Hello and welcome to part one of my three-part blog series where I interview different members of the EY Foundation team about their career journeys, sharing their best advice and key learnings from job searching.

I am Suhaib Habibullah, a law student at the University of Manchester, currently interning at the EY Foundation as a Programme Delivery Coordinator. The first person I interviewed was Lauren Holmes.

Hello Lauren, why don’t you tell us a bit about your role at EY Foundation?

I am the Digital, Database and Analytics Lead of EY Foundation, having started this role in March 2022. My job entails managing the CRM (which is Customer Relationships Management) and making sure that the EY Foundation Team knows how to use it. I mainly pull data from various sources (such as surveys etc) and make the data accessible through dashboards that I continuously make.

What were your previous roles and how did you get into this role?

I started off as a secondary school teacher, which was very tough, and the work life balance was not great at all. I decided to sidestep out of teaching and worked in an employability charity in East London. My manager was Rob Pope, who is the UK Programmes Operations Manager at EYF (and is also very important person in this blog).

After completing 18 months at Business School in Barcelona, I got in contact with Rob who let me know that there was a temporary Programme Delivery Coordinator role available at EYF. I initially applied on a short-term contract, which was extended a few times.

Although I was lacking the confidence in myself and my skills, I applied for the data role. This role was an opportunity that came my way. It wasn’t something I thought I’d apply for once I left university, but I worked hard at the EY Foundation before getting this role and I had built relationships with the team. 

A very interesting trajectory. A lot of our young people are currently job searching and it can be a very difficult process. What would you say you learnt most from searching for jobs?

A key takeaway from the job searching process was that every job has a different process and times have changed quite a lot since I began looking for jobs in 2017. Social media and technology have changed the traditional process of job searching, so networking and building relationships is very important.

The job searching process takes up a lot of time and energy, but you must be resilient and persevere through the challenge. What I’ve learnt is that it is possible to adjust the direction of your career path if you take new opportunities, even if they feel uncomfortable at first!

Let’s end this interview with some words of wisdom! If you had any advice to young people applying for jobs, what would it be?

Firstly, make a spreadsheet of where you have applied to. Having an application tracker will keep you organised and ensure that you will not miss any deadlines. Secondly, make a note of all the skills you have on a document and make sure you can pull examples from your experience.

Finally, and most importantly, be ready for rejection and do not take it personally.  To help cope with rejection, ensure that you have a good support network and always make sure that you express your emotions.

Thanks for that advice, Lauren! Keep an eye out for upcoming interviews with more career advice from the EYF team.