Callum Hudson

Country of origin: United Kingdom

Placement: KPMG

I made the decision to take a placement year to gain experience in the professional work environment. I focused on applying for large organisations with strong global reputations, to see whether that was the right culture for me and to give me direction following graduation. Another driving factor behind my decision, was that I wanted to enhance my capabilities to give me a competitive edge moving forward.

My role as a placement student varied day to day, however I was treated just the same as a first year graduate. My work at KPMG was predominantly client based, but business development activities were of great importance. The Cyber Security team offers a number of services to clients, meaning that one week you could be advising a large company in the banking sector on Access Management, then the following week reviewing information security processes and procedures at a well-known retail organisation. Due to the nature of the work being client based, there are a number of internal programmes and initiatives, dedicated to tracking and monitoring our client relationships, as well as the opportunities that we are bidding for or are currently working on. In my role, I organised fortnightly sessions for the leadership to review these relationships and opportunities, who then determine actions moving forward. My placement experience has been extremely eye opening. You may think you’re a confident and competent individual, you may think you’re good at managing pressure, but there is a difference between the university work environment and the professional work environment. As you grow and prove yourself, you gain greater responsibilities. The work you do is real and of great importance...You work hard, but you are valued and rewarded for your efforts.

Working for an organisation like KPMG demands you to step up and learn quickly. The year as a whole has been insightful and exciting. I have travelled all over the country, staying in luxury hotels with all expenses paid for. I enjoyed experiencing what life could be like for me after graduation. I liked the exposure I got to clients and I loved working for such well known and established names that you see every day on billboards, TV advertisements and even walking down the high street. I am currently expecting to be invited back onto the graduate programme at KPMG. This opportunity has been discussed a number of times and I made sure throughout my year, that I matched what first year graduates were doing, in order to build a strong case. My work ethic has improved drastically and through developing skills such as time management, I believe I will perform significantly better in my final year.

The LUMS careers team played a crucial role to my success in gaining my place at KPMG. The regular promotions of placement opportunities is what made me aware of the Technology Risk Consulting programme. The team were there to answer any questions I had and talk through any concerns I was having, I could see that they genuinely wanted to help.