Escient

My mentorship pairing has been the best takeaway I have from Escient. With the launch of our progression framework, they are requiring us to do heaps of mandatory training, which does not sit well with some people. Additionally, we get a set budget of Professional development each year to attend conferences, training etc.

I've had to go out of my way to seek for opportunities to develop. I've been on the same engagement since I started so I've had to make it my own to be out of that classification and try to learn different skillsets. There is a mentorship program though, and that has probably been the best initiative that I've been involved in. Being paired with my mentor, and with my people leader, I have been set up for success. Not only for technical capability (project management or change management) but also in terms of soft skills.

The graduate program consisted of 1.5 hour sessions every Friday where all graduates would join a group call with the graduate coordinators. During these sessions there were discussions of soft skills and we did more case studies like in the interview process. I don't feel that these sessions added value to my training aside from the social aspect, as we were not provided with the appropriate training/knowledge to complete the case studies (which also had unrealistic expectations in terms of deadlines when we were also working full-time on clients) and the concepts discussed were often too high-level to provide any practical skills. Skills I developed throughout the year were a result of my mentorship and experiences on client work rather than the graduate program training sessions.