most
I like working with people who are vastly smarter than me and doing things I'd never have dreamt of. Our technology centre in Cambridge is amazing - we build all sorts of weird and wonderful things there so its always great to visit (search for "PA Consulting" and "Panama") for a great example - turning old snatch Land Rovers into remote control bomb detection devices. Very awesome.
What I like least
There can be a lot of travel sometimes, I've been really lucky in avoiding that mostly so far, but some of my colleagues have moved around a lot. It can be good fun though, especially if you end up on a great project (two of my colleagues got to spend 6 months all expenses paid in New York, which isn't so bad!)
What would I change? Consultancy means you're never focussed on one thing - and sometimes the perfectionist within me gets frustrated that you can never devote all your time and attention to one thing. There is a lot that I would love to do better given everything I've learnt, but sometimes time and money mean your focus is placed somewhere else. It would be nice to be able to completely direct something myself, with unlimited time and money to do so too!
Next steps...
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