We were delighted to welcome John Baker, a consultant in Business Restructuring from professional services firm PwC, to the school this week to speak to members of our Economics Society about career choices.
John reassured students that it is possible to navigate their way to an exciting, international and rewarding job like his from a variety of A Level subjects and post-Trinity choices, including apprenticeships.
John spoke about his own career path: he chose to study Business at Bath University and undertook two internships with PwC as part of his course. This led to him being offered a permanent job with PwC after graduating.
He talked with passion about working with lenders, creditors, companies and individuals in troubled financial situations to help them identify problems, develop solutions and implement them to protect and enhance value and how every day brings a different challenge.
John also spoke about the two years he spent working overseas with PwC in the Caribbean and how this taught him to be resilient and work outside of his comfort zone. He also talked about the importance of customer service and people skills and discussed how gaining soft skills from his co-curricular activities helped him when starting out on his career journey.
We hope that students were left with a clear understanding of the complexities involved in the profession as well as the opportunity for close teamwork and international opportunities. The session sparked many questions and will hopefully give students plenty of material to explore further.
The event was particularly interesting for Upper Sixth student Lucas Rebato who recently found out that he has successfully obtained one of 30 places on the highly competitive PwC Flying Start degree programme at Birmingham University for Computer Science. He says, “I found it to be a very insightful and inspiring talk. John’s passion for, and expertise in, his field was evident throughout and he provided some really valuable perspectives for Trinity’s aspiring business people, lawyers, and economists.
“One particular highlight was hearing about his two-year secondment in the Caribbean: it was fascinating to hear the challenges of adapting to working overseas, whilst also continually learning how to provide the same high-class PwC services with limited resources.
“I couldn’t be more excited to (hopefully!) be joining PwC in September through its Flying Start degree programme, after being offered a place on their Computer Science Degree Apprenticeship. After the talk, I had the opportunity to ask John about his experience working for such a large multinational corporation like PwC. He mentioned that despite PwC being a massive organisation, it doesn’t often feel overwhelmingly large due to the wide range of professional lines of service they offer. He explained that he primarily focuses on a specific line of service, which allows him to have a more focused and familiar work experience while still having access to the extensive knowledge, resources, and diverse expertise available across the organisation.”
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