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Olivia's Story: From Ballerina to Successful Manager

WHAT WAS YOUR JOURNEY?

After my dreams of becoming a professional ballerina were quashed by eight years at The Royal Ballet School, I did a brief stint in the fashion world and realised that glamour only pays the bills for those at the top. It was time to invest in a career that would be both enjoyable and well paid. After meeting the team at Scope AT through a referral, I joined and embarked on a career I had never imagined. That was five years ago.

I’ll be honest the first month was tough, I had to adjust to long hours and more rejection than I’d ever experienced. But the support I received from the team and managers soon got me up and running, and when I achieved several placements with a client I had persevered with, the joy (and the commission!) made all the hard work worthwhile.

DID YOU HAVE TO FIT INTO A STRICT PROCESS?

The wonderful thing about Scope AT is the diversity of the people and the freedom we’re given to succeed in our own way. Personally, I’m not very ‘salesy’, I like to build relationships and help my clients and candidates with advice and opportunities.

As a young girl, I was even nervous about calling Domino’s Pizza! I now call Directors and Managing Directors of major Banks every day.

My approach certainly worked, and I was given just the right amount of advice and pressure to push myself. I have built up a handful of major accounts with global financial companies where I consider my clients (senior execs) my friends.

I am now a Senior Billing Manager and enjoy mentoring new joiners; I’ve seen two of my mentees (a person being mentored, I had to look it up!) develop and are now making deals.

IT’S NOT ALL WORK?

The size of our team and the culture we have is great; I never dread coming to work – something I hear my friends, in dull corporations, say often.

The team is there for you with advice all the time; they want you to succeed. And when you face rejection they are on hand.

But what they are best at is celebrating. We have team nights at the beautiful pubs and bars in Richmond each Friday, and trips including top sporting events at Twickenham and Wembley, and I’ve also enjoyed incentive trips to around the world. Paris was brilliant!

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