In this episode, Megan Taylor shares how she went from studying psychology and working in healthcare to securing a place on the TransPennine Express graduate scheme, beating 1,500 applicants.
Participants
- Emily Slade - podcast producer and host, Prospects
- Megan Taylor - major projects and customer experience graduate, Transpennine Express
Transcript
Megan Taylor: In the railway as well, there's a lot of kind of early career professionals, young rail professionals. We've got like group chats within TPE. And then we've also been to conferences for early career professionals.
So my name is Megan Taylor and I'm the major projects and customer experience graduate at TransPennine Express.
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Megan Taylor: So I think my grad scheme is meant to be in a couple of areas, but at the moment I'm in the major projects customer team. Without going into too much detail, it basically means when there's engineering works on the railway that we make sure that customers get from A to B. So we make a customer handling plan, whether that involves kind of rail replacement buses or diversions on the railway. But then we also feed into quite a lot of projects to do with wayfinding or ticket offices just to have the customer point of view.
Emily Slade: Yeah, nice. So did you always envision working on the railway?
Megan Taylor: Not at all, really. I did Psychology at uni and even before uni, I worked in a hospital as a clinical manager for nine months. I kind of always had in my head that I would do healthcare. I when I was at school, I thought I might do medicine and then wasn't completely sure on it. And obviously the commitment you have to put into that, I was like, potentially not. So I actually changed my mind completely last minute, went to uni and did business, which just wasn't for me. It wasn't similar to any of the A-levels I'd done and kind of, it was just a different way of learning. And I quickly decided that it wasn't for me. So I dropped out, but not quickly enough because I wasn't able to switch course that year. So I had to go away and work for the nine months and then go back. But yeah, my parents always say, I'm so indecisive about like everything. But for this one decision, I was like, this is not for me. I need to leave. So it worked out great because it was actually COVID time. So I worked for nine months in the hospital. then went back and did psychology, which I just enjoyed so much. There obviously are areas of the subject that weren't my favourite, but you get to kind of, after the first year, you get to choose your area that you prefer. So yeah, then did, worked in the GP surgery for a year, just over a year. And then I worked on a stroke ward as a rehab assistant for a year and loved all of that. But then I think next steps, I was kind of like, what do I do next? Like, what is the plan? And I didn't really know. And I thought, I think I had a degree. So I was like, I want to be doing a job that I can use my degree. And it's kind of at that level. So I started looking at grad schemes. And just the TransPennine Express one, just it sounded like it ticked loads of boxes, especially because I wasn't completely sure what I wanted to do. The major project side of it and customer experience aligned with lots of what I'd previously done. So then I was able to go into that. And I think the whole point of the grad scheme is to get that experience and learn the whole time, but also be doing a job. So it's not like a step back. It's still like you're progressing in your career, but you're the whole point is to learn.
Emily Slade: Yeah, definitely. What was the application process like?
Megan Taylor: So we kind of, it was two stages. So we did a online application and then that fed through straight away to like a psychometric testing, maths questions, all of that. And that was in February last year. And then we went to an assessment centre in April, which we were asked to prepare a presentation, a 5 minute presentation, and they gave us the title of what it was on. And obviously my area was specific to the a grad scheme I applied for, but then there were three other grad schemes, so that was like that. But we arrived there and we did a group activity, which was kind of like, people are stuck in a cave and work together to work out how to escape this cave. And then we had the interview, which was where you did your presentation, just yourself to the two interviewers. And then the actual interview, which lasted, I think, 30, 40 minutes. And then after that, found out a week later.
Emily Slade: Wow, that sounds quite quick.
Megan Taylor: Yeah, but then obviously that, so that was in April and then we weren't starting until September. So you had a while to kind of have a bit of a break and while I was still working, but then I've had a break before starting again.
Emily Slade: How competitive to your understanding was the application process and what do you think made you stand out?
Megan Taylor: Yeah, so I think from what people have said, it was about 1,500 applicants for four grad schemes. So very competitive and it was the first time they'd done it, so they had no idea what the numbers would be. And I think, yeah, you never know what they're going to want, but I think that some of my experience having worked before my degree and after my degree probably helped to an extent. That's probably not what graduates want to hear, that they're going to have to do some more work. But I think that did help. But other than that, I know that members of my team mentioned that on my application, I talk a lot about netball. And I was part of the committee at university. So I did, I was a social secretary, I was a development secretary, which meant I coached lots of the other teams. And then in my final year, I was captain as well. So I think kind of the teamwork aspect of that I was able to talk about a lot. And then leadership parts of that probably helped kind of, I was able to then be like, so obviously I've got these experiences from my work and professional experiences, but then also from university, I was part of this committee, I did lots of organisational stuff, I did lots of teamwork, I did lots of leadership. I think that was something that I was able to talk about quite a bit.
Emily Slade: Yeah, absolutely. And then what was it? like beginning that, do you get thrown in the defend?
Megan Taylor: Not at all really. They were really, obviously Transparent Express have never done a grad scheme before, but they were really, really good at kind of easing you into it. So we had the first week or two was all like induction and you were with the three of the graduates and then with the early careers manager. And they just, we had talks from every different like department, well not every department, but the so many different departments on the railway because none of us had a particular passion for the railway or trains. So to kind of learn all of that was really good. We obviously had the training, the mandatory training they had to do as well. And then you got a bit of time to kind of get to know your team, see what they do. And then we did some frontline work. So we did a two week placement working at Manchester Airport, which is a TPE station, and then at Manchester Piccadilly, which was so good to, we said, we've given feedback afterwards and said that everyone that goes into the railway should have that experience because the railway, the focus is on customers, isn't it? It's getting customers from A to B. So then to understand what the frontline staff actually do, was so profitable, it was amazing.
Emily Slade: Yeah. So you weren't the only one on this grand scheme, there were others.
Megan Taylor: Yeah, so there's three others. So like I said, I'm major projects in customer experience. There's an engineering graduate and he's kind of on the reg scheme as well, which means he gets a qualification that's, he's four years rather than two years. Then there's a data and insights graduate and there's a finance audit and risk graduate.
Emily Slade: Nice. And did you, specifically applied for your grad?
Megan Taylor: Yes. Yeah, I applied for my grad scheme specifically. And I think the others did as well, kind of related to their degrees that they did. I guess the like data and engineering and finance are kind of, you'd expect them to have those degrees. Mine was a bit more like I came from psychology and I've got kind of the skills for a job, but not necessarily major projects specifically.
Emily Slade: Yeah, completely. That's always good in a way, I think.
Megan Taylor: Yeah, I think that's kind of what I wanted because I did my degree and I really enjoyed it, but then I was like, what next? Yeah. And I think it was like to have the different areas and just see how a company works was what I wanted really.
Emily Slade: Yeah, absolutely. So can we talk about salary?
Megan Taylor: Yeah. What does that look like? So our salary is. 32,980. So don't know why, just off 33,000. Yeah, so I think I've spoken to the early careers manager and they said that they worked with prospects to do like a benchmarking on working out what the best salary would be for the grad scheme. I think it obviously is a factor that you consider when you're applying for a job. And I was, because I've done two years after uni working, I was kind of like, I'm at the stage where I want to learn and I want to progress, but I also want to make sure that I've got a salary to live. And obviously, like it's a really good, it's a really good salary for the learning that we're doing and everything. But it was, it is a factor that everyone considers.
Emily Slade: Yeah, completely. So what does the day-to-day of the grad scheme involve?
Megan Taylor
So I'm, yeah, I'm currently in the major projects customer team. which means I'm working with that. But we have constant check-ins with our early careers manager. I meet up with the graduates quite frequently. And I think we, so I'm currently in this team and I will be for a while, but there is the opportunity to do different placements, which will be so beneficial. And my mentor is the regional head of customer experience in the Northeast. And she's kind of, I've spoken to her recently and she's going to come up with a plan for me to experience that side of the business, which I'm really looking forward to because I'm really enjoying the team that I'm in, but you don't know what's out there. And I think especially during these two years, just to get as much exposure to all of the different areas will be exactly what I need to then after that decide what area I like.
Emily Slade: Definitely. And does that mean that once you come to the end of your grad scheme, you are, the intention is for you to stay?
Megan Taylor
Yeah, so I mean, it's kind of, again, it's the question everyone's thinking, like during the interview, I asked that question because you want to know that there's some sort of guarantee, but obviously they said there isn't a guarantee, but they don't invest all of this money into you and just time to build up all of your skills and then just be like, okay, off you go. Yeah. So, I think the idea is that you, there hopefully is some form of job at the end of it, whether that's in a different area, you just have to kind of see what opportunities there are. But because we have such good support systems, I think after a year or just over a year, we'll probably check in with the early careers manager, speak to our own managers, speak to our mentors and be like, we do want a job. Yeah. What, how can we kind of progress towards that? Obviously, yeah, like the main purpose of the grad scheme is to develop your skills overall and it's definitely going to do that. But you want to develop those skills for the purpose of having a job at the end.
Emily Slade: Yeah, of course. And ideally a job within. for this company. And would you, obviously it seems like it's going to depend on internal vacancies or anything like that, but as you say, you can start working towards the job. You have an idea of the kind of job you want. Yeah, you can start working early to get towards that. And on the flip side of that, if you are doing the grad scheme and you're finding that it's not everything you thought it was going to be and you want to move away from this area, I assume that's.
Megan Taylor: Definitely. I mean, I know, obviously it's slightly different, but some of the apprenticeships that, like some of the apprentices that I've kind of met on within TPE, they've been in certain areas of the company and then they've finished their placement in that area and gone on to do jobs elsewhere. I think it's a very, like, we're a big company, but we're actually in the world of trains and railway, we're quite small. So you get to know so many different teams and so many different people. And they're very happy to have internal candidates to different areas of the company. And also, we're going to become Great British Rail at some time, don't know when, no one knows when. But that's kind of in the works. So everyone will be coming together. And we've kind of, everyone's questioning, like, are there going to be the same jobs? There should be. There's potentially going to be even more jobs in the railway. But we'll then all come together and it'll be a new view of everything.
Emily Slade: Yeah. So you mentioned apprentices there alongside grad scheme people as well. So it sounds like there's quite a lot of, not necessarily young, but like that sort of new to the workplace.
Megan Taylor: Yeah. So I mean, in the railway as well, there's a lot of kind of early career professionals, young rail professionals. We've got like group chats within TPE. And then we've also been to conferences for early career professionals, just to get to know like the Network Rail graduates, Northern graduates. We've done collaborations with Northern as well. So it's been really good to kind of network in a way. And with TRU, they've got this new change challenge, they've called it, which is for early career professionals to come together and basically decide their own project. And then we're given a budget that we then have to come up with a project, present it to a panel, and then they would get some feedback and then we work through the project so actually have an output at the end of it, which I think is due August time. So that's something I'm working on at the moment with, there's different graduates, there's apprentices, but there's also just, like you said, young real like professionals that also do that. So that'll be really good. But we've also kind of, because there's so many apprentices in TPE and there's only a few graduates, we've kind of taken it upon the group of us to make sure that we go out and do social events together. So we've been in have pizza together, we go for a drink together. We've got like a group chat, everyone checks in with each other. So it's really nice.
Emily Slade: Yeah, that's brilliant. What has the biggest challenge on the scheme been so far?
Megan Taylor: I would say the biggest challenge has been, so within my team, one of the project managers has recently left the company. He's just gone to a different railway company. He's no nothing, no reason other than that. But because of that, there's obviously a vacancy within the team and the replacement isn't going to start until March time, I think. So I was working quite closely with him before he left with lots of his projects and everything. And because he's left, he's kind of passed on this knowledge to me and I've kind of had to take a bit of a lead on some of these projects, obviously working closely with my team in every way. But yeah, I've had to work quite a lot on that. One of the big major ones has been the Manchester Piccadilly partial closure with platforms 1 to 12 closing. But I've had to work closely with so many different like train operating companies, Network Rail, been out and about making sure that everything's working with that. So that's been challenging. But like I said before, I've spoken to my team, I have weekly check-ins with my manager and he's so experienced, he's able to like help me with everything like that. But then also so many of the different companies, people doing similar roles to me have given me so much support that it's been absolutely fine. And people are always checking in going, you're doing amazing, but are you okay? Like, do you know what you're doing? Are you okay? So it has been a challenge, but I think working through it with everyone has been fine.
Emily Slade: Yeah, brilliant. And you've been working on much wider projects as well.
Megan Taylor: Yeah, so for the TRU, which is the Trans-Pennine Route Upgrade, I've had the opportunity to kind of experience some of that. So when I had the two weeks at the start with my team. I did some with the TPE specific team, but then I also worked with TRU. And I've done quite a bit of going out on the network and seeing how the customer delivery managers and lots of different parts of the TRU team work. And it's such an interesting project because it is kind of what the railway is going to become. It's A collaborative approach. It brings together TPE and Northern and Network Rail. So it's been really interesting to see. And I kind of got the opportunity as well to help with the recruitment process of that. So I helped with some of the interviews and from the assessment centres, which was so good to see the other side of it. I think to be involved with that anyway was such a great opportunity, but then also to take away what my view was on the other side to then progress like for when I do interviews in the future was really good.
Emily Slade: Yeah. You mentioned how much support you get there. Are there like formal channels of that? Do you get support within networking? Do you get any further qualifications? Do you get any... what sort of support is there throughout your grad scheme?
Megan Taylor: Yes, so when we were at the assessment centre and then we did kind of a meeting everyone before we started the job, that was talked about quite a lot and it's something that lots of previous, so that other graduates have obviously not within TPE but for the first group company have had the opportunity to do qualifications and they advertise that strongly within TPE. They say if there's a qualification that you think will benefit you and your career and the company overall, then they're perfectly happy to hear your request for that, request isn't the word. And so one of the, obviously, like I said, the engineering graduate is doing his regs qualification and then the finance graduate is looking to potentially do some finance qualifications. I, at the moment, I'm not too sure what I want to do, but I think speaking to other people within the major projects team, there are definitely different project management qualifications that they've done and they would recommend me doing. I think once I've had a bit more experience to see the different areas of the railway in my first year or so, I'll probably try and go towards doing some of these qualifications, definitely. But yeah, you get so much support with everything like manager-wise, mentor-wise, early career managers. from other people that have been graduates in the railway in the past. We have kind of a group chat for that and they're always like giving suggestions of what we should do, sending different like conferences and events that they think would be good for us to attend. So there's so much support.
Emily Slade: What sort of skills and qualities do this industry look out for?
Megan Taylor: So I think overall that's probably It's a bit of a hard question to give a straight answer for, but the graduates within TPA all have different strengths and qualities for different areas because there's so many different areas to the company. There's so many different qualities that will be useful in different areas, like I said. But I think to be hardworking overall, the want to learn is the biggest thing because that's what you're there for. You're there to give a novel opinion. And I think to be adaptable is probably one of the main qualities because we're looking to GBR and it's going to be all new. To have your new approach and to be kind of naive in situations is probably a great trait to have, but to be able to kind of adapt to the massive changes that are going to come in the next few years would be definitely a big one.
Emily Slade: Yeah, definitely. Do you know the logistics of like when when applications open.
Megan Taylor: So I think, so like I said, last year we had to apply by, I think it was mid-Feb. I know that they've not advertised it now, so I know we're at that stage now and people will be panicking. I think some of the apprentices were quite a bit later. If there's a cohort for this year, I would imagine it would be advertised on the TPE Careers website within the next few months. If not, it's some any time between February, not sure how late, but if you just, if you just keep checking the website, I'm sure there would be it advertised strongly and LinkedIn and everything that's always advertised.
Emily Slade: Yeah, brilliant. And do you know if there's going to be 3? grad schemes again going forward.
Megan Taylor: I'm not too sure. I think it basically the way it worked for ours was that different areas of the company were given the opportunity to kind of ask for a graduate. Like they wanted, they expressed interest in wanting a graduate. So it just depends which areas of the business want to ask for a graduate again, whether they have the support within the team to be able to help you learn and develop. I don't think there's a specific number, it may be two, it may be three, four, 5, but I would imagine it would be more than one just to make sure that there's a bit of a group of people to apply together.
Emily Slade: Yeah, and you're glad that you applied?
Megan Taylor: Yes, definitely, Yeah, I think I didn't know where I was going to go. I was down the psychology route, stuck in that healthcare kind of, this is where I'm going and I had to completely, when I was like, I've got a new job. To all my friends, they were like, what are you doing? And I'll tell them. And they're like, what? I thought you were in healthcare. I thought you were doing psychology. And I'm like, yeah, complete switch up. But it's been definitely for the best.
Emily Slade: Yeah. And really highlights transferable skills.
Megan Taylor: Yeah.
Emily Slade: And like practically like exactly what that means. Just how transferable those skills?
Megan Taylor: Exactly. Like when I went into the interview, that's just. what I tried to make a lot of my points towards saying, I know that I don't have this knowledge in this area, but I have knowledge in this area, which is transferable. So then the customer experience in a hospital, it's the patient on the railway, it's the passenger. Like it was, you were able to kind of transfer, like you said, the skills and knowledge to have that approach. And at the end of the day, the railway is customer focused. Healthcare is patient focused. So it's the same kind of goal at the end of it.
Emily Slade: Yeah, definitely. I suppose because it's TransPennine Express, because we're in the north, this is a northern opportunity.
Megan Taylor: Yeah, I think our office is obviously literally around the corner in Manchester, but there are lots of offices within, there's ones in York, there's ones in Leeds, Liverpool, lots of different offices. So it's all in the north. I think there's the opportunity for hybrid working as well. So we are allowed to work from home a few days, a couple of days a week. So I think one of the graduates commutes quite a long way. Others have moved to Manchester for the job. But as long as you can get to Manchester however many days a week, then yeah, it's a northern opportunity.
Emily Slade: Yeah. But Manchester's lovely.
Megan Taylor: It is. It's a great place to be, isn't it?
Emily Slade: Brilliant. Well, thank you. Thank you so much for your time today.
Megan Taylor: Thank you very much.
Notes on transcript
This transcript was produced using a combination of automated software and human transcribers and may contain errors. The audio version is definitive and should be checked before quoting.
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