My career in… Transport Planning Consultancy

 

What is your current role?

I am a Regional Director in the transportation section of a large multinational, multidisciplinary consultancy, currently overseeing the development of our bus planning business.

What are you working on now?

Currently, my main projects include developing a strategy for public transport ticketing for the Glasgow Commonwealth Games and preparing a proposal to design a substantial bus network in the Middle East.

How did you get to this point in your career?

• I don’t like being pigeon holed, finding myself having to work continuously on the same type of projects, just because I’ve done them before.  I’m always looking for a new challenge, and while sometimes that can be done within the same company, it often pays to move because you can pick up more variety of experience.
• Having completed a Geography degree and a Transport Planning MSc, I had several junior roles in transport planning consultancies, where I developed public transport demand forecasting skills through working all over the UK on a range of projects, including rail franchises, tram schemes and fares & ticketing arrangements.

Jobs Seen on The Street 25.2.10

Part time jobs of the week are:

Seen on DirectGov website
(Enter job ref and click ‘search’ for details)

• Web Administrator at Harlequin Group (Stockport) REF: SOO/48265
• Bar Host at Bewleys Hotel (Manchester Airport) REF: OLY/16115
• Bar Staff (Belle Vue) REF: BEW/23507
• Bar Staff/Plate Staff REF: FTS/136427
• Sales Advisor at Christy concession (Stockport) REF: SOO/48278

Seen on Retail Choice website

• Supervisor at New Look (Stockport)
• Sales Advisor ar Curry’s (Sale)

Seen elsewhere

• Temporary IT Helpdesk Advisor (apply via Connections Agency)
• Sales Assistant at Cash Generator

Interested in a career in the environment?

Insight into Careers in the Environmental Sector
3rd March 2010, 1pm-4.40pm

If you are considering working in the environmental sector after you graduate, then this event is for you. It is open to all students at the university (so you don’t have to be an environmental scientist to get something out of it!). It is a great chance to find out what you need to do to get into this important and competitive sector. The earlier you start making plans, the better your chances of achieving your goals.

Invited are a range of professionals working in environmental jobs and if you come along you will get the opportunity to discuss with them about what they do. How did they get their first job? Why is it that entry level jobs don’t seem to be widely advertised – how DO you find them? What sort of work experience do you need and how do you get it? How important is postgraduate study? What can you be doing now at university to improve your chances of getting a job when you graduate? If you are truly serious about environmental work, you need to actively prove it by getting some relevant work experience, perhaps doing some volunteering… and this takes time to build up. The last thing you want to do is leave it until your final year when you are snowed under with exams! 

Important: This isn’t a recruitment event but is designed to give you the opportunity to gain an understanding of careers in this sector and a chance to network with those working at the “coal-face”.

 Find out more and sign up today

Work experience is like buses…

Anastasia Miari, student blogger

Work experience is like buses… Or at least this is what I have experienced in the past month or so. I spent the entire first semester of my second year searching out work experience and now I have four unpaid jobs on the go, as well as my paid job and a play that I am in for the In-Fringe theatre festival, oh yeah, and uni work. Did I mention I’m also a peer mentor AND write this blog? How do I cope? I don’t is the answer!

As I write this I’m sat munching down a bowl of Special K, knowing that I have five minutes before I need to start slapping on some make-up and getting gone. Today I’m going to the Pure Fashion event in London as part of work for Manchester Fashion Network… the first lot of work experience I stumbled upon in October.

Work experience and volunteering virtual fair

If you are looking for work experience, summer work, a placement or are interested in volunteering, then keep reading…

For the next two weeks NASES  are holding a national ‘virtual fair’ where you can log on and chat to any organisations you are interested in. 

A wide range of organisations are advertising including KFC, BUNAC, Girl Guiding UK, CCUSA, The British Red Cross, Oxfam, Pontin’s, Raleigh, SENSE, Centrica, and Cummins.

To access the virtual fair click on the following link: http://www.acareerforme.co.uk/fairs/national_student_employment_week

But I don’t want to work for someone else…

We’re all different, that’s one of the joys of being us.  Our society works because we all want different things – it’d be no good if we all wanted to go and be accountants, or teachers, or doctors or even prime ministers.

Just as we all want different jobs, we want different ways to do them.  Some of us want to work for smaller employers, others want multinationals; some want private sector, others public.  But what if you don’t actually want to work for anyone but yourself – is that too scary to even contemplate?

Jobs Seen on The Street 18.2.10

Slim pickings this week for part time jobs with student-friendly hours. The few we saw are listed below, but as ever our key tips are:

• Use our vacancy database. Currently we have 29 Manchester part time job adverts live including web development, pattern cutting, copywriting and sales. Sign up for email alerts!
• Check our advice page on finding part time jobs, with an audio/visual tutorial and useful website links to try.
• Ask around! Many jobs just aren’t being advertised because companies don’t need to pay to advertise, they have people approaching them. So take your CV to shops, bars, restaurants etc. Ask friends and colleagues. Beat the crowds, get off Oxford Rd and Fallowfield to go further afield. 

On to our jobs of the week…

Where would I be without Twitter?

Student blogger, Helen McGuire

Tweeting, DM-ing, Trending Topics – mean anything to you?

Of course, I’m talking about the wonderful world of Twitter, and if you’re not already using it, you should be!

For those of you who don’t know, Twitter is a social networking website that allows you to follow people and communicate with them using 140 characters or less. Apart from the obvious ways it can benefit your life, such as helping you find out what minor celebrities have for breakfast (apparently Fearne Cotton prefers jam on her pancakes…), it’s also becoming a great way of finding out careers and applying for jobs.

Would you like to visit China?

Courtesy of MrManc on flickr.com

Happy Chinese New Year!

Are you celebrating the start of the Year of the Tiger here in Manchester and thinking you’d like to visit China to find out more about the country and its culture?  You might be interested in the following programme that I spotted on the Careers Service website this week.

Closing soon…

The sun is shining (well it was while I was writing this!) and maybe you’re starting to think about what to do over summer or when you graduate.  If you’re thinking about applying for a summer placement or internship, an industrial placement for next year or a graduate job, here are some of the adverts on our website that close in the next few weeks.