Hello. This is where I take account of all the things I've done that in a 'just graduated' sort of way will somehow loosely imply that I'm a genius leader, friendly competent co-worker used to aggressive challenges and wildly creative.. in a seriously work-focussed and disciplined way.

Generic CV here link

They say that one should have a skills-based CV wherever possible....

So...  Here is a list of often-requested skills and examples where I have demonstrated these skills.  As you will pick up I have thrown myself into lots of activities in different situations to make sure I deal with my weaknesses and challenge myself to do things that I am not familiar with to see how I react.  If stress and danger show the true test of character, why do so many people bumble along in safety never knowing what they are really like?!

Challenging situations I have been in:

  1. Sailing the Atlantic 
  2. Training as a Territorial Army Officer (ALL of it was challenging - it never lets up!)
  3. Being poor (you think that doing a stressful job in the city is difficult?  Try doing similar when you can't afford to eat out when you are tired, and have to resent big chunks of your holiday because you know its going to take two years to pay back!)
  4. Working in high pressure sales
  5. Trying to double the advertising sales earnings of a company whose advertising sales income was dropping year on year, and just when the advertising market was going through a low patch ( I succeeded!)
  6. Doing, and being successful in a job that requires the antithesis of what I am 'naturally' good at
  7. Getting fitter than most of an army squadron in 6 months (oh god, they'll argue with that.. but I could run up and down hills the marine recruit was stumbling down on hands and knees!

Teamwork Situations

Ok all jobs require some teamwork - at least in the sense that you have to deal with others - even if you are a starving genius working on a book, you have to deal with the publisher guy.. who is part of a bigger team.. who is part of a publishing network etc

  1. The Army - everything is teamwork, relying on others and communication - if you've never watched an infantry platoon take a position then I'd recommend it - constant (and I do mean constant) shouting over the fire and battle is the order of the day - where we are what we are doing how much ammo is left .. if only people in offices were more like this!
  2. Education - I managed the admin of 100 or so Postgraduate Students during their progress through their degree - every day was spent on liaison - liaison with central administration, with students, with academics, with outside agencies (advertising agencies, printers, marketing agencies, lighting designers, other department admin, IT, Library services, Conference Services, Catering.. etc etc) and with internal teams (undergraduate, different committees, technicians)
  3. Small Shops, Sales Teams, Admin Centres etc - All these have been part of my early and 'whilst studying' career.  (though do we ever stop learning?) All required a ball being passed around and never dropped - and all involved keeping the customer happy whilst all hands helped each other out.   I love helping other people achieve things

Team Leadership

Most of my team leadership has been more Project Leadership where I'm seeking to guide and direct a team of people without a hierarchical or other formal authority over them - I merely have authority in the project's importance (which obviously is also influenced by how persuasive I am!).  My direct team management experience has two good examples:

  1. Assistant team leader Royal Bank of Scotland: Working as part of a processing team changing paper records to electronic records for all the city branches of the Royal Bank of Scotland, I was asked to help run the Glasgow Section.  I learnt something about management communication there and then - the manager of that section wasn't told my role until after I started - and then only in surprise by me - he had been left out of the loop on the overall plan - astonishingly! However after that little glitch was ironed out, we took on two distinct roles - I was in charge of making all the relationships work and the motivation high, and he was responsible for record-keeping, reporting and keeping our various projects on track.  This was a great arrangement for me - I like motivating people- especially when its for a purpose.
  2. Venue Manager - Guardian Internationsl Television Festival - I was responsible for managing a team of stewards to make sure that the venue ran smoothly throughout a major high-profile conference.  I worked with some really high quality sound and lighting teams who I had to liaise with, along with visitors, panel guests session producers, and the conference teams.  I loved this job - very physically and emotionally demanding due to the long hours mostly but also due to the profile of the event.

 Project Successes.

  1.  40 Years of Light This project was a site-wide series of projections and light shows to celebrate the history of the University of Warwick.  It involved three or more subprojects including sourcing of historical images of the university from archives, newspaper stocks, sourcing and obtaining equipment, gaining permissions, raising funding and then project implementation.  It also involved liaison with press and photographers, as well as with Alumni teams.  I also had to organise work and temporary constructions at several sites on campus with Live - the company we used to supply the equipment.
  2. Induction, Annual Symposia.  When I was employed in my current role, there was no properly co-ordinated induction programme - only a few disjointed talks.  I adopted a project management approach to the week ensuring that there was coherency in communications, an overall timetable of events and a series of monitoring activites to gauge project success.  This was followed up with a coherent evaluation and project reflection that feeds directly back into the process for the following year.  This has allowed us to add central speakers, to improve the welcome for Postgraduates and to offset the traditional divide between newcomers and returning Warwick students that used to exist in the first few weeks.
  3. Sales Doubling, Revenue Increase, Better information recording
    I worked for an educational publisher that had some weaknesses in its Sales operation.  I was given responsibility for three titles and I set myself the challenge of doubling sales revenues within three months, using a cycling strategy of information gathering, concentrated activity, and information recording improvement.  Adopting this strategy allowed me to hit the 'doubling' goal in the first month, and I then adjusted the goal to be 'over 50% sales pre-paid' (i.e before ad appearance.  I achieved this by adopting a strategy of group negotiation and targeting larger and corporate linked buyers to bring in long-lead time sales whilst maintaining activity with smaller customers.  This was highly successful - I had over £30,000 worth of pre-sales in the next two months (bearing in mind the overall takings for my role previously had been £34,000 you can see how valuable this was!).

Skills and Things I have picked up on the way:

  1. Motorcycle Riding - Can ride a scooter well and will soon (2008) train for full motorcycle licence
  2. Horse Riding - can ride a horse up to canter fairly comfortably with small jumps occasionally!
  5. Teaching and Tutoring - three years as a Skills Trainer, University of Warwick
  6.