Ryan joined the Career Ready programme back in 2016. His mentor and paid internship opened the door to the corporate world, where he’s now established his career.
“The corporate world was something that I had no touch point with, no sort of route into,” Ryan says.
“Doing Career Ready and getting that mentorship with Blair was my first real experience of it.
“Career Ready gave me the chance to get into the workplace, figure out what work was like, and figure out who I want to be, what I want to be, and what I need to do to get there.”
Watch the video to hear about Ryan’s journey:
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Video transcript:
Career Ready gave me the chance to get into the workplace, figure out what work was like, and figure out who I want to be, what I want to be, and what I need to do to get there.
So 2016, I was – wasn’t loving school, didn’t know what I wanted to do. The corporate world was an absolute dream. It was something that I had no touch point with, no sort of route into.
Doing Career Ready and getting that mentorship with Blair was my first real experience of the corporate world. So he helped really shape the path that I had to go on to be what I wanted to be.
Working at Leidos was a really fantastic view of what the corporate world was like, what an office job would be like, and it really set the scene for what I wanted to do going out of the programme and into the world.
So at the new starter event for Career Ready the following year, I joked and said, if anyone’s got a job going, I’m all ears. I was lucky that Julie Connell, who was Leidos recruitment at the time, was in the audience and sort of tapped me up after it and said, by the way, we’re doing apprenticeships. So I applied for the Leidos apprenticeship, and thankfully got the job.
So I did four years at Strathclyde University on an apprenticeship. I was a project manager for three and a half of those years. I’ve worked up and down the UK. For the last three years, I’ve now been a Business Development Manager. I’ve got a lot of autonomy in terms of responsibility of shaping where we go as a business. It’s a really exciting job, and I genuinely do enjoy it.
Without Career Ready, I would not have the job I have today. It was the first sight of an office, it made corporate and office working real, and it gave me that network that allowed me to then apply for the job, and ultimately get the job.
