What's your job about?
Nous Group is a management consulting organisation that provides pragmatic and solution-oriented advice/consulting to enhance performance, address limiting factors and assist in company growth. I am one of many consultants involved in actively assisting through both understanding and undertaking goals.
A typical day for me involves checking out my schedule for any meetings before planning what tasks I must do for the day as well as for the week. Usually, it’s quite uncommon to have an exact understanding as to what your week, or sometimes even your day can look like. Meetings with clients can spontaneously pop up, or sudden changes in deliverables need to be accounted for in a short period of time. But by planning my time early in the week, and leaving room for adjustment, I can handle spontaneity.
Tasks can range from preparing presentations promoting an idea for the client to writing up end-of-project summary reports for what has been discovered and what the next steps should be. I’ve worked on preparing presentations to update the client, the design of workshops to discuss client opinions on organisational performance and researching what a specific organisation comparatively do to other similar ones. Usually, as a consultant, as compared to the project manager, there is more grunt work so multi-tasking is definitely a thing. Your job is to assist in producing client-ready deliverables, with the hope of eventually being capable to produce them yourself, which will be reviewed by the team but need to reflect the client and Nous Group’s values.
What's your background?
I grew up in 3 different countries, Australia included, and Melbourne is the first city I have lived in for more than 5 years. Elementary schooling was in the calm laid-back atmosphere of New Zealand, before turning to the exotic and sometimes chaotic environment of middle school and high school in the UAE. I finished my last 3 years of high school in the northern suburbs of Melbourne, graduating in 2017 to join RMIT University for an Honours degree in Mechanical Engineering.
With my parents living back in the UAE, my holidays consisted of travelling back home, so getting a steady job early on was not a priority. I worked as a high school tutor for primary and VCE students before adding stock-taking to my expertise. After graduating from RMIT in 2021, I joined an engineering firm to design and produce solutions to address minimising reliance on fossil fuels through microturbines. At a smaller firm, I assisted in enhancing their consulting frame, working with research and development industries, before realising my admiration for consulting work. After working there for 4 months, I read about Nous in the news, attributing to our person-oriented and human approach to undertaking work. If I was going to do any work, especially consulting, I wanted to have a positive and direct impact on people, so Nous seemed like the natural choice. I applied for a graduate consulting role, not expecting to be reached out to with my limited work experience but was working there after a brief application period.
Could someone with a different background do your job?
Yes. The lucky thing about working at Nous is that literally most careers can find work. The characteristic that is sought out is less defined by your career but rather by you as a person: being curious, driven, and willing to learn and adapt, are some of the qualities that facilitate you joining us in expanding our positive influence.
What's the coolest thing about your job?
The breadth of experience I can have within a very short amount of time is the best. In the past 6 months, I have worked on 7 projects, each with a different goal and field of expertise. Additionally, working directly with clients through meetings or workshops is what I most enjoy. At times it feels like you’re going in circles and not achieving anything. But when a client provides feedback like “showed personal care for what our motivations and goals were” and “work quality and outcomes were impressive”, it really instils purpose.
What are the limitations of your job?
Sometimes the spontaneity of consulting can be overbearing, not knowing if something might suddenly be a necessity. This causes issues with your workflow and timeline of producing work and can be especially annoying when you have something due.
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