Career Stories | Meet Graduate Alumni, Tyler

I joined Vodafone in 2018, when the Customer Services & Operations (CS&O) Graduate programme was running. When I was looking at graduate programmes, it was really difficult to decide which ones to apply to because on the face of it, a lot of the different companies offerings seem similar in what they provide. However, when I attended the assessment centre for Vodafone, I was sold immediately and knew I wanted to join. The beautiful Newbury campus was incredible, but the entire day was run really well and was a fantastic experience. It was clear what the entire day would entail and there were also people already on the graduate programme from the previous years intake who came to speak to us, sharing their story, answering questions and also offering their insight. Overall it was a great experience.

During the Graduate Programme

On the graduate programme, I was able to work in a variety of placements and develop a broad understanding of different business areas as well as broaden my network. I worked in a range of placements from Customer Care Operational Readiness, to Enterprise Billing to Enterprise Credit & Collections. From day 1 I was given real responsibility, I was always encouraged to think outside of the box, given freedom to experiment with ideas and  bring my own perspective to tasks. Moving on from the graduate programme, the development and progression opportunities have been fantastic.

Post-Graduate Programme, Current Role

As my graduate programme was coming to an end, I was looking at opportunities to offboard into a permanent role. As the graduate programme was really well structured, I was able to network with different senior leaders who had permanent roles available. I first moved into a split role between People Management & Large Scale Project Delivery, both of which I was really interested in. Moving on from that, I was given the opportunity to progress up to management level by one of my old managers from the graduate programme, working on relationship management with suppliers and project demand. The graduate programme helped me build those relationships, which set me up for success when offboarding.

Looking at the future, there are all kinds of opportunities available to me for development and progression. It is really cool to see other graduates on my intake moving into senior positions too, in a range of other business areas.

Top Tip

It is not an exaggeration to say that the opportunity to join the Vodafone graduate programme was life changing for me and I am glad I made the decision to do so. My advice to anyone thinking about joining is that you should absolutely go for it.