Careers advice for ambitious undergraduates – step out of your comfort zone and give it your all

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Terry Carroll did his BSc Business Studies at Bradford School of Management between 1967 and 1970. He went on to have an eclectic career including becoming Treasurer of the Halifax and CEO of National & Provincial. He has stayed in the region for 25 years, chairing a major regeneration initiative in Bradford and standing as an Independent in Council elections. Last week, he gave a guest lecture on the credit crisis at the School. Here, he offers his advice to today’s ambitious undergraduates.

1. Have a clear career plan

I always need to have a plan and at 16 I wanted to know what I was going to do with my career. I saw a careers officer who suggested accountancy – my mother was an accountant and I had done a bit of work experience so it made sense. I did some research and found that 55% of chartered accountants ended up as MDs – I was going to be one of them!

I looked at what qualifications and skills I needed to be a chief exec. I searched for business degrees that gave me a part qualification in accountancy and the opportunity to get experience in

• strategic planning
• marketing
• finance
• IT
• HR

I hear a lot of young people nowadays saying: “I don’t want an ordinary job, I want to do what I enjoy.” My first love is football and I now do sports journalism, which is fantastic. However, the A Levels, degree and career you choose should be about probability management – what is going to give you the least probability of failing. You can use your passions and interests to make yourself a more interesting person in any field of work.

2. Step out of your comfort zone

I came to Bradford from the South in the late 1960s and had no idea what to expect. All I knew was that it was a smoggy industrial Northern town. I had grown up in a small village and in those days as a teenager you were part of a family unit – you didn’t really have your own identity. I was also painfully shy. I knew that to get the most out of university I had to force myself to step out of my comfort zone so that I could grow as a person – both personally and professionally. I looked at universities in big cities that did the course I wanted to do – and chose the one that had the most professional football clubs within a 25 mile radius. Bradford came out on top!

Bradford was so vibrant and cosmopolitan, which was incredibly exciting. But it was also on the cusp of the Yorkshire Dales and the School of Management campus was like a leafy Oxford college. I felt like I’d arrived in heaven. By getting involved in the students’ union and playing hard as well as working hard, I went from being an introvert to an extrovert. It was a life changing experience.

3. Take an enterprising approach to everything you do

The best piece of advice I can give to any ambitious undergraduate is that you get out what you put in to university, your job, your career and your life. You will not be given anything on a plate – you have to be enterprising and make your own opportunities.

Theo Paphitis said that he had never been as excited about being in business as he was at the height of the recession. There are limitless opportunities to set up your own business or do something innovative.

4. Until you are established in a career be as flexible and adaptable as possible

Being enterprising is about thinking outside the box. Even if your end goal is to be an accountant or a chief exec, you may have to work in a café or a shop for a while. By showing initiative and putting your all into everything you do, you will be surprised what opportunities and experience you will gain that is relevant to what you want to do.

5. Fill the gaps in your CV and never stop learning

During my career, I have appointed almost 2000 people and have seen 10s of 1000s of CVs. If there is an unexplained gap, I will dismiss a candidate immediately. Employers want to see that you have done everything you can to get ahead and keep learning and developing, especially in such a tough jobs market. Gap years used to be highly regarded because they suggested that you were adventurous and fearless. They are now too often an excuse for an extended holiday. If you do go travelling or take a career break, do something worthwhile with it that shows you have made a difference and learnt something new.

I am now retired but still push myself to constantly learn new things. Throughout my career I trained as an accountant, a stockbroker and a banker and also developed hobbies including golf, horse racing and football journalism.

Going to Bradford University School of Management was the cleverest thing I ever did. I didn’t get the best grades (largely down to my active social life!) but my degree taught me to think, act and behave in a completely different way that has helped me throughout my career. I now want to give something back to my former business school. Ask me your career questions and I will do my best to help – but I can’t promise the answer will be easy!

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2. Bradford “Management Thinking” Digest – the latest on business strategy, leadership, finance, innovation and sustainability
3. Part-time Executive MBA – keeping it in the family
4. Choosing an MBA programme that doesn’t interfere with short term career progression
5. Choosing an MBA that helps you make a difference