Senior Consultant Review

My role is to create communications strategies for our customers in order to drive adoption of new products and services, ultimately unlocking the value of any technology lead solution. This includes developing adoption plans, stakeholder analysis, channel analysis, communication campaigns and any other local initiative that has seen success in the past.

Yes. Awareness and understanding of emotional intelligence and the impact my language and behaviour can have on those around me. I've learnt to reflect (in-action, and on-action) within meetings and workshops and understand what triggered certain behaviours or reactions (and whether I can do things differently in the future).

Yes. It's difficult achieving a balance between learning and work, but the company culture is very supportive and I get sufficient time to learn both on and off the job. My team is very much international and most of the colleagues I work with on a daily basis are in Europe.

The programme isn't very well structured in a number of ways. Predominately I don't believe the MMU has run this type of programme before, or at least, only 1 other cohort. They are still learning by trial and error, and we have become guinea pigs in this regard. Marking criteria for assignments are very vague and poorly applied, and the standard of teaching has been exceptionally poor at times.

My employer is hugely supportive of my apprenticeship and ensures I get 1 day a week to further my learning. I also get many opportunities (and infact encouraged) to share my learning every month in our practice calls and look to transfer my learning for the benefit of my peers.

It varies from module to module. Some lecturers are very supportive and will be very responsive. For the most part however, there is little to no engagement and you are left to second guess what they are looking to see in the assignments. I don't enjoy the MMU experience.

It has so many transferable and practical applications. From learning about Herzberg and Maslow, to developing Lean Six Sigma understanding and applications. The element that has helped me most in my every day job has got to be the final dissertation. It has helped connect the dots when it comes to developing interventions to tackle real business issues, and the academic theories go a long way to underpin and explain why certain things are happening.

Not so much. I work mainly on client sites, and so I tend to inherit their company events and activities more than my hosts. I have a base location but I'm rarely there, I've visited maybe 3-4 times in total. There is opportunity to visit our London base however.

Yes

It's values and principles are inherited from our parent in Japan and it's very family and society orientated. It's a supportive employer that is very flexible when it comes to a work life balance. It regularly goes through transformations and tries to keep competitive in a difficult industry.

I often hear (even on my course, from guest speakers) that you should read the news every day to be successful. I tend to disagree on this point. Reading newspapers has never made anyone successful. Be aware of industry news and trends. Look into big ticket items such as blockchain, RPA, cloud, business change or any of the latest technologies. ServiceNow, Salesforce, these aren't going anywhere fast and developing a solid understanding will put you above your peers very quickly. Fujitsu value candidates to carefully consider questions and think before answering. Try not to rehearse your answers too much. Be genuine and believe in yourself. As the old mantra goes, you can teach skills but you can't teach attitude.