Stephen Carter BA (Hons)

What is the one piece of career advice you wish someone gave you when you were younger?

Without ambition one starts nothing. Without work one finishes nothing. The prize will not be sent to you. You have to win it

How did you pick your career? Did you know all along?

I actually wanted to be a Physical Education Teacher but snapped my knee while doing the teaching degree, took a year out and then did a business degree....started at Barclays in 2001 as a few months stop Gap and have been here for over 15 years now doing a variety of roles from project Management to Major Incident Management to programming. I fell here quite by chance and defiately not a pre-defined or pre-selected career path. My stregths pushed me into certain roles.

What is the biggest challenge you had to overcome to get to where you are now professionally? How did you overcome it?

After 10 years at the company I was under threat of redundancy and had to re-apply for new roles; it was very stressful as i had young children and a new home. I had to re-focus and change my stance and skills from technical to predominatly business based but landed a challenging new role and used it as a positive career change and have never looked back.

What is it like when your job gets tough?

I work in an extremely pressurised reactive role dealing with massive potntial impacts to the customers and/or organisation so i have to remain calm, analytical and assess the sitauation quickly while keeping my head. It can really sap the energy out of you after a shift but during it al it is an adrenaline rush and time flies. The rewards in terms of job satisfaction outweigh the stresses.....just.....

How did you start building your network?

My networking was limited for a number of years as I was slightly reserved and shy in the workplace and became silo'ed within a big organisation. Things only really started to happen for me once i pushed myself out there both within and outside of the organisation. I would admit it toojk me the best part of 10 years to fully apprecaite the value of networking

In layperson terms, what do you actually do at work?

I basically react to major issues within the organisation with a business lens on protecting and remediating any customer impact. The impact has to be significant and the fix often results in large numbers of teams and individuals working together at pace

When did you get your first Big Break? How did you get it? How did it go?

I like to think i really drove my first big break myself. I was a help desk analyst but really pushed to take IT aptitude tests to become a technical apprentice my persistance paid off, my marks were way above average and ultimately i waqs given a very different role with a much improved renumeration package. I t was one i thrived in and have never looked back since

What is the most useful piece of career advice you got as a student, and who gave it to you?

I really dont recall any advice i was given as a student; probably my Father always said you have to work hard for anything ( nothing is for free ) so I have always had that ethic and it has stood me in good stead.

When you were a student, did you do anything outside of school to build skills or get knowledge that has helped your career?

Career advice was limited at school and i blame both my school/college and myself for that; I had little clue what I wanted to do and little interaction with officers, options etc. I, of course, regret that now; work is such a huge part of your life for many years so I wish i had spent more time considering my skills and my options

Did anyone ever oppose your career plans when you were young or push you in a direction you did not want to go?

Not really; the only resistence i have seen is when i have wanted to progress/ move roles from line managers who wanted me to stay :-)