What is your typical work day like?

Hi Jack,

I work in accounting and every workday is different, which is nice! Some days are easy, others are more stressful, but I do leave each day feeling fulfilled. A lot of the tasks that I do are related to auditing. I use my client's financials and perform tests in order to ensure that the financial information they are disclosing is complete and accurate. Certain tasks take only a few minutes while others can take weeks to complete. The work environment is nice because you are always working in a team of people in order to get the job done on time. If you have any questions, please feel free to reach out.

Hi Jack,

Thanks for the question. So I work in assurance for PwC (assurance means auditing). My days look very different and are never the same.

Some days I am at a client for meetings and discussion. This will include sitting in a conference room with other people on my team. Depending on the client, the team can be very big or very small.

Other days I am working from the PwC office. The PwC office is great, we just opened a new office in Boston. See a link below:

https://www.bizjournals.com/boston/real_estate/2015/10/inside-pwcs-new-high-rise-office-in-the-seaport.html

When I am here I usually sit at a desk, which is not my personal desk but I "hotel" into the space. See below for information on Hoteling:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoteling

This is a common practice at larger companies.

Hi, it's a good question that will vary considering the type of jobs people do. "office" working or factory/retail/ local/regional/global...

My job is what is known as pre-sales / Sales Engineer / solutions architect. In general terms its means that I am a technical based person, who supported the sales and provisioning of IT solutions to businesses. I have developed over the years an ability to identify business pain points and can facilitate/ innovate solutions based upon available technologies. In my industry that is IT/Computer based solutions for business to manage and control employee and partner access to key information and services to go about providing their primary products and services. In summary, I need to be able to show, talk and demonstrate the "art of the possible" .

I find this job provides a variety of activities and challenges, from working with people and technologies, to being creative with solution ideas and proposals, yet it also has a structure to it driven by customer sales cycles, new technologies being developed, for example mobile and Cloud based services has changed to way IT services are delivered today. Understanding business processes and controls such as costs and balancing budgets... e.g. solutions delivered will need to be cost effective in what they provide.

How did I get into Pre-sales. I was a young scientist/engineer, looking for what to do as a job and where that could take me. I was working in power generation research and started my IT/computer career by creating computer networks to join the plant control systems to central site computers for accounting and planning. IT communications and networks proved to be very interesting to me so I dis more training and learning in theses area.

What a fun question. I have 2 versions of my workday depending on if I am working from home or traveling. Both typically start with coffee. At home I then deal with the emails that came in the night before (from California, the UK, or Australia) then I jump into a days worth a meetings. Some internal but most with customers working on ways to help them get more out of their investment in our companies solution. When traveling it again starts with coffee, then often an uber/lyft to the customers site and a half to full day of working with the customer the same that I do from home but just more of it. Then dinner and drinks at the airport until I fly home. Some days are just crazy packed with meetings and others are slow, just remember those slow ones when things are going crazy.

Fantastic question. I work 100% remote from home and I am a Partner Support Specialist (customer service). I get up at 545am, walk down the hallway to my office and I am at work! :) During the day I do a variety of things supporting our software company partners and products. I work with incentive programs that offer our partners payments to register, sell and market our products to other companies. I also manage a global remote team of 4 people in 3 countries, none of us have ever met...we only talk on the phone (if there is no language barrier), instant message and email. One of our team challenges besides the language barrier are the time zones...we are all in different time zones, one lady on our team works 800pm-300am US time so I try to be online at night to chat with her sometimes. It is also challenging managing global holidays, the US only gets a few holidays every year but other countries, in Asia for example, get dozens of holidays every year.

Hi Jack,

I work as a Workplace Manager for a tech company. As I am located in one of our smaller, regional offices my role is very diverse and my tasks range from manual tasks through to management responsibilities. This would be different in a larger office - where a Workplace Manager or Co-ordinator will have more specific roles such as Event Management, Facilities and Operations, Security, Food & Beverage Program, Real Estate, Project Manager or Travel.

So a typical day may include tasks and co-ordination of any one of the above areas, for example I may be decorating cupcakes with children at our Kids to Work Day , on-boarding New Hires, issuing security badges, running an Emergency evacuation drill or touring sites to review new office locations. It's an exciting job and my driving force is creating an exceptional workplace experience for our employees.

I have a background in Hospitality, Customer Experience, Marketing and Student Services. This role combines all of the hard and soft skills that I have developed in my previous roles. Interestingly, some roles that I had in the past that at the time I did not feel were contributing to my expected career path are now relevant.

So, it's important to remember when you are just starting out, that in your first few positions you may have to complete tasks that are not your primary area of interest or may seem boring and repetitive - but my advice is to persevere and commit to doing the best you can - hard work and dedication to a role will always be rewarded. You may also find that there are areas that you had never considered as interesting that you grow to enjoy and impact the direction of your career - be open minded and seek opportunities to grow your skills.

Hi Jack!

I'm work in learning and development at a tech company, meaning I design and facilitate trainings. My typical work day is either pretty chill, where I'm working on designing a new training, collaborating with my team, and analyzing organizational needs, or it can be much more stressful, when I'm facilitating a training or presenting findings to executive leadership. What's nice is that I usually know when I have a stressful day coming up, so I can prepare for it ahead of time.

I usually make a to-do list for my week and try to accomplish at least 3 big tasks from that list per day, as well as staying on top of emails and other admin-type work. However, if I'm working on a big new project, I might spend a whole day focusing only on that project, especially if it's something I'm working on with my whole team.

My workplace environment is pretty relaxed! Most people at my office wear jeans to work, we have a full stocked kitchen, and office happy hours. My company really likes to encourage employees to make connections across teams, through activities, volunteering, etc. I also really like that my company highly encourages sharing ideas and improving process across teams as well.