How long have you worked in Careers at York and what did you do before you worked here?  
I’ve worked in Careers for nearly 13 years. Before working at the University I worked at the Yorkshire  and Humberside Tourist Board, handling complaints in the accommodation department. Prior to that I worked at the Prudential and the TSB.

What do you do in a typical day in your job?
My days are varied as 60% of my working week is spent covering the Information Desk where I can be dealing with all sorts of enquiries from students, graduates, employers, other members of staff, parents, etc. We handle all the emails into the main Careers account and answer all the telephone calls to the main Careers number.  When I’m not covering the Information Desk, I am responsible for inputting the Careers Advice appointments on the web ready for each term, compiling the monthly statistics for the web, updating the Voluntary sector Facebook sector page and checking/updating content on our website.

I’m also on the rota for putting items on our news page and other social media. During the Summer term and the beginning of Autumn term a lot of time away from the Information Desk is taken up with updating/checking/formatting and uploading the revised information sheets onto the website, ready for the start of the new academic year.

What do you enjoy most about your job?
I really like the variety of my job and the people I work with are lovely, which can make a big difference. I know it sounds obvious, but it gives you a real ‘feel good factor’ to be able to help students and see how grateful they are when you’ve helped them.

If you could do any job in the world what would it be?
I always wanted to be a window dresser when I was a child and I still like colour co-ordinating things, though I do have OCD tendencies as my colleagues will testify to!

What are you: 

• Watching? Criminal Minds – I love a good ‘who dunnit’ and one of my favourite programmes as a child was Scooby Doo because I was always trying to work out who the culprit was!
• Reading? 12 Years a Slave by Soloman Northup – I found the film really interesting and I like the writing style of the period the book is written in.
• Listening to? The soundtrack to Frozen – You can really sing your heart out in the car to some of the songs and you can have the instrumental ones on as background music if you have passengers in the car!

Find out more about other members of the Careers team in previous ‘Meet the Team’ blogs:

• Louisa Dobson – Operations Team
• Mhairi Oliver – Graduate Intern
• Kelly McDonald – Careers Adviser
• Sally Greenwood – Volunteering Project Officer
• Irena Zientek – Information Resources Manager