In Your Shoes - Wayne Paul

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Wayne Paul is the Industrial Liaison Officer and Public Engagement Lead for the University of Dundee’s Graduate Apprenticeship Programme.

Wayne’s role involves helping businesses to develop current or new members of their workforce (of all ages) to honours degree level, at no additional cost to the business, through the Graduate Apprenticeship Programme.

Covering everything from working with businesses to establish their employee development needs, to developing multi-platform marketing campaigns, Wayne’s role is not only exciting and varied but also fits in with his mantra of connecting people with products or services that make their lives easier.

Website: www.dundee.ac.uk/graduate-apprenticeships

Twitter: @GA_Dundee

LinkedIn: Wayne Paul

Email: w.paul@dundee.ac.uk

On the campaign trail

Last week saw our IT Graduate Apprenticeship Event Campaign come to a close, with a hugely successful event being attended by a large number of local employers. I therefore started this week by following up with a number of these employers to discuss their employee development needs and how our Graduate Apprenticeship Programme can help them to meet these.

I also tackled several post-campaign admin tasks that needed to be completed (such as sending receipts and invoices over to finance, analysing data, resolving issues with video links etc.)

But as one campaign comes to a close, another one begins! This time with the launch of our Engineering Graduate Apprenticeship Event Campaign.

I always love the first couple of days of a new campaign, where you see all your hard work come to life, especially through the Dundee & Angus Chamber of Commerce Takeover Package (cheap plug!).

Getting down to it

Do you ever put off a task that needs done but it always falls down the priority list?

I have been so busy over the last few weeks creating content for our campaigns, that I have been neglecting some of the admin that I need to complete, especially around the people I have been speaking with about joining our programme.

Today I decided to finally tackle this by updating my records, so I have a clear picture of the customer journey each contact I am speaking with is on.

It may not sound like the sexiest of jobs (It’s not), but undertaking these tasks does highlight the impact you are having on the people you are dealing with and you leave at the end of the day feeling good about the role you play.

Plus, I finally managed to tick it off my to-do list!

Meeting at 6:30am, why not!

One of the highlights of my job is being able to meet and speak with people from all walks of life, and today brought me an opportunity to do just that.

I was invited by one of our employers to attend The Fair City (Perth) BNI Group as his guest, in order to share with their members how our Graduate Apprenticeship Programme can help them develop themselves, their workforce and their business.

I was of course delighted to attend, until he told me that the meeting started at 6.30am!

Luckily, this meeting was on zoom, unlike the last BNI event I attended in Perth pre-COVID, where I had to leave the house at 4am! Commitment or craziness, you decide!

Overall though, it was a great experience, and it’s always a joy to see what can be achieved when people come together to make great things happen.

Digital Dundee

The aim of my role is to increase the brand awareness of our Graduate Apprenticeship Programme, and I am very fortunate to have such a kind network who help me to promote our programme and events.

Some of these connections I have known for years, others for months, but we all share a common goal of wanting to help people. This makes working together a real pleasure, as we are all striving towards the same goal of helping each other to succeed.

I spent a lot of my day speaking with these connections about our upcoming Engineering Graduate Apprenticeship Event, but I ended the day meeting with a group of people from all over the local area, who are coming together to create an event aimed at showcasing all things digital in Dundee and beyond, and how this will shape the workplace in years to come.

Ending the week on a high

Now that our Engineering Graduate Apprenticeship Event Campaign is in full swing, my attention now turns to our next event. I therefore spent some time today planning the campaign and creating some early branding ideas.

I then had the pleasure of meeting with one of our employers, to discuss the module structure of our IT Management for Business course to see if we can sync up their placement structure with our modules.

As part of my Public Engagement Lead role, I am also a member of the University’s Public Engagement Network. Meeting with colleagues from across the University to hear about all the fantastic work that is taking place is always a highlight of my month.

My last call for the week was to share some fantastic news with two of our applicants, being that we were able to offer them both second year places on our Business Management Course, and they both said yes!