Laura Dennis

"The personality types match me very well. I love using logic to solve problems and to do that I have to be able to collect data and use my comprehension skills to make sense of it so Investigator makes a lot of sense. My whole job revolves around understanding my company and the market and using that knowledge to improve my services and capabilities for the people that use them. To do that, I need to understand their needs and be creative so it's a good job that I am a Developer. I am a confident, open minded person and I regularly have to communicate complex information in simple ways so I have to make sure that I communicate in the right way dependent on the audience."

"I design services that provide our customers with IT support in the right location for their required languages and time zones. I leverage technologies to enable our IT Service Desks to operate efficiently and effectively and maintain the customer's productivity. I provide consultancy to customers regarding what products and services we can provide to meet their needs and oversee projects to make sure that the integrity of my service is maintained. If a product is not delivering the expected benefit, I work with other teams to find out why and improve the tool or process. I get a sense of satisfaction from finding innovative solutions to complex problems and from seeing my designs come to life. The staring salary for a Senior Service Specialist is £50,000 pa."

"I left school when I was 16 and started working as an office junior. I did multiple temporary jobs in insurance and banking including Data Entry, Claims, and Customer Service. An agency made a mistake and sent me to a job as business 2 business support for a broadband supplier. I was told that they would keep me to answer the phone for 2 weeks as they were desperate. It didn't take me long to realise that the technical teams were following an unwritten script until they got to the point where they fixed the issue. I started to listen and write it out into a process and I was able to do what they were doing. I became the highest call taker with the best first time fix rate and 2 years later I was made redundant due to an office move. I took a role as a First Line Analyst in a bigger call centre close by called Computacenter. They were using the same ticket logging system so I was put straight onto a desk rather than going through weeks of training and I was very quickly picking up extra activities including being an on call Major Incident Manager outside of my working hours. I took any development opportunities that were offered and because the subject matter expert on lots of different systems. They created a team for me and a colleague so that we could be involved in any new technology releases. I was promoted to a Business Analyst and was chosen to work on the biggest innovation program that our company had ever had. From there, I was promoted to Senior Business Analyst where I gained experience of people management. I was then head hunted internally to work as a Consultant on the next massive program of work. The Program Manager asked me to go and work for him as a Change Lead and then when he was head hunted for a different department, he took me with him as a Technical Architect. The same department needed a Product Owner for the Service Desk and because of my experience and background, they gave me the job. I have since taken a role which determines how to use the products that I owned in my previous job to enable our Service Desks and customers.It's now 14 years after I started at Computacenter and 15 years after the Agency accidentally sent me to the wrong job. I made the most of the situation and every opportunity that came from it to make a career for myself that I never planned. "

"In my spare time, I am a dancer. I dance Lindy Hop, Jive, Salsa, Bachata, Merengue, and Kizomba. It's great for learning how to lead and to follow as well as how to work in a partnership with different people and communicate without verbal ques. It's also great for keeping fit and meeting new people from all over the world.I have always wanted to travel the world and see as many new things as possible. My jobs have allowed me to visit many countries and work with people from different cultures as well as giving me the financial freedom to be able to explore new places. "

"I spend most of my day in meetings (on Microsoft Teams at the moment) with bid teams, suppliers, developers, project teams, and customers. I get lots of emails that I need to read and respond to. I often have to read long complex documents and research new products or capabilities. I have to have a good cultural, political, and geographical understanding as I work with people from all over the world. I need to influence and persuade people that my ideas will be worth the effort to implement and then I need to help to sell it to our customers. If they are successful, not only will they be able to save money for us and our customers, they can help us to get more customers to grow the business and create more jobs."

"I left school with my GCSEs and started work at 16. When I was 21, I went to college in the evenings after work and took an access course where I got A levels in Biology, Psychology, Sociology, and Information Technology. I did it to get into university to study medicine but ended up going into IT.I have a service desk specific qualification called ITIL Foundation Management V3 and I have attended lots of courses around Agile Project Management and people management for my job but they do not come with qualifications. "