Series 1

The Careers team’s journeys and what the Careers Service can do for you

Iain supports students and graduates from across the University with their career development. Iain has a BA in Applied Social Sciences and a postgraduate qualification in Career Development. Although qualified and experienced in career development, his 'career' journey to date has seen him work in various roles - Postman, Recruitment, Funeral Directing, Megabus Driver, Jobcentre Adviser and now Career Manager with the university. Iain feels his career journey is far from unique and typical now of the nature of career journeys and the role that chance/happenstance can play across our lives.

Helen supports students and graduates with their career development and learning. She also compiles the monthly student newsletter and manages the Career Centre social media feeds. Helen recently completed a PG Cert in Digital Marketing and is currently half-way through a PGDip in Career Information Advice and Guidance through the University of Warwick. She has had a multitude of jobs from picture framer to photography tutor, is an advocate of careers being a journey not a destination and believes keeping an open and inquisitive mind is crucial in career development.

Career stories and importance of growing your network

Hannah Lloyd is an Associate Director and the Marketing Manager of GLM, a firm located in Edinburgh and Inverness.  GLM is a full-service company of architects and building surveyors. Hannah leads the Inverness office and overseas GLM’s marketing activity across Scotland focusing on building relationships. Hannah is also a Director of Highland Business Women.

Karen Simpson is a primary teacher and business owner of My Primary Tutor, a private tuition business based in Inverness. The award winning My Primary Tutor team offer private tuition in literacy and numeracy to pupils working at primary level across Scotland. Karen is a member of Highland Business Women.

Dynam design team share their experience and top tips

From a young age, Kirsty has always been creative. Combining her love of art and business, she made the decision to study Business Management and Marketing at university. She joined Dynam in 2016 fresh from completing her studies, and has since moved through the ranks to become one of Dynam’s Senior Account Managers.

Louise has turned her love of drawing and painting as a kid into a career! After graduating from art college, Louise moved back to the Highlands, where she grew her skills in web design and development, branding, design and marketing before joining Dynam in 2011.

Gordon has always had a strong interest in developing his creative side, honing the discipline of technical drawing on animated TV productions in Glasgow. Now Dynam’s resident animator, Gordon possesses a strong suite of skills in 2D and 3D animations as well as motion graphics.

Find out about the opportunities within Scotland’s gaming industry from one of the writers of the original Grand Theft Auto

Brian is a 20 year veteran of the global interactive media and video games industries, who has worked with some of the world's leading digital technology companies - and run several of his own. He's an executive, leader, creator, designer, ambassador, advocate, speaker, supporter, lecturer, writer, communicator and expert on the rapidly evolving interactive, digital and creative industries. In 2006, Brian created the Scottish Games Network, the only inclusive community and focal point for the rapidly evolving interactive sector in Scotland.

A focus on support for mental health at the university

Allie is the Mental Health and Counselling Manager for the University of the Highlands and Islands, based at Perth College UHI.  She is a highly qualified mental health and education specialist who has worked in informal and formal education settings for the past 20 years.  She is a British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP) accredited Counsellor and accredited as a trainer for both COSCA and Scottish Mental Health First Aid.

Supporting women for a career in STEM

Bryony is an online student studying MSc Sustainable Rural Development. Previously she studied BSc Geography at Inverness College UHl, where she learnt a lot about sustainability, which became her favourite part of Geography. She also realised that she wanted to pursue a career in relation to sustainable rural development. After graduating she would like to either work as a community or development officer or go into local planning.

Kirstie is the third year of the BSc Computing degree and her favourite aspects of the course are databases and programming. She is one of very few women on her course and would like to be involved in encouraging more women to pursue careers in STEM. Kirstie chose computing as a career because she loves solving problems and constantly learning new things.

Ramona is a 2^nd year undergraduate student of Marine Science. With a background in psychology, studying at the Scottish Association for Marine Science now enables her to pursue her passion for the ocean.  As a former snowboard athlete, Ramona has always circulated in a male-dominated environment. It is very important to her to overcome bias and encourage women (and men) to chase their dreams.

Stuart leads on Equality and Diversity at the university. He deals with meeting government and funder’s equality requirements by supporting the partnership to foster an inclusive environment.  Through his role as the university Equality and Diversity Advisor, Stuart helps to address under-representation of minority groups, and to overcome particular challenges that we face as a result of who we are.

John Murray explores the growth and development of the food and drink sectors across the Highlands and Islands

John is an entrepreneur with over 30 years' experience in the food and drink industry, with wholesale and retail experience. Running a Wholesale Fruit & Veg business, buying from the fruit market and direct from farms - reselling to hotels, restaurants, chip shops, retail outlets. As part of that company he had a distribution operation running a fleet of HGV vehicles moving bulk fish and potatoes to markets from the farms and boats.

Owning and managing stores across the Highland and Moray regions - from start-up single store with 3-part time staff to 15 stores employing over 140 in only 10 years!

The Scottish Institute of Enterprise (SIE) talks future thinking in all subject areas and sectors

Ann is responsible for SIE’s training activities and delivering a coordinated programme of activities to support students interested in entrepreneurship. Before joining SIE in 2011, Ann successfully developed training initiatives with the Institute of Chartered Accountants in Scotland and the WS Society, where she was Course Director for 3 years. One of Ann’s main interests at SIE is looking at drivers of future change across different industry sectors and society as a whole, and how these present opportunities for innovation in the present. Another of Ann’s great passions is Yoga, where she qualified as a teacher in 2015.

Alumnus Andy Macleod explores a life changing accident, overcoming challenges, and his journey toward the Beijing Winter Olympics

Andy Macleod is from the Isle of Lewis but grew up in Stirling before attending Adventure Tourism Management at UHI in Fort William. A keen mountain biker and outdoor sport enthusiast growing up, he was involved in a road accident in his first year of University in 2011. He lost his right leg below the knee and received a brain injury leaving him with attention, concentration, and memory issues.

Since then he has resumed all his outdoor sports, completed his degree and is competing internationally on the British Para-Snowboard Team training for the Beijing 2022 Paralympics. He uses what he has been through and achieved to do speeches to schools, youth groups and charities (as well as the university) covering road safety, resilience, mental and physical health all with a basis of the benefits that the outdoors can bring no matter your ability level.

Daryl MacFarlan, UHI alumnus, talks all things adventure; exploring the value of work placement in building valuable skills and allowing him to work in countries all over the world.

Daryl attended West Highland College to study the Certificate in Outdoor Leadership course. Originally from Ayr in the south west of Scotland, he revelled in the beauty of Fort William and the surrounding environment – the perfect area to grow a love for the plethora of outdoor activities on offer on the doorstep. He has since used the skills learned to travel and work in the industry around the world. He is currently working for Malik Adventures, a Sea Kayak touring company based on the Dalmatia coastline of Croatia, and will go on to work with Asia Pacific Adventure, an outdoor educating company based in Hong Kong over the winter months.

Justin talks about progression and getting to where he is now – Business Advisory Assistant and trainee Chartered Accountant at Johnston Carmichael

Justin Baker started studying at Perth college UHI in 2015 and enrolled on an NC business course and progressed all the way through to graduate with an honour’s degree in accounting and finance.

He is now a business advisory assistant for Johnston Carmichael. He has been with the firm for just over a year now and is about to sit his first of four professional exams. It is his aim to become a fully chartered accountant by 2022.

The range of roles and work experience opportunities

Dougie Brown is an artist manager, festival producer and promoter. Dougie is the event producer for Scotland's largest family friendly music & arts festival. He started working at Belladrum Tartan Heart Festival in 2005 and carried out various roles including, PR, Marketing & Sponsorship Manager, Production Manager, and Programmer.

Lesley is the Director and event Manager at Lesley Strang Event Production. Lesley works the ‘event circuit’ covering all sectors of the industry from large scale live music festivals and gigs to corporate events and weddings. She is the event manager for Belladrum Tartan Heart Festival.

Taking advantage of the opportunities available as a student

Audrey works within the Science, Technology and the Environment subject network at the university, supporting higher education staff across the partnership. Audrey's background is in Geology, having worked for 6 years at CASP, in Cambridge, as a field geologist and as Project leader of the East Greenland Project. During that time Audrey has worked with numerous universities and a range of stakeholders from the oil & gas industry. She has a BSc (Hons) in Earth Sciences from the Université Blaise Pascal, Clermont Ferrand (France) and a PhD in Geosciences from the Georg-August Universität, Göttingen (Germany).

AVIVA – A perspective on mentoring

John leads a team of Business Intelligence consultants where they use analytics tools and techniques to understand property claims. They look at all metrics from customer to financial in order to know how they are performing against plan, identifying trends and anomalies. When John left school he went to college and studied his HND in Accounts while working in supermarkets, when he left college his first full time position was a Delicatessen manager for Somerfield (now the CO-OP) before he went on to join the Prison Service; he joined Aviva in 2001 as a stop gap as he didn’t know what he wanted to do and he is still here 20 years later. Aviva has given him the opportunity to try many different things over the years and he has had a number of different jobs such as Claims Handler, Complaints Manager, Credit Control Manager and his current role. John is also a certified Strengths Coach through CAPP and lead the external mentoring programmes that Aviva Perth support.

Progression and extra-curricular activities/work which help to develop skills and build a strong portfolio of experience

Lewis is a Perth College UHI alumnus, currently living in Perth. He studied for five years, progressing from entry level through to completion of a BSc Sport and BScH Sport and Fitness degree.

He was voted Undergraduate Student of the Year and after his studies, worked as the Campus Cycling Officer. He is now headed to Stirling University to undertake a MSc Sports Management qualification.

Our team share their key learnings about podcasting

Find out more about our Curriculum Development and Employer Engagement team.

Neil worked in forestry as a self-employed contractor and in management for Tilhill and the Forestry Commission for over 10 years before becoming a lecturer at Cantraybridge Rural Skills College and the Scottish School of Forestry, part of Inverness College UHI.

Having also been a student at the Scottish School of Forestry, he has worked at the school for the past 30 years, starting off as a bank lecturer and technician before moving to a full-time lecturing position and is now the Head of School.  Neil is also a qualified British Sign Language interpreter.

In this episode, marking International Mountain Day 2020, the discussion looks at the future of mountain regions with a focus on the Highlands.

Leonie joined the Centre for Mountain Studies in October 2017 as a PhD student investigating future changes in visitor patterns in the western and southern parts of Cairngorms National Park resulting from the A9 dualling.

Mike has worked as a mountain guide since 1994, starting his own business, Abacus Mountain Guides in 2000.  He is a qualified climbing instructor and mountain bike leader and is an instructor at the School of Adventure Studies at West Highland College UHI.