I joined Almond Careers on the Project Manager Training. I made this decision after a long period contemplating to move career due to family life and the demands of the job I had.
Some of the things I liked in Almond Careers is the class room training apart from the online e-work experience. The class room training offered the face to face opportunity which was important especially for those who did not have a prior good knowledge of IT. It offered collaboration with other candidates and teachers. It also offered opportunity to learn about other areas of the wider team, for this I choose additional interest in Business Analysis as I had a flare for it. From this point I considered myself a hybrid.
After completing the class room sessions around the start of February to begin the e-work experience, I started applying for jobs. By the middle of February I got my very first interview, two interviews from different companies. Although I did not get the jobs (rightly so, looking back now), it offered me a first hand knowledge of the real world and what areas of experience were most required of me to get a job. Moving on in the following months, I made job applications of around 400, secured around 7 face to face interviews and several telephone interviews.
I got my job offer in May after a stiff interviewing process which lasted 2 months with several candidates in tow and constituted a role play as part of the interviewing process for a Senior Project Manager-BA, and have since been working.
Apart from my determination and hard work and God giving me favour and grace to carry on, a few other external human factors made it conducive for me to have succeeded. My product owner within Almond Careers was exceptional. With her work ethic and unbiased approach to things, from the moment I met her, I knew I would do well under her.
Oke was the developer who offered ongoing weekly online training for software collaborative tools such as Azure, Trello and Jira. He was particularly helpful to me in this aspect. As I came to understand and appreciate after I got my job and started working that “it did not matter how much of excellently I knew how to do the job, if I did not know to use the software collaborative tools as excellently it was a no brainier and no employer would hire me and neither would I last on the job. It would be likened to knowing how to write a letter very well without knowing how to write the letter on a paper.
The software collaborative tool turned out to be my main workstation everyday after I secure my job.
All I do daily including all written project documentation, project monitoring and controlling, managing tasks of resources, road mapping are carried out and stored on the software tool. It is also used for liaising with clients and stakeholders. So this is particularly important.
It has been a rewarding experience for me having passed through Almond Careers and I wish I made the bold move to change careers early on. All I learnt were industry standard.
On my part a lot of patience and determination was required as it was easy to loose hope with nearly 400 job applications and 7 face to face interviews only. But in reality it only took 3 months from first job application to get the job.
It could only be God! I prayed like the world was coming to an end! but I worked hard also.
