Career Advice
Paul Brown
25.07.2022
FDM is proud to have joined the Tech Industry Gold community as the first organisation to achieve accreditation for Foundation Training Programmes. We are committed to helping more and more individuals launch their careers in tech regardless of their academic background.
We spoke to two consultants – Eloise Boye and Ishaan Tugnait – who have recently completed the FDM Business Analysis programme to find out their experiences of the training and also to catch up with what they’re doing in their current placements.
I have a BSc in Social Psychology and an MSc in Organisational Psychology.
I’m currently placed with an international banking client as an HR Business Analyst.
What was your FDM training like?
The training was 7 weeks long and really engaging and we completed it using Microsoft Teams. In the first few weeks we were introduced to Pro Skills like business etiquette. Following that we learnt more technical skills related to Business Analysis like Excel, SQL etc.
Tell us why the Tech Industry Gold Credential is important to you
Joining an accredited training programme was really important to me as I knew it would set me apart from other candidates in the same sector and it was going to be attractive to employers to see those credentials.
Tell us about your current role
I am placed with an international banking client and I’m really enjoying my time with so far. It’s engaging work and they’ve been really supportive. The work has been utilising the training that we developed within FDM – so covering Excel skills and also professional skills which have helped us with effective stakeholder management and communication.
Tell us about a project that you have been working on?
The project I am currently working on involves using digitalisation and automation where possible to improve the HR experiences of employees within the organisation.
How have you applied the skills learnt in training to your role on site?
The skills I learnt at FDM have been very important for the current project I’m working on. For example – we’re using a lot of business process models that we learnt in our week of BA foundation course and also Excel which has been very important for spreadsheet management. I’m also working directly with stakeholders in Singapore so the professional skills we learnt have helped in communicating and adjusting and managing their expectations.
How did you get your credentials?
It was really easy to download my credentials from the Credly website and upload them on LinkedIn to share with my network.
Ishaan Tugnait joined FDM’s BA course in September 2021 with a background in history. But as he soon found out, not having a background in finance did not hold him back in any way.
I didn’t come from a financial background. I studied history, so this training made me job ready on account of the skills on offer.
How did you find the training at FDM
My favourite part of the 7-week training was probably the Pro Skills week in the first week where I collaborated with my teammates to learn Excel and PowerPoint as well as how to speak and engage with clients and stakeholders. The course included both practical and theoretical elements as well as business and tech skills. The initial training made you job ready for several different roles.
Tell us about your current role
I’m currently in the professional services industry working for a management consultancy company. Our client is one of the biggest banks in the world and we’re currently helping them on a conduct remediation project to comply with existing US banking regulations. I’m working in a Project Management role.
How have you applied the skills learnt in training to your role on site?
I am working as a PMO on the central team which tracks the progress of all business areas under scope. Thus, stakeholder management from the ‘pro skills week’ is extremely important when engaging with both clients and internal members on the wider project.
Furthermore, I have to monitor the trends in the data to ensure remediation progress is compliant with US regulations. This involves frequent excel use for which I was provided a great foundation of in ‘excel week.’
Tell us why the Tech Industry Gold Credential is important to you
Getting a qualification that is accredited by TIG set me apart from other students in a job market that was already difficult because of Covid. Employers always look for certificates and qualifications to see where you’ve gone above and beyond the regular candidates
How did the FDM training programme help you?
I didn’t come from a financial background so this training made me job ready on account of the skills on offer. It’s important to have a cohesive training programme to learn both hard and soft skills. Also, after training FDM were offering me a ready pathway into working with some of the biggest banks and industries in the world. These two things combined made FDM a really attractive proposition.
At FDM, we welcome applicants from all degree backgrounds and universities. We are committed to a ‘No STEM, No Problem’ mantra so you don’t have to have studied a STEM subject to join one of our technology graduate programmes. We want to help more and more people from diverse backgrounds to access a career in tech.
We are continually providing the highest standards of training for our trainees. Our courses are conducted by our specialist trainers and are designed to equip you with the practical and professional skills that our consultants can subsequently apply once placed at one of our prestigious client sites.
We currently have TIG accreditation for the following graduate programmes:
- Business Analysis
- Business Intelligence
- Software Testing
- Project Management
- Software Development
- Risk, Regulation and Compliance
- Robotic Process Automation
- Technical Operations
Do you want to kickstart an exciting a career in technology? Apply to our award-winning Graduate Careers Programme today.