From 6 months to 1 year at Capgemini – Part 2: Community

In my previous blog, I mentioned that new opportunities arose in not being able to attend the Collaborating With Clientscourse in Les Fontaines and I wasn’t lying with that one.

The first opportunity was with Raleigh … Having previously been involved on a Raleigh project, this time I had the opportunity to organise the entire event with one of my peers alongside the team at Raleigh. This was yet another opportunity to test my leadership and organisation skills and let me tell you now, organising and arranging 20 graduate colleagues who are spread around the country, on various projects, and have various work commitments to be in one place at one time is no easy feat! Despite the difficulty the results we achieved at the WHA Westbury Grange care home were exceptional, and of course a chance to have a sociable drink with the group made the weekend an absolutely incredible experience once again!

A short time ‘on the bench’ opened up the opportunity for me to help organise and facilitate the new BTC intake induction week. I remembered the fun and laughs had on my own induction week so signed up straight away. Seeing the week both from an organisation and facilitation point of view wasn’t quite what I expected … Where all the activities and talks with senior personnel at Capgemini seemed like a smooth well oiled, completely pre-defined and simple process from the beginning, the amount of organisation behind the scenes to ensure the right people are in the induction room at the right time was incredible! However, as with Raleigh, the feeling of the week coming together brought about a huge amount of relief and self satisfaction not to mention giving you the opportunity to network with new peers and with some very senior staff at Capgemini! The contacts I made from that week have now started to bear fruit when it comes to ‘transitions’ (all will be revealed later!) as well as a range of potential roles coming up soon.

You may have noticed that I haven’t really focused at all at the actual roles I have undertaken during the last six months … “Hold on were getting to that bit soon!” However again I think the best approach to truly appreciate what life is like in the graduate scheme is understand that it isn’t all about the roles you do … ok it’s a very large part of what you do, it’s what you get paid to do at the end of the day! However it’s easy to forget and appreciate the range of opportunities other than your direct role as a consultant which may arise. Whether this is the training you are sent away on or whether it is the community work you do … all these experiences all add value to the company, the wider community and to yourself as an individual! That is what I have loved about job so far … ‘Variety is the spice of life’ after all, and it is these opportunities that have really sped up my development.