From Graduate Recruiter to FDM Consultant

Scottish consultant Carey Gray has experienced FDM in variety of ways, from part of the recruitment team in Glasgow to becoming a consultant placed at UBS in London. He has shared with us reflections on his training, interviews and experience on-site.

Carey studied Politics and International Relations at the University of Dundee and, after graduating, joined FDM’s Glasgow team working within recruitment. He spent a year and a half recruiting for the Graduate Programme before opting to join the academy himself. He decided that Business Intelligence (BI) was the right stream for him as he aspired to a future working with data. Carey talked to us about that experience:

“Since I had been working at FDM for over a year, I already knew the trainers and internal staff and so it was less nerve wracking for me than I can imagine it was for my BI classmates. For my first few days of training, I spent my time mainly learning basic professional skills, learning internal processes and preparing for the presentation at the end of the week. The most exciting part was taking my fellow colleagues out to the very popular FDM work lunch spot, ‘The Deli.’

I found week four the most challenging with Unix because it was so technical. Coming from a non-technical background, I found the coded command words quite difficult to get past.

The most enjoyable part of training was watching back the presentations on our final BI project – I was amazed at how, from the same set of data, different members of the class presented back very different findings and interpretations. The web apps week was also one of my favourite parts of training because I created a website for handbags by coding all the features behind the website for it to function.

I had a few interviews during the training period and, despite not being immediately successful, I used them as a learning curve, getting feedback from interviewers and account managers to improve for my next one! One thing I would definitely encourage current and future trainees is to not give up or be disheartened after having unsuccessful interviews.

I was ultimately placed with UBS and started planning my move to London. On my first day of placement, my nerves kicked in – I got up ridiculously early as I was worried I would get lost trying to find the office. I felt more comfortable when I found out there were about 100 new starters, both internal and external, on the same day. My team at UBS was very helpful, going over different aspects of my work – they even treated me and some other new starters to Pizza Express!  This certainly made me feel welcome, especially considering how overwhelmed I was feeling being in a new city and a massive office.

The most unexpected thing that’s happened to me on my journey from Graduate Recruiter to FDM Consultant is that, after living and working in London for just a couple of weeks, my Killie accent is almost completely gone and you wouldn’t be able to tell I’m Scottish!”

We are excited to see where Carey’s new career takes him as an FDM Consultant. Just like Carey, no matter what your background is, we believe everyone is capable of having a fulfilling career in tech. Apply today to take your first step. To find out more about our Business Intelligence programme, click here.

Featured image credit: Photo by Ed Robertson on Unsplash