How my travels have prepared me for applying to Centrica
Throughout the application process for any graduate scheme the most common two words I heard were ‘transferrable skills’. Although I understood the concept, I don’t think it really clicked how valuable these were until I started the graduate scheme.
After travelling for over a year, I thought I would draw a line under my travels as a fun experience from my twenties, but from my first day in the world of Centrica, I began to realise that they may have been onto something with these transferrable skills. For example, I would never have imagined that using a water bottle and some chewing gum to fix a generator fuel pump in the Philippines would help me when working in a contact centre. However, when a customer called with a broken Hive system, it is the same problem solving skills and creativity that helped me to come up with a practical solution that would get the customer back up and running.
Again, working hard to ensure a disabled child could also enjoy a dance class may not seem relevant. But it is the same approach of putting others firstthat meant a customer, who was considering cancelling her service, left the call not only happy with the product but also with the service she had received.
So don’t think that if your experience isn’t directly related to the energy sector, or the role you’re applying for, that it isn’t important. Everything you do will teach you something and will help you tackle the wide variety of challenges you will face on the Centrica graduate scheme, so be sure to sell this in your application and at assessment centre. It is the softer skills and experiences that can give you that competitive edge when applying for Centrica; so my best advice is to make the most of what makes you unique.